Abusers

I try to be careful with the term “abuser”. There are meaningful distinctions between accidental harms, willfully harmful behavior short of abuse, wilfully abusive behavior which is not part of a strategy or pattern, and wilful abuse as a strategy. That is not to dismiss the importance of harmful behaviors outside of a strategic pattern of abuse; we must take them very seriously. But they emerge from different dynamics and require different remedies.

People who are predatory abusers as a strategy are all too common. Addressing them is difficult. The article Abusive Men Describe the Benefits of Violence underlines how these people abuse because it works for them.

So what was the point? Why were they so invested in this controlling and abusive behavior?

One night I started the group by asking the men what they thought the benefits were of their violence.

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The first time I did this exercise I looked at the blackboard and I thought, “Oh my God. Why would they give it up?” I then decided to ask the men: Why give it up? They then filled a two-by-two foot space on the blackboard with things like, “get arrested,” “divorce,” “get protection orders taken out against you,” “adult kids don’t invite you to their weddings,” “have to go to groups like this.” That was about it.

This was the first time I fully comprehended the necessity of a consistent coordinated community response through the criminal, civil, and family court systems which can mete out safe and effective interventions that hold men who batter accountable while preserving the safety of the women, girls, and boys they abuse.

This is largely the thesis of Ludy Bancroft’s mortifying and clarifying book Why Does He Do That? — inside the minds of angry and controlling men. They feel so entitled to control that they almost see it as an obligation. Anyone trying to stop them is doing wrong, justifying their every evasion, and they are very good at it.