Types of Abusive Men

“Why Does He Do That?”

Lundy Bancroft

The Types of Abusive Men

Chapter 4

“The qualities that make up an abusive man are like the ingredients in a recipe: The basics are always present, but the relative amounts vary greatly.”

“The sections below describe each style of man while he is being abusive.”

The Demand Man

1. The Demand Man is highly entitled. He expects his partner’s life to revolve around meeting his needs and is angry and blaming if anything gets in the way.
2. Nothing she does is ever good enough.
3. He criticizes her frequently, usually about things that he thinks she should have done – or done better – for him.

Characteristics:

1. He has little sense of give and take. He constantly feels you owe him things that he has done nothing to earn.
2. He exaggerates and overvalues his own contributions. He seems to keep a mental list of any favors or kindnesses he ever does and expects each one paid back at a heavy interest rate.
3. When he doesn’t get what he feels is his due, he punishes you for letting him down.
4. When he is generous and supportive, it’s because he feels like it. When he isn’t in the mood to give anything, he doesn’t.
5. If your needs ever conflict with his, he is furious. At these times he attacks you as self-centered or inflexible, turning reality on its head.
6. At the same time, he is likely to be furious if anything is demanded of him.

Central attitudes driving the Demand Man:

a.     “It’s your job to do things for me, including taking care of my responsibilities if I drop the ball on them. If I’m unhappy about any aspect of my life, whether it has to do with our relationship or not, it’s your fault.”

b.     “You should not place demands on me at all. You should be grateful for whatever I choose to give.”

c.     “I am above criticism.”

d.     “I am a very loving and giving partner. You’re lucky to have me.”

Mr. Right

1. Mr. Right considers himself the ultimate authority on every subject under the sun; you might call him “Mr. Always Right”.

Characteristics:

1. He ridicules and discredits her perspective so that he can escape dealing with it.
2. He turns conflicts and arguments with his partner into a clash between Right or Wrong or Intelligence and Stupidity.
3. He switches into his Voice of Truth, giving the definitive pronouncement on what is the correct answer or the proper outlook. This is called “defining reality”.
4. Mr. Right is also an expert on your life and how you should live it.
5. He is especially knowledgeable about your faults, and he likes to inventory what is wrong with you.
6. He seems to periodically enjoy straightening you out in front of other people to humiliate you.
7. Mr. Right’s control tends to be especially focused on telling his partner how to think.

Central attitudes driving Mr. Right:

1.     “You should be in awe of my intelligence and should look up to me intellectually. I know better than you do, even about what’s good for you.”

2.     “Your opinions aren’t worth listening to carefully or taking seriously.”

3.     “The fact that you sometimes disagree with me shows how sloppy your thinking is.”

4.     “If you would just accept that I know what’s right, our relationship would go much better. Your own life would go better, too.”

5.     “When you disagree with me about something, no matter how respectfully or meekly, that’s mistreatment of me.”

6.     “If I put you down for long enough, some day you’ll see.”

The Water Torturer

1. The Water Torturer’s style proves that anger doesn’t cause abuse.
2. He can assault his partner psychologically without even raising his voice.

Characteristics:

1. He tends to stay calm in arguments.
2. He has a superior or contemptuous grin.
3. He uses low volume, including sarcasm, derision, cutting remarks and cruelty.
4. He tends to take things she has said and twist them beyond recognition to make her appear absurd.
5. He tends to genuinely believe that there is nothing unusual about his behavior.
6. He rarely lasts long in an abuser program unless he has a court order. He rapidly decides that his group leaders are as crazy as his partner and heads for the door.

Central attitudes driving the Water Torturer:

1.     “You are crazy. You fly off the handle over nothing.”

2.     “I can easily convince other people that you’re the one who is messed up.”

3.     “As long as I’m calm, you can’t call anything I do abusive, no matter how cruel.”

4.     “I know exactly how to get under your skin.”

The Drill Sergeant

1. The Drill Sergeant takes controlling behavior to its extreme, running his partner’s life in every way that he can.

Characteristics:

a.                    He criticizes her clothing, tells her whether she can go out or not. He interferes with her work.

b.                   He wants her to have no one else close to her, so he ruins her relationships with friends or relatives or simply forbids her to see them.

c.                    He may listen to her phone calls or read her mail, or require the children to report on her activities anytime he is away.

d.                   She feels like a little girl living with a tyrannical father, with no more freedom that an eight-year old would have.

e.                    He is fanatically jealous. Accuses his partner of accusations of cheating. He speaks of women in degrading terms.

f.                    He is often out having affairs himself.

g.                    He is sure to become physically violent sooner or later.

h.                   He often has some psychological problems.

Central attitudes driving the Drill Sergeant:

1.     “I need to control your every move or you will do it wrong.”

2.     “I know the exact way that everything should be done.”

3.     “You shouldn’t have anyone else – or anything else – in your life besides me.”

4.     “I am going to watch you like a hawk to keep you from developing strength or independence.”

5.     “I love you more than anyone in the world, but you disgust me.”

Mr. Sensitive

1.     Mr. Sensitive appears to be the diametric opposite of the Drill Sergeant.

Characteristics:

a.     He is soft-spoken, gentle, and supportive – when he isn’t being abusive.

b.     He loves the language of feelings, openly sharing his insecurities, his fears, and his emotional injuries. He hugs other men.

c.     Perhaps he attends a men’s group or goes on men’s retreats.

d.     Often he has participated extensively in therapy or 12-step programs.

e.     If you start to feel chronically mistreated by him, you are likely to assume that something is wrong with you, and if you complain about him to other people, they may think you must be spoiled.

f.      You seem to be hurting his feelings constantly, though you aren’t sure why.

g.     He expects your attention to be focused endlessly on his emotional injuries.

h.     When your feelings are hurt, on the other hand, he will insist on brushing over it quickly.

i.      He may give you a stream of pop-psychology language.

j.      With the passing of time, he increasingly casts blame on to you for anything he is dissatisfied with in his own life.

k.     He may start to exhibit a mean side that no one else ever sees.

l.      This “gentle style” of abuser tends to be highly self-centered and demanding of emotional energy.

Central attitudes driving Mr. Sensitive:

1.     “I’m against the macho man, so I couldn’t be abusive.”

2.     “As long as I use a lot of psychobabble, no one is going to believe that I am mistreating you.”

3.     “I can control you by analyzing how your mind and emotions work, and what your issues are from childhood. I can get inside your head whether you want me there or not.”

4.     “Nothing in the world is more important than my feelings.”

5.     “Women should be grateful to me for not being like those other men.”

The Player

1. The Player is usually good looking and often sexy.
2. Sometimes he just thinks he is.

Characteristics:

1. In the early part of the relationship he seems head over heels in love and wants to spend as much time as possible in bed together.
2. After a while, though, a few things start to bother you. You notice that apart from sex his interest in you is waning, and even his sexual energy is dropping off a little.
3. Sexual undertones seem to run through most of his interactions.
4. Women around the Player seem to get angry at each other a lot, rather than at him.
5. Infidelity and dishonesty are currently found in his life. Chronic infidelity.

Central attitudes driving the Player:

1.     “Women were put on this earth to have sex with men – especially me.”

2.     “Women who want sex are too loose, and women who refuse sex are too uptight.”

3.     “It’s not my fault that women find me irresistible. It’s not fair to expect me to refuse temptation when it’s all around me; women seduce me sometimes, and I can’t help it.”

4.     “If you act like you need anything from me, I am going to ignore you. I’m in this relationship when it’s convenient for me and when I feel like it.”

5.     “Women who want the nonsexual aspects of themselves appreciated are bitches.”

6.     “If you could meet my sexual needs, I wouldn’t have to turn to other women.”

Rambo

1. Rambo is aggressive with everybody, not just his partner.

Characteristics:

1. He gets a thrill out of the sensation of intimidating people and strives to handle all life situations by subtly or overtly creating fear.
2. He has an exaggerated, stereotypical view of what a man is supposed to be.
3. He has little patience for weakness, fragility or indecision.
4. He enjoys the role of protector, feeling like a gallant knight.
5. He lacks respect for women.

Central attitudes driving Rambo:

1.     “Strength and aggressiveness are good; compassion and conflict resolution are bad.”

2.     “Anything that could be even remotely associated with homosexuality, including walking away from possible violence or showing any fear or grief, has to be avoided at any cost.”

3.     “Femaleness and femininity are inferior. Women are here to serve men and be protected by them.

4.     “Men should never hit women, because it is unmanly to do so. However, exceptions to this rule can be made for my own partner if her behavior is bad enough. Men need to keep women in line.”

5.     “You are a thing that belongs to me, akin to a trophy.”

The Victim

1. Life has been hard and unfair for the Victim.
2. To hear him tell it, his intelligence has been chronically underestimated.

Characteristics:

1. The Victim appeals to a woman’s compassion and desire to feel that she can make a difference in his life.
2. He often tells persuasive and heart-rending stories about how he was abused by his former partner.
3. He maneuvers the woman into hating his ex-partner.
4. There is a difference between showing anger toward an ex-partner and showing disrespect or contempt – these are red flags.
5. He blames his own behavior on her. This is a bad sign.
6. He is highly self-centered in relationships.
7. Everyone is always wronging him, and he is always blameless.

Central attitudes driving the Victim:

1.     “Everybody has done me wrong, especially the women I’ve been involved with. Poor me.”

2.     “When you accuse me of being abusive, you are joining the parade of people who have been cruel and unfair to me. It proves you’re just like the rest.”

3.     “It’s justifiable for me to do to you whatever I feel you are doing to me, and even to make it quite a bit worse to make sure you get the message.”

4.     “Women who complain of mistreatment by men, such as relationship abuse or sexual harassment, are anti-male and out for blood.”

5.     “I’ve had it so hard that I’m not responsible for my actions.”

The Terrorist

1. This is a severe type of abuser.

Characteristics:

1. He will glare at her, drum his fingers methodically on the table, etc.
2. He will say things like, “Things better shape up around here.”
3. He will tell her exactly what he is going to do to her.
4. The Terrorist tends to be both highly controlling and extremely demanding.
5. He frequently reminds his partner that he could physically rip her to pieces or even kill her.
6. He is sadistic: he gets enjoyment out of chasing pain and fear and seems to find cruelty thrilling.
7. He is likely to have been severely abused as a child, which generally is not true of other abusers.
8. You cannot help him heal.
9. His goal is to paralyze you with fear so that you won’t dare think of leaving him or her or cheating on him.
10. Most women do manage to get out of these relationships. The critical first step is to seek confidential help as soon as possible. Begin by calling an abuse hotline as soon as you safely can.
11. When a woman does leave a Terrorist:

                                               i.     He may stalk or threaten her.

                                             ii.     He may attempt to get custody or unsupervised visitation.

                                            iii.     He may threaten her loved ones.

Central attitudes driving the Terrorist:

1.     “You have no right to defy me or leave me. Your life is in my hands.”

2.     “Women are evil and have to kept terrorized to prevent that evil from coming forth.”

3.     “I would rather die than accept your right to independence.”

4.     “The children are one of the best tools I can use to make you fearful.”

5.     “Seeing you terrified is exciting and satisfying.”