A Different Look at Men’s Violence: How to Slap Your Way to Slavery
The following article is written by Paul Elam of AVoiceforMen and is republished here with his permission. It offers an alternate perspective on “male violence,” and by alternate, I mean a more nuanced and complex understanding of male perpetrated domestic violence beyond, “Man = Abuser; Woman = Innocent Victim.” To see the original post and comments, please follow this link. - Dr T
In the MRM (Men’s Rights Movement), we talk a lot more about violent women than violent men. And that is a good thing since it needs to be talked about and we are the only ones willing to do it. But in our efforts to bring female violence out of the shadows and into the light of day, we have had a tendency to overlook something else that is pretty important. That would be a more thorough examination of men’s violence in the home, sans the feminist spin.
Before I proceed, first I must issue the obligatory disclaimer. See, disclaimers are necessary for MRA’s (men’s rights activists), especially when telling the truth about domestic violence. We should all keep one or two stashed away with the porn supply for handy use. So here’s my disclaimer for your viewing pleasure.
Disclaimer: This article deals with the truth. And feminists, you know what the truth is. On your websites and blogs, you issue a trigger warning before getting close to it. So, you have been warned. If the truth is a trigger for you, please do not read below this disclaimer. Thank you and vote libertarian.
Okay, I have to acknowledge up front that violence in the home by men happens for a lot of reasons. I can’t possibly deal with all of them here, so for the sake of brevity, I am just going to address two of them.
One, you have the guy who is just fucked up.
He comes home drunk and beats his wife because there was some dust on the venetian blinds in the second bedroom that she didn’t get to when she was cleaning. This character is your feminist stereotype; the “go to” guy for fundraising, passing laws and “educating” the public on the problem of domestic violence. He’s an artifact of evil patriarchy and the extension of socially constructed and oppressive male dominance in the home; the only source of violence in the home that feminists recognize.
And that is as far as I will go into the feminist theory of alleged patriarchal underpinnings in domestic violence. It only loosely applies to a statistically insignificant number of men. Oh, and also, it’s all bullshit (see the above disclaimer).
It is much better that I address the circumstances that lead to much of the male initiated violence against women that actually does happen in the home. To understand it, we are going to take a look at the progression of the interrelationship between a couple, I’ll call them Harry and Mary, who end up with one version of this experience. Oh, and if you want stats on this, feel free to pull them out of thin air. Contact your nearest feminist for assistance.
Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, Harry beating up on Mary, which all started in the typical way.
Harry and Mary meet, fall in love and come to live with each other. Both are on their best behavior; mutual respect and consideration abound. They spend their time in a personal little otherworld, getting to know each other, drinking, making love, watching classic movies and laughing at stuff that isn’t even funny, just because they like to laugh together. They don’t know that the real “getting to know each other” part hasn’t started yet, but it doesn’t matter. All is right in the world.
As time passes, Mary starts to notice stuff about Harry that she finds a little . . . annoying. Nothing too big, mind you, but annoying just the same. He has this weird habit of eating popcorn by tossing it in the air and catching it in his mouth. It was cute at first, but come on, sometimes he misses and the popcorn falls onto the sofa cushion. He puts a lot of butter on it, too. It’ll stain the sofa; not to mention the fact that it isn’t healthy.
He also likes to put gobs of sugar in his coffee. No one needs that much sugar. There is something wrong with that for sure. But that is about it. Other than those couple of relatively minor things, she is just mad about him. Well, there is that old Chicago Bears jersey he wears like every other day. It must be ten years old. She understands he’s a football fan, but come on, does he have to wear that thing everywhere?
Harry doesn’t notice any of this and just keeps on tossing popcorn up in the air and catching it in his mouth, trying not to get any on his jersey. He’s having the time of his life.
Finally one day, Mary decides it is time to help her man out. She goes out to the department store and comes back with a couple of new shirts. One of them is a nice cadmium green. It even has a little football embroidered above the shirt pocket. He will love it – and look so much better.
She gives him the shirt and he makes a great fuss over it and puts it on immediately, so lucky to have such a thoughtful girl. She hangs the other one in his closet and things are right with the world again. Well, there’s still the popcorn, but that will come with time.
They enjoy a fantastic evening together, nearly break the bed with their third round of lovemaking and fall off to a peaceful sleep in each other’s arms.
The next morning Mary comes out of the bedroom and Harry is there in the kitchen, loading sugar into his coffee mug like a steam shovel. But Mary doesn’t even notice it this time. He’s wearing the Bears jersey.
He’s. Wearing. That. Fucking. Jersey.
“Hey,” he says, “Good morning!”
She just stares at him with a trace of bewilderment on her face and says nothing.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Are you really going to wear that?”
And they are off and running to their first fight. It lasts for a few minutes before he caves and changes the shirt.
He doesn’t like it, but he loves Mary and fighting with her really sucks. What the hell, he thinks, other than that she is a really great girl and he knows relationships mean compromise. Done deal, the Bears will have to take a less active role in his wardrobe. He buries the fact that he has just been coerced into letting her dress him into his unconscious, and things seem to be back on track.
What he doesn’t know is that the Bears jersey is just the first thing on The List™.
After that, it was his coffee, and then popcorn and then a growing number of other things which he learns he must change in order for her to be happy. And when he resists, she seems to have a bottomless capacity for conflict at which she almost always prevails.
He does not want to lose her, and there is a part of him that is learning that the only way he is going to prevent that is by giving her what she wants.
It goes on like this for three years.
And during that time, almost everything of his former life goes the way of his favorite jersey. His friends drift off, or did he do the drifting? He doesn’t remember.
All he knows for sure is that his life has become an unending stream of demands; all of them accompanied by the unspoken message that his compliance is the only form of caring that she recognizes. And when he fails or refuses, she questions his love for her, and often his manhood.
Harry finds himself in one bastard of a catch-22. He loves Mary, even though it is starting to feel more like an anchor around his neck than love. He fantasizes about leaving her, but the reality of the idea seems unthinkable. He’s like a lot of men in that way, which may partly explain why men kill themselves at 10 times the rate of women during breakups and divorce.
Harry is a man in that emotional trap. He seems to know it and questions himself.
Why does he want to be with someone who so clearly views him like he is broken and needs to be fixed? He gets no answer, though; just the certainty that he wants to stay at almost any cost.
So he does, trying to figure out, like a junkie chasing the dragon, how to get back some of the old magic they shared before she became so petulant and demanding. He foolishly convinces himself on some level that if he can give her enough of what she wants that she will ease off and start enjoying him, loving him, like she used to.
The fights only worsen. He gets more rebellious. She gets more nagging and berating. Things escalate. It culminates one day into a loss of control.
At some point between Mary quietly and coldly telling Harry that he is a selfish little boy that never thinks about her wants and needs in life – and implying that she could do a lot better than him, and maybe she will – he hits her. He plants an open hand across her face.
Mary runs off to the bedroom and shuts herself in (after screeching the obligatory, “You bastard!”), and Harry finds himself standing alone, accompanied only by the stunning hush in the room. His shock at his actions gives way to a sense of remorse and shame that makes him reel.
He looks at his hand and then wipes a tear from his eye. He starts to go to the bedroom, but realizes there is nothing he can say. Harry takes a seat on the sofa and waits silently.
Hours later, Mary emerges from the bedroom, eyes red and puffy, and takes a seat on the sofa a good distance from him.
“So,” she asks, “Why didn’t you tell me you had an anger problem?”
Harry’s mouth tries to form something of an answer, but he ends up just looking like a fish out of water, pointlessly gasping for something liquid to pass through its gills.
They finally talk some, but it is a somber conversation. Resignation is lingering in the air.
Mary finally, if reluctantly, agrees to forgive him. He feels a rush of relief and, still consumed by self-loathing, swears he will never do such a thing again. He professes that he will change, become a new man.
But as it turns out, it is actually something else that changes, and changes drastically. Whatever vestige that once remained of his personal autonomy within the relationship is now obliterated.
Now there is no demand that Mary can place on him that he can argue with; no treatment from her to which he can object. In offending the deepest of his held values, to not strike the woman he loves, he has become a prisoner of his own shame; a criminal seeking rehabilitation; a debtor trying to make restitution on an impossible scale.
Mary is now large and in charge. And by golly, she knows it.
The Bears jersey has just lost an owner. Coffee? Two Splendas, please. No, make that one. Sure, butter substitute is fine on popcorn. Let me get an extra napkin so I don’t soil the sofa.
And so the cycle begins.
Harry will play step and fetch to his wounded mistress, and will continue to do so, with her reveling in it, till the pressure builds toward another explosion. Every once in a while he will hit her. Sometimes he will just let loose with his tongue. But the result will be the same every time.
He will get the catharsis he needs, at the cost of his shame. And she will get the control she so clearly expects and desires, at the cost of the occasional red mark or a bruise, and any connection she ever had to human decency.
The feminists were right about one thing. Violence in the home is frequently about power and control. Of course, it never took a rocket scientist to figure that one out (which is very good for feminists, indeed). But once you sidestep the dogma and delusion of squeezing everything in life through the simplistic filter of ideology, you find that things like power are not so easy to see, much less define in any credible way.
Clearly, both parties have committed wrongs in this story. And if we want to take the blue pill path and just measure who we imagine to be more wrong than the other, then there was never a need to address this to begin with. Case closed, man bad, nothing else to discuss; increase VAWA funding now. Harry will likely agree with you if we ever let him out of jail.
But if, perchance, you want run a little deeper, you can help yourself quite a bit by asking the right questions. Take a closer look at Mary and Harry and ask yourself one thing. Who has the power? If you think it is Harry, then you should have stopped reading at the disclaimer box.
by Paul Elam, Chief Knuckle Dragger and Publisher of AvoiceforMen.
Additional Comments by Dr Tara
I’ve worked with versions of Harry, although only a handful of the men I’ve worked with have actually hit or pushed their partners. However, many of the men I work with have been pushed to the brink and said cruel things, which has been leveraged and used against them. For the few who have hit or pushed their female partners, the slap or push was their much needed wake-up call.
These men aren’t batterers like the neanderthal Paul describes in his first example above. They’re men who have systematically been broken down into bits by their beloved partners until the only thing they have left is anger and shame and a sense of learned helplessness and powerlessness.
They know hitting their partner or being provoked into a verbal blow-up is wrong. Getting to that point is a game changer for many of them. They don’t want to be “that guy.” They are not “that guy.”
For the small percentage of men I’ve worked with who actually hit or pushed their partners, sinking to that point was like having an cold bucket of water thrown on them while in the midst of a trance. For another percentage of my cases, just the overwhelming urge to commit violence in response to their partners’ many abuses served as that blast of icy water.
Let me repeat, these are not violent men. They’re actually very gentle men who have been pushed to the edge of desperation by the very covert and overt, controlling, abusive and shaming behaviors that Paul describes above. Also, the majority of the men I work with have never, nor would they ever, hit a woman.
When a man reaches the point of hitting or the point of wanting to hit his partner, he basically has 2 choices:
- Go back into the trance and either end up in jail or pray for an early death.
- Wake the heck up and stay up.
If he chooses # 2, he then gets 3 more options:
- Exit the relationship, get some help and choose a partner who wants an equal and not a chihuahua/Ken doll she can dress up and boss around next time. (It may take some personal work to be able to sort the grain from the chaff).
- Stay in the relationship and stop being a doormat, which may very well cause his partner to exit the relationship.
- Acknowledge the reality of your partner and make your peace with being a doormat.
What Harry may not understand is that if Mary leaves him because he doesn’t want to be her obedient Ken doll, HE IS BETTER OFF WITHOUT HER. This kind of woman doesn’t want an equal partner and isn’t capable of equal partnership.
This goes for all the other Harry’s out there.
[*As an aside, if you're a woman reading this and you think that Mary's behavior is healthy relationship behavior, well, you're just wrong and I pity your partner.] – Dr T
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68 Responses to “A Different Look at Men’s Violence: How to Slap Your Way to Slavery”
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Lets expand this even further to talk about men’s violence. Most men are injured by other men (not women) and the reasons can be as simple as theft for survival or violence by proxy in defense of women’s virtue.
Men evolved a rigid heirarchy which is often mislabeled as patriarchy, but the real truth is that it is mostly men using violence to exert power and control over other men.
Hmmm…what type of occupation would an abusive bully choose to rise up on the heirarchy and exert power and control over other men? Don’t deny it, the statistics speak for themselves.
Thank you for honoring me by reposting this, Dr. Palmatier. And as always, thank you for the consistent, principled work you bring to the lives of abused men.
Thank you for giving me your permission to re-post it!
Long time lurker, here. First time commenter. For the record, I am a dude a year out of his crazy relationship and eagerly awaiting a divorce.
Of all the articles I’ve read recently on this site, this one most resonated with me. Which is a little surprising, because I never ever hit my wife. In my case, though, it went a bit like this:
A year into the marriage: My wife is no longer interested in sex. She blames various factors (hormones, her birth control pills, work stressors, etc.). I, being a sensitive, new-age guy, say, “that’s okay. I don’t want to pressure you! I will wait for you and we can have sex whenever you’re ready.”
Two years later, things get progressively weirder, and I am trying very, very hard to keep my head firmly buried in the sand. We are in the middle of moving into our new house. It is a very stressful time. Things are tense. Sex is virtually non-existent. She is starting to ratchet up the crazy.
She and I have a mutual female friend who has always been very nice, compassionate, and supportive. I fall for her, hard. In large part because she’s nice to me, but also she’s, you know, cute. I start fantasizing about all kinds of elaborate, bedshaking scenarioes.
I never acted on any of these feelings. I never this other woman about them. As much as I enjoyed thinking the thoughts I was thinking, after awhile they started to eat away at me. I began to feel terrible. So after some soulsearching I decided to confess to my wife, because it seemed like the, “right thing to do.”
And that’s where I pick up the script. She seemed fine with it, at first, even laughing it off. And then, a few days later, she unloaded on me with both barrels. In the face. Not only was I unfaithful and a pig, but I was weak, stupid, craven, hopeless and…deep breath…*not the man she married*.
Somehow, though, she found it in her heart to forgive me.
That was, I think, when I started to lose the last dregs of my autonomy. I had done something wrong and she still tolerated my existence despite that. It wasn’t the use of physical force, but it was still a watershed moment. Something that I had done that she could say, unequivocally, was bad and terrible.
To this day, I feel absolutely wretched about it. I can’t even believe I’m writing about it on a public forum for people to read, but there it is.
So, Paul, thanks. This piece really resonated for me.
It’s nice to know I’m not alone.
memnoc, you are not alone. i had a very very similar experience with my ex (now divorced, thank god!).
I was so frustrated with her snowballing crazy after our wedding (about 9 months in), that i started having DREAMS of a girl i used to have a crush on 10 years ago. (the one that got away…). she and i never dated, we had been friends, and she lived across the country and totally not a threat in the least. we were no longer even in contact.
in any case, these dreams were eating me up inside! i didn’t understand why they were back so strongly after all these years, esp after committing to what i thought would be a happy marriage. i felt real shame and decided, being the honest person i am, to tell my then wife about the dreams.
like you, she at first acted like she was supportive. said she felt closer to me by me sharing. and that maybe ‘i should fly to go see the girl’ to figure it out. i told her that was totally unnecessary, and totally not the point. my purpose of telling her was to have open/honest conversations and build intimacy with her. ha! that lasted less than 24 hours. then she just got distant and quiet for a week or two…..
—and then! within 2 weeks she had started having an affair with a mutual friend. this friend seemed completely not a threat, from my perspective, totally not remotely of a caliber i would ever find threatening, but i can see how my ex was put up on a ‘pedastal’ by this affair partner who she saw as ‘beneath’ her. in any case. because of my previous ‘dreams’, my ex felt totally entitled to have this affair, said i ‘pushed’ her to do it, and really just reeled the other person in with her sob-story about how i was obviously “in love w/ someone else”…poor her (victim!). She looked outside pretty much INSTANTLY for validation, and acted on it, having an ACTUAL affair, instead of talking to me AT ALL about what she was feeling.
in any case, once i stopped feeling like it was my fault, and started being angry, i got out quickly. She clearly had no remorse, wouldn’t stop, and even admitted she “had no empathy.” then i learned about BPD/NPD and had a few therapists tell me clearly my ex was one, based on her words and actions, and i needed to get out immediately. it was a nasty process, but now im no contact for over a year and a half and have never been happier.
looking back, i can totally see how messed up the whole relationship was, and how my ‘dreams’ were just trying to TELL ME SOMETHING, an internal warning sign! I was too scared to admit it in regular conscious life, after years of her brainwashing and years of trying to fill her void of unhappiness by being a good partner.
Hi thistooshallpass,
In case I haven’t said so yet, I’ll say it now.
I’m glad you’re out.
Hi Memnoc and thank you for commenting.
Your story is a good one. The leverage this type of woman wields over you doesn’t have to be a physical act of violence. It could be telling her to “shut up” after she’s berated you for two hours straight.
It can be any negative reaction you have in response to her garbage that she can then use as a hammer to bash you.
I hope that this article does not give men justification to hit their spouse due to verbal/emotional abuse. I’m not saying that it was the article’s intent to justify any type of physical violence, although it may be construed that way by some. A man would only end up on the losing end of a 911 call if any type of physical violence was directed to his spouse, and I thought that this was the way in which the example would eventually lead (and probably have more effect).
No matter what type of verbal abuse your spouse is hurling in your direction DO NOT HIT HER — and I am not saying that out of any self-righteous morality but from a practical standpoint, given the biased DV laws in our society.
Yes you got it Funky Monk. Good thing you stated such obvious facts. The first two sentences are completely …. I don’t even have the words. They are your opinion and you are entitled to them. You hope that the article doesn’t give men justification and so on… wtf? Right I and I’m sure many others have read the article and immediately thought; yeah Paul’s right, I’m going to go hit my wife now. This is my opinion: I don’t think anybody especially men who’ve suffered verbal and mental abuse from their spouses or exes are justifying any physical violence after reading it. Who on earth would construe the article in the manner you’re describing? I know who… the guy who is just fucked up- as described in the beginning of the article. It’s been my experience that this site isn’t home to people like that or their new wives and gf’s. The rest of your post I agree with but the first two sentences were completely …….. nope still don’t have the words.
When you’re a victim currently experiencing abuse, you are already at the edge, and probably not thinking clearly — in such a state of mind it doesn’t take much to be pushed over the edge and lash out in ways that may have previously seemed inconceivable to you. I know this since I have reacted in ways I would never have imagined before being in a abusive marriage.
Btw it’s also a good thing that we have an authority such as yourself who can speak on behalf the millions of internet users, any of which may stumble upon this article and perceive it according to their own reality. WTF? Just don’t have the words…
Your right. In such a state it certainly doesn’t take much. I too also know this as I too- escaped an abusive relationship. Again- I was stating my opinion- but I guess you missed that part huh? I’m not positioning myself as an authority here. I’m just letting you know how insulted I felt after reading the first two sentences of your original post. The same way I would feel insulted if someone asks me “When was the war of 1812?” While we’re at it we should point out a few more things just in case the millions of internet users get confused by the article as we can never tell how anyone might misinterpret- : Folks, the sun will rise tomorrow and pigs can’t fly yet despite that the article may be construed to tell you different. You go ahead and have the last words. Oh and look both ways before crossing the street.
Wow, you sound like my ex-wife: perceiving an innocent comment as a personal insult; and throwing totally unrelated topics in the mix just to try to prove a point, while contradicting yourself in the process.
WTF? Nope, don’t have the words…
Hey guys,
This is provocative and controversial subject matter, which can elicit powerful emotions. Let’s just try to remember to keep our dialogue civil and respectful.
Thanks,
Dr T
Sorry D.T…
Hi Funky Monk,
This article does not justify violence toward women. Far from it.
The subtitle says it all: “How to Slap your Way to Slavery.” Most people don’t consider slavery a good thing.
To me, the take away is don’t give away your power by allowing your wife/girlfriend/ex to bait you into losing your cool and sinking to her level.
The people who would willfully misinterpret this article are the same people who believe I’m a misogynist because I don’t think it’s okay for women to abuse men — or other women.
I can tell you with certainty that my Xw was intent on provoking me into violence. Fortunately, she was unsuccessful.
One night, after being gone , again, until 2-3 in the morning, she woke me up and described the body of the man she had been with that night.
@ weeks after my dad died, she announced that she was flying to Chicago to stay in a hotel and visit museums. Her traveling companion, who would share her hotel room, a man from her AA group.
Still I resited the urge to slap her.
I knew, on some level, evenback then before I had heard of BPD or NPD, that she was really trying to get me to belt her.I think her main motivation was so the she could justify her serial cheating.
Ever hear of the “fundamental attribution error” doc? A friend explained it to nme like this.
And abuser or cheater will point provoke the hell out of a victim. In many cases it is by cheating. Then, when the real victim acts out, in a manner that is out of character(although understandable as relating to the abuse), the real abuser points to that behavior as being typicl of the victim and causing the cheating or abuse.
One example I saw, an analogy, said to imagine you are driving like a maniac to get to the hospital with your injured son in the car. Witnesses to the driving only see the driving behavior, not what motivates and justifies it. Thye then assume that you are just a maniac behind the wheel.
Absuers seem to ,instinctively, know how to use “fundamental attribution error” to their advantage.
I agree that abusers know how to use “fundamental attribution error (FAE)” to their advantage. Cheating, as a concept, loomed large in my exgf’s world view.
I don’t remember my exgf ever goading me to violence but I remember one time she said something to which my reaction was wanting to backhand her.
During Hoover2, we were sitting in the car in front of her parents’ house. She was telling me all the things she missed about when we were together. She remembered a lot of things that surprised me. I asked if all that was available to her, why was she flying 1000 miles to sleep with my successor who she said was cheating on her. She said, “It’s one of those things that feels good in the middle of the night but leaves you cold in the morning.”
I looked at her and asked, “Let me understand this. I’m a pretty decent guy and there are some things about me you really like but you want to look around some more and if you don’t find anything you like better you might come back here and settle for me?”
Her response: “There’s some truth to that.” It was the closest I’ve ever come to hitting anyone. I had to get out of the car and grab the grill. I swear if you looked at it, you could see dents in it.
RE: “fundamental attribution error”
DARVO … From earlier this year: http://www.shrink4men.com/2011/01/19/presto-change-o-darvo-deny-attack-and-reverse-victim-and-offender/ –– covers that territory you’re talking about I think. Maybe you saw it.
It amazes me what happens to our critical judgement in these relationships. It’s as if we become brainwashed, mentally diminished, suffer some sort of mental-emotional battle fatigue, what have you …
… that allows us to extend respect to these tramps and entertain conversations with them as if we’re dealing with an adult worthy of our respect and mature effort.
Rubbing their infidelity in your face, as if there is something nonetheless worthy in it and of value to processing your relationship with her … amazing! Rather they should be hiding their faces in shame in front of the truth, in front of the evidence that they are just cheap women.
There are bad men. There are bad women. Hollywood films are full of these people, as are the annals of rock and roll.
When perspective and mental balance start to return after being no-contact long enough from these women, one’s head is left shaking in disbelief that even one word or one breath was ever wasted on them.
When we had that conversation, we had been broken up for almost a year. We were both free to do as we pleased. I forgot to add that when I asked the first question, part of her response included, “When I’m with him, I feel like I’m cheating on you.” I told her there was no reason to feel guilty since we weren’t together anymore.
Never understood that one and still don’t.
I’ve heard this before.
I think it’s partly due to the subjective unreality in which these types of individuals dwell, part bad Lifetime D-list movie bad dialogue that these types parrot, and part of some half-baked way to make it seem like you still have some connection even though she’s boinking someone else.
Oh my goodness, I just used the word “boinking.”
When perspective and mental balance start to return after being no-contact long enough from these women, one’s head is left shaking in disbelief that even one word or one breath was ever wasted on them.
Amen to that, Zibot.
“It amazes me what happens to our critical judgement in these relationships. It’s as if we become brainwashed, mentally diminished, suffer some sort of mental-emotional battle fatigue, what have you … ”
I think it’s tried and true shock. Shock that everything we’d been taught as youngsters “Don’t lie.”, “Treat others as you’d want to be treated.” etc, DO NOT apply to these people. I think our brain goes into some sort of “safety mode” to protect us from the emotional and mental blow. All we’re left with then is, “HOW? How can this person do/say/think this?”
We assume that because we understand that fairytales aren’t real, that everyone else was taught the same thing. Not the case. These people bend the very fabric of our realities with nothing more than words. All that we know to be real, a smile, a hand hold, a kiss… Could be a complete lie. It invokes questions of chaos theory in my mind. The difference between light and dark, good and evil.
My ex-wife actually threw a screwdriver at my head which caused a concussion for a week but instead of hitting her, I punched the wall in the foyer, leaving permanent dents (the only time I damaged property in my own home, as opposed to her).
But far worse than the physical pain she inflicted was the emotional pain caused when she we tell my infant son that I am not his father — it took every ounce of my self-control not to go ballistic on the many occasions that she did this: not only was it a personal attack against me but it was also child abuse. And it also begged the question: if the man you married is not your son’s father, then what the hell does that make you?!?
She threw a screwdriver at you and caused a concussion and you punched a hole in the wall to vent your anger instead of hitting her. Let me guess, FM. At the end of the day, you were probably portrayed as the violent, angry one who needed help and her physical assault of you was justified and deserved.
Truly Bizzarr-O World.
It’s painful to read that she told your son that you’re not his father. Very, very cruel and twisted for both you and your son. I’m glad she’s your ex.
I don’t remember my exgf ever goading me to violence but I remember one time she said something to which my reaction was wanting to backhand her.
It’s incidents like this that make me wonder if projective identification is mixed in with FAE.
Can you explain that one a little more? I looked up projective identification (PI) and I’m not quite getting the connection. If I understand it correctly, when she made the comment about settling, I projected something onto her. In other words, PI can result in a potentially violent response to an FAE? I know she tripped a trigger like no one else ever has.
The upside of that particular episode was it put her beyond redemption and motivated me to replace her and cut her off.
Hi Ron,
Yes, I’m familiar with the fundamental attribution error.
The way your friend described it is very good.
I think there’s more to it with abusive personalities and garden variety bullies.
Whether it’s conscious or unconscious, it’s diabolical and it’s crazy-making. Toxic, toxic, toxic.
Eye opening. Women do know how to exert power. Extortion(via the kids) in my case. Blackmail as in the case of this article and it is all too easy to want to be in an intimate relationship with someone who does not have a control mechanism over you. My biggest weakness is calling her out on her lies and occasionally I do over react(accused her of trying to start an affair) and I feel like an idiot and it definitely leaves her empowered.
Yep, it’s all about the Nugget.
Just to take a friendly poke at Paul, but… if when she complained about the shirt the first time he had known a little “game,” known to give her the “neg” and move on, maybe it all would have turned out differently. Telling her “Hell no” in a way that stroked her ego, maybe it would have changed things. After all, a huge part of “game” is about setting boundaries in a way that’s playful and not threatening, but also gives her that tingle.
Not that game is the solution to everything, but you write about a pattern that builds one compliance after another. I think you’ve noted, as I have, that a lot of the psycho behaviors we discuss resemble normal behaviors that have grown out of proportion, and I wonder if that explosive growth into the control freak you described isn’t just the natural result of power, that it corrupts, that absolute power corrupts absolutely. She took a little bit of it from him, no consequences, she took more. A lot of women aren’t psycho, they’re just mean bitches high on that power. If a little neg back at the beginning could keep it in check, maybe it’s not such a bad thing to learn.
Ah yes, Game, the answer to life’s ills.
And to an extent I agree with you, but I don’t need a misnomer like “Game” to lend a new identify to well established ideas like “healthy boundaries” and “self respect.”
But I find that when practicing those things in earnest that I don’t have to worry about psycho women, and I don’t have to try to manage “mean bitches high on power,” desperately convincing myself the whole while that I am not eating ca ca and calling it pudding.
There are better options than settling for nonsense, and they don’t require me to live with a child disguised as a woman.
There are some really decent women in the world that don’t need to be Gamed because they manage themselves. Just sayin.
“There are some really decent women in the world that don’t need to be Gamed because they manage themselves. ”
I think a lot of PUAs ascribe to a particular viewpoint that ultimately does men no favors. It’s this ‘patriarchal’ notion that a woman is meant to be taken in hand by her man.
Unfortunately this notion tends to be in a head on collision with reality; for the most part, and there are statistical outliers of course, women have tremendous reserves of emotional endurance that are far greater then the average man. A man saying that he can manage a woman who is emotionally unbalanced is basically like saying he can manage the tide or plate tectonics; actually, no, not really.
All men can really do is avoid volcanos and flood prone regions. Or visit them extremely briefly.
All men can really do is avoid volcanos and flood prone regions. Or visit them extremely briefly.
And preferably from a helicopter with a licensed flight crew.
Hi, typhonblue!
Well put!
Managing children and their childish, maladaptive tactics requires a lot of energy and patience. I prefer fully formed adults. Much less work, not to mention less wear and tear.
I hear you, but then you say “there are some really decent women in the world… ” Isn’t that just NAWALT? Here’s a box of hand grenades, 1 in 7 is a dud, grab one and hope for the best?
Look at the example you gave–how would he know that, at some unknown date how many months or years down the road, she would start slowly trying to control him? She didn’t start out as a volcano or an earthquake, she started out as a loving woman who didn’t like his shirt. How would Harry have known where it was going when he gave up his Bears shirt?
Logically, the MGTOW approach seems safer, even if NAWALT. But it seems to me that no man ever really knows whether she’s one of those women who manage themselves, mythical sister to the unicorn. Ever. Not if years down the road she can change. So how does he manage that risk? If some skills acquired from game allows him to finesse her gripe without hurting her feelings, maybe she won’t bother trying to do it again. That’s as much as I’m proposing on game’s part, nothing more.
Or maybe (and I think this is the possibility you don’t want to consider) AWALT. In which case the options seem to be down to MGTOW, game or the electric chair.
BTW, one of King Arthur’s most challenging quests was to find the answer to the question, What does a woman really want? At long last he was given the answer by a woman: To have her own way.
BJB, while I agree with you anyone can turn at any time in the relationship due to ill-health or other problems, the longer the courtship the more likely you are to see red-flags of potential nasty behaviour.
SO made the comment to me he really should have met her family before getting engaged. I also saw the writing on the wall with how my ex’s parents related.
The shirt thing is interesting for me…because I had the experience except in reverse gender. My ex tried to get me to dress “more sexy”…which I went along with. What I have since learned is that doing the sexy look can be fun, but if the mind is not feeling sexy, no amount of window dressing makes up for it.
I love my SO, but he has a jersey he wears which I regularly hope develops holes – but I am not going to release moths nearby, because I know that there must be a reason for loving that jersey that I am unaware of.
Paul…
would you like to clarify if you view the man you bring up in your example
as a ‘healthy/normal man’ who would be able to have a relationship with a healthy/normal woman?
Great question. The short answer is yes, though it is easy to get trapped by words like healthy and normal, especially since normal is frequently not healthy.
The “Harry” in my story is, I should say, a fairly “typical” man, in that he is not highly conscious of his own actions and not very informed about aspects of some women and what to do about them. He is generally programmed as a problem solver, and he considers her happiness his responsibility. That sense of responsibility is typical, normal male programming. But it is not always so healthy, especially with the wrong kind of woman.
He can have a healthier relationship with women, but he won’t likely attract one that is good for him unless he takes command of his own boundaries and values.
That means he has some educational deficits to overcome and the need to walk through some fears, but it is entirely doable.
Thanks for clearing that up.
Let’s hope it all changed ‘When Harry met Sally’
Feminist theory of just about everything is bullshit. However, there are men and women who are just violent bastards, sometimes when drunk, sometimes not. I don’t think it’s a “statistically insignificant” minority. Yes, it’s a minority, but I think it’s a helluva lot bigger than you give credit for. I honestly believe that the story you gave is the minority and cuts both ways; most men and women aren’t violent, whether with their partners or anyone else and some can be provoked at various levels.
Hi Jason,
Actually, violence against women in the west has been on the decline for the last 30 years. Not saying violence against women doesn’t still happen, but not at the epidemic rate women’s DV organizations would like everyone to believe.
Several peer reviewed studies show that while violence against women has been on the the decline at a steady rate since the 1970s; domestic violence against men has been on the rise.
Hampton, R. L., Gelles, R. J., & Harrop, J. W. (1989). Is violence in families increasing? A comparison of 1975 and 1985 National Survey rates. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 51, 969-980.
Mallory, K. A., McCloskey, K. A., Griggsby, N., & Gardner, D. (2003). Women’s use of violence within intimate relationships. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, Vol. 6 No. 2, pp. 37-59.
Straus, M. A. (1995). Trends in cultural norms and rates of partner violence: An update to 1992. In S. M. Stich & M. A. Straus (Eds.) Understanding partner violence: Prevalence, causes, consequences, and solutions (pp. 30-33). Minneapolis, MN: National Council on Family Relations.
A male friend of mine shared about this site with me. I too, am a survivor of two full blown psychopaths, and a childhood full of pathology. I have been reading many of the blog posts here and am just astounded at the behavior of my gender, while also fascinated by the reality that the Cluster B of disorders seems so much the same in expression, as well as the victims response to it. I don’t know one individual yet who has not been exposed to anything as toxic as pathology and not become, to some degree, “psychologically sick” as well. It’s just not possible not to be tainted or hurt by these people. I’m so very sorry for those of you who have been through hell in feeling shame in your reactions to these disorders, UP TO AND INCLUDING violence. I didn’t hit my ex, but I sure wanted too! I did many more things that were just NUTS in response to the constant provocations. You know you’re okay once you remove yourself from the pathological individual and your reactions begin to normalize.
Having listened to Dr. Tara’s radio program on the WTF moment was very helpful to me in my own recovery, as well as learning more about the women who manifest their pathologies towards men.
Paul this article was particularly insightful. While I’m a woman, I do not consider myself to be of the feminist label and believe that men can be just as abused as women. I appreciate your courage and forthright approach in bringing more awareness to this issue.
Thank you all for your contributions that I have read silently and continue to ponder and integrate into my own healing process. From the standpoint of having been in a relationship with a pathological, no matter what the relationship is/was, we are all rowing in the same boat. I wish you all well in your healing!
Hi Katie,
Thank you for registering for S4M and joining the conversation. I’m sorry to read you were in such a painful relationship.
Katie, there’s nothing wrong with being a feminist. I’m a proud one. The BIG problem is “feminazis”.
This is a great discussion. I feel for those (men and women) who have been subjects of abuse, but we live in a crazy, stupid world in which abusers are only men? No way! There’s nothing more dangerous than overgeneralisations. They totally suck!
Dr. T, keep up with the good work!
Paul, great article! Keep’em coming.