Red flags: if anything below surprises, you need to read the book.

Sometimes, what you see seems so perfect that you don’t notice the red flags.

Lundy Bancroft’s brilliant book, “WHY DOES HE DO THAT?” deconstructs domestic abusers. His profession is counselling them, but he always checks in with their abused partners to get her version of events with which to challenge his client. It’s fascinating; he deconstructs every strategy and manipulation. Below is a very long quote from his book about the warning signs. If you’re surprised by anything below, you need to read the book. Lundy uses ‘her‘ because, in over 80% of cases, it is a woman who is abused, and in over 90% of the cases, the abuser is male.

“The idyllic opening is part of almost every abusive relationship. How else would an abuser ever have a partner? Women aren’t stupid. If you go out to a restaurant on a giddy first date and over dessert the man calls you a ‘seffish bitch’ and sends your water glass flying across the room, you don’t say: ‘Hey are you free again next weekend?’ There has to be a hook. Very few women hate themselves so thoroughly that they will get involved with a man who is rotten from the very start – although they may feel terrible about themselves later, once the abuser has had time to destroy their self-image step by step.

The Power of Those Wonderful Early Months

The partners of my clients have described to me the many ways in which the glowing beginning of a relationship with an abusive man can serve to entrap a woman, including:

• Like any love-struck person, she runs around telling her friends and family what a terrific guy he is. After talking him up so much, she feels embarrassed to reveal his mistreatment when it begins, so she keeps it to herself for a long time.
• She assumes that his abusiveness comes from something that has gone wrong inside of him – what else is she to conclude, given how wonderful he was at first? So she pours herself into figuring out what happened.
• She has a hard time letting go of her own dream, since she thought she had found a wonderful man.
• She can’t help wondering if she did something wrong or has some great personal deficit that knocked down their castle in the sky, so she tries to find the key to the problem inside of herself.

WHEN HE IS SO GOOD EARLY ON, IS HE PLANNING TO BE ABUSIVE LATER?

…The answer is usually no. The abuser doesn’t picture himself yelling, degrading her, or hurling insults at her. As he falls in love, he dreams of a happy future of conjugal bliss, just as the woman does.

So, if he isn’t laying plans to hurt her, what is going on in his mind? First, he is gazing longingly at the image he holds of the future, where the woman meets all of his needs…has no needs of her own, and is in awe of his brilliance and charm. He desires a woman who will cater to him and never complain about anything he does or darken his day with frustrations or unhappiness about her own life.

The abusive man doesn’t expose these self-focused fantasies to his new partner. In fact, he is largely unaware of them himself. So she has no way of knowing that he is looking more for a personal caretaker than for a partner. In fact, abusers tend to use the language of mutuality…

‘We are going to be really good for each other.’

‘I want to be with you all the time.’

‘I really want to be there for you’

‘You can stop working for now so that you can finish school, and we can live off of my income.’

‘I’ll help you study for that medical assistant exam, so that you can get that promotion.’

He may truly believe his own promises because he wants to see himself as a generous and thoughtful partner, one who does not use or disrespect women. Later, when he begins to control the woman and take advantage of her, he will find ways to convince himself that it’s not happening or that it is her fault. Abuse is not his goal, but control is, and he finds himself using abuse to gain the control he feels he has a right to.

On the other hand, a certain number of my clients are consciously manipulative from the outset. A man of this style smiles knowingly at me, assuming that every man uses the same ployes, and says, ‘Of course you have to charm the ladies and listen to them blabber on and on, like that. You talk the nice talk a little, you take them dancing. You know how it is.’ But even this man is generally not calculating to abuse the woman later, He creates the kind of relationship he wants through charm and dishonesty and expects to continue in that mode for good. Manipulation feels clean and satisfying to this style of abuser, while degrading language and physical intimidation do not. When he does start to tear her down or frighten her later, he will blame it on her, probably thinking of her as a ‘bitch’ for not allowing him to lie and manipulate his way though life. And he doesn’t consider manipulation abusive.

AN ABUSER IS NEITHER A MONSTER NOR A VICTIM.

We arrive now at two of the most important concepts regarding abusive men. First:

An abuser is a human being, not an evil monster, but he has a profoundly complex and destructive problem that should not be underestimated.

The common view of abusive men as evil, calculating brutes can make it difficult for a woman to recognize her partner’s problem. She tends to think: My partner really cares about me and has a good side to him. He has feelings; he’s not a sadist. He couldn’t be an abuser. She doesn’t realize that he can have all these positive qualities and still have an abuse problem.

At the other end of the spectrum, we find an equally common and equally misleading view of abusers: the abuser as a man whose gentle humanity is just barely hidden under his abusive surface and who can be transformed by love, compassion, and insight. One morning, he will wake up to realize how hurtful he has been and will renounce his cruelty, particularly if he has the love of a good woman. This outlook is portrayed and supported in popular songs, movies, romantic novels, and soap operas.

The painful reality is that bringing about change in abusers is difficult. An abusive man has to bury his compassion in a deep hole in order to escape the profound inherent aversion that human beings have to seeing others suffer. He has to adhere tightly to his excuses and rationalizations, develop a disturbing ability to insulate himself from the pain he is causing, and learn to enjoy power and control over his female partners.

It is unrealistic to expect such a complex structure, one that takes fifteen or twenty years of form, to vanish like steam. Yet women are often pressured by friends, family, or professionals to ‘give him a chance to change’ and ‘have a little faith in people.’

The second critical understanding is:

An abuser’s behavior is primarily conscious – he acts deliberately rather than by accident or by losing control of himself – but the underlying thinking that drives his behavior is largely not conscious.

An abuser learns manipulative and controlling behavior from several sources, including key male models, peers, and pervasive cultural messages… By the time he reaches adulthood, he has integrated manipulative behavior to such a deep level that he acts largely on automatic. He knows what he is doing, but not necessarily why. Consider the following call I received from Kelsea, the partner of a client.

Lance wanted me to go skiing with him this weekend, but I really didn’t feel like it because I’d had an exhausting week and wanted to spend time with my friends. When I said no, he dove into criticizing me. He said the reason why I’ve never become a good skier is that I don’t stick with it, that I’m not willing to give things a chance and work at them, that I’m lazy and that’s why I never get good at anything, and so forth, It felt awful… But, you know, I think in a way he’s right- maybe I should be more disciplined about learning to ski.

Where was Lance’s stream of put-downs coming from? Was he really concerned that Kelsea was letting herself down? No. A man doesn’t tear down his partner’s self-esteem out of a desire to help her. The real issue concerned what Lance wanted for himself. He wanted Kelsea to keep him company for the weekend because he didn’t feel like going skiing alone. He resented her choice to make her friendships central in her life – a common theme with abusive men – and believed that it was her duty to be by his side and focus on him. He was hammering her with whatever put-downs he could think of in order to bully her into going (and was having some success in getting her to doubt herself). …

EARLY WARNING SIGNS

When women hear how charming abusers can be – or when they experience it directly – they feel at a loss. They ask, ‘Does this mean there is no way to avoid an abusive relationship?‘ How can I tell whether I should worry about my new partner?’ Fortunately, most abusers put out warning signals before their abuse goes into full gear. The signs to watch out for should be part of every girl’s education before she starts dating.

How can I tell if a man I’m seeing will become abusive?

The following warning flags mean that abuse could be down the road, and perhaps not far:

• He speaks disrespectfully about his former partners

A certain amount of anger and resentment toward an ex-partner is normal, but beware of the man who is very focused on his bitterness or who tells you about it inappropriately early on in your dating. Be especially cautious of the man who talks about women from his past in degrading or condescending ways or who characterizes himself as a victim of abuse by women.

Be alert if he says that his previous wife or girlfriend falsely accused him of being abusive; the great majority of reports of abuse are accurate. When you hear that another woman considers him abusive, always find a way to get her side of the story. Even if you end up not believing her, you will at least know the behaviors to watch out for in him, just in case. Be cautious also of the man who admits to abusing a former partner but claims that the circumstances were exceptional, blames it on her, or blames it on alcohol or immaturity.

Be cautious of the man who says that you are nothing like the other women he’s been involved with, that you are the first partner to treat him well, or that earlier women in his life have not understood him. You will be tempted to work doubly hard to prove that you aren’t like those other women, and one foot will already be in the trap. It won’t be long before he is telling you that you are ‘just like the rest of them.’ His perceptual system ensures that no woman can be a good woman while she is involved with him.

A few men have the opposite approach, which is to glorify and elevate their former partners so that you feel like you can never quite compete. If he starts to lament the fact that you aren’t as sexy, athletic, domestic, or successful as the women who went before you, I can assure you that you won’t measure up any better later, no matter how hard you try. He wants to feel one up on you so that he can have the upper hand.

Notice whether he seems to accept any responsibility for what went wrong in his previous relationships. If everything was always the woman’s fault, you will soon be to blame for all difficulties in this new relationship.

• He is disrespectful toward you.

Disrespect is the soil in which abuse grows. If a man puts you down or sneers at your opinions, if he is rude to you in front of other people, if he is cutting or sarcastic, he is communicating a lack of respect. If these kinds of behaviors are a recurring problem, or if he defends them when you complain about how they affect you, control and abuse are likely to be in the offing.

Disrespect also can take the form of idealizing you and putting you on a pedestal as a perfect woman or goddess, perhaps treating you like a piece of fine china. The man who worships you in this way is not seeing you; he is seeing his fantasy, and when you fail to live up to that image he may turn nasty. So there may not be much difference between the man who talks down to you and the one who elevates you: both are displaying a failure to respect you as a real human being and bode ill.

• He does favors for you that you don’t want or puts on such a show of generosity that it makes you uncomfortable.

These can be signs of a man who is attempting to create a sense of indebtedness. My client Alan, for example, spent much of his first two years with Tory helping her brother fix his car, helping her sister paint her new apartment, and transporting her father to medical appointments. When Tory’s family started to become upset about how Aan was treating her, Alan was able to convince her that her relatives had taken advantage of him and were now turning against him unfairly… Alan succeeded in getting Tory to feel sorry for him, thereby driving a wedge between her and her family that endured for years until she saw through Alan’s manipulation…

• He is controlling.

… Control usually begins in subtle ways, far from anything you call abuse. He drops comments about your clothes or your looks (too sexy or not sexy enough); is a little negative about your family or one of your friends; starts to pressure you to spend more time with him or to quit your job or to get a better job that pays more; starts to give too much advice about how you should manage your own life and shows a hint of impatience when you resist his recommendations; or begins to act bothered that you don’t share all his opinions about politics, personal relationships, music, or other tastes.

• He is possessive

Jealous behavior is one of the surest signs that abuse is down the road. Possessiveness masquerades as love. A man may say: ‘I’m sorry I got so bent out of shape about you talking to your ex-boyfriend, but I’ve never been so crazy about a woman before. I just can’t stand thinking of you with another man.’ He may call five times a day, keeping track of what you are doing all the time, or insist on spending every evening with you. His feelings for you probably are powerful, but that’s not why he wants constant contact; he is keeping tabs on you, essentially establishing that you are his domain. Depending on what kind of friends he has, he also may be trying to impress them with how well he has you under his thumb. All of these behaviors are about ownership, not love.

Jealous feelings are not the same as behaviors. A man with some insecurities may naturally feel anxious about your associations with other men, especially ex-partners, and might want some reassurance. But if he indicates that he expects you to give up your freedom to accommodate this jealousy, control is creeping up. Your social life shouldn’t have to change because of his insecurities.

A man’s jealousy can be flattering. It feels great that he is wildly in love with you, that he wants you so badly. But a man can be crazy about you without being jealous. Possessiveness shows that he doesn’t love you as an independent human being but rather as a guarded treasure. After a while, you will feel suffocated by his constant vigilance.

• Nothing is ever his fault.

He blames something or someone for anything that goes wrong. As time goes by, the target of his blame increasingly becomes you. This style of man also tends to make promises that he doesn’t keep, coming up with a steady stream of excuses for disappointing you or behaving irresponsibly, and perhaps taking serious economic advantage of you in the process.

• He is self-centered.

In the first few months of a relationship, the abuser’s self-centeredness is not always apparent, but there are symptoms you can watch for. Notice whether he does a lot more than his share of the talking, listens poorly when you speak, and chronically shifts the topic back to himself. Self-centeredness is a personality characteristic that is highly resistant to change, as it has deep roots in either profound entitlement (in abusers) or to severe early emotional injuries (in nonabusers) or both (in narcissistic abusers).

• He abuses drugs or alcohol.

Be especially careful if he pressures you to participate in substance use with him. Although substances do not cause partner abuse, they often go hand in hand. He may try to hook into believing that you can help him get clean and sober; substance abusers are often ‘just about to quit.‘

• He pressures you for sex

This warning sign is always important, but even more so for teenagers and young adult men. Not respecting your wishes or feelings regarding sex speaks of exploitativeness, which in turn goes with abuse. It is also a sign of seeing women as sex objects rather than human beings. If he says you need to have sex with him to prove that you truly love and care for him, give him his walking papers.

• He gets serious too quickly about the relationship.

Because so many men are commitment-phobic, a woman can feel relieved to find a partner who isn’t afraid to talk about marriage and family. But watch out if he jumps too soon into planning your future together without taking enough time to get to know you and grow close, because it can mean that he’s trying to wrap you up tightly into a package that he can own. Take steps to slow things down a little. If he won’t respect your wishes in this regard, there is probably trouble ahead.

• He intimidates you when angry.

Intimidation, even if it appears unintentional, is a sign that emotional abuse is on the way- or has already begun- and is a warning flag that physical violence may eventually follow. Any of the following behaviors should put you on alert:

• He gets too close when he’s angry, puts a finger in your face, pokes you, pushes you, blocks your way, or restrains you.
• He tells you that he is ‘just trying to make you listen’
• He raises a fist, towers over you. shouts you down, or behaves in any way that makes you flinch or feel afraid.
• He makes vaguely threatening comments, such as, ‘You don’t want to see me mad’ or ‘You don’t know who you’re messing with.’
• He drives recklessly or speeds up when he’s angry.
• He punches walls or kicks doors.
• He throws things around, even if they don’t hit you.

The more deeply involved you become with an intimidating man, the more difficult it will be to get out of the relationship. Unfortunately, many women believe just the opposite: They think Well, he does scare me a little sometimes, but I’ll wait and see if it gets worse, and I’ll leave him if it does. But getting away from someone who has become frightening is much more complicated than most people realize, and it gets harder with each day that passes. Don’t wait around to see.

• He has double standards.

Beware of the man who has a different set of rules for his behavior than for yours. Double standards are an important aspect of life with an abuser.

• He has negative attitudes towards women.

A man may claim early in a relationship that he views you in a light different from that in which he sees women in general, but that the distinction won’t last. If you are a woman, why be involved with someone who sees women in general as inferior, stupid, conniving, or only good for sex? He isn’t going to forget you’re a woman.

Stereotyped beliefs about women’s sex roles also contribute to the risk of abuse….

• He treats you differently around other people.

Adult abusers tend to put on a show of treating their partners like gold when anyone is watching, reserving most of their abuse for times when no one else will see. In teenage abusers the opposite is often true. He may be rude and cold with her in front of other people to impress his friends with how ‘in control’ and ‘cool’ he is but be somewhat nicer when they are alone together.

• He appears to be attracted to vulnerability.

One way that this warning sign manifests itself is in cases of men who are attracted to women (or girls) who are much younger than they are. Why, for example, does a twenty-two-year-old man pursue a sixteen-year-old adolescent? Because he is stimulated and challenged by her? Obviously not. They are at completely different developmental points in life, with a dramatic imbalance in their levels of knowledge and experience. He is attracted to power and seeks a partner who will look up to him with awe and allow him to lead her. Of course, he usually tells her the opposite, insisting that he wants to be with her because of how unusually mature and sophisticated she is for her age. He may even compliment her on her sexual prowess and say how much power she has over him, setting up the young victim so that she won’t recognize what is happening to her. Even without a chronological age difference, some abusive men are drawn to women who have less life experience, knowledge, or self-confidence, and who will look up to the man as a teacher or mentor.

I have had quite a number of clients over the years who are attracted to women who are vulnerable because of recent traumatic experiences in their lives, including many who have started relationships by helping a woman break away from an abusive partner and then start to control or abuse her themselves. Some abusive men seek out a woman who comes from a troubled or abusive childhood, who has health problems, or who has suffered a recent severe loss, and present themselves as rescuers. Be alert for the man who seems to be attracted to power imbalances.

At the same time, I have observed that there are plenty of abusive men who are not particularly attracted to vulnerability or neediness in women and who are more drawn to tougher or more successful women. This style of abuser appear to feel that he has caught a bigger fish if he can reel in an accomplished, self-confident woman to dominate.” I guess Mel Brown (Scary Spice) would be an example of the latter. He must have felt like he caught the biggest fish in the sea, and it must have been awful for her to have to admit what had happened to her, but at least she had enough courage left to escape when she did.

“THE WARNING SIGNS OF ABUSE

He speaks disrespectfully about his former partners.

He is disrespectful toward you.

He does favors for you that you don’t want or puts on such a show of generosity that makes you uncomfortable.

He is controlling

He is possessive

Nothing is ever his fault.

He is self-centered

He abuses drugs or alcohol

He pressures you for sex.

He gets serious too quickly about the relationship.

He intimidates you when he’s angry.

He has double standards.

He has negative attitudes towards women.

He treats you differently around other people.

He appears to be attracted to vulnerability.

No single one of the warning signs above is a sure sign of an abusive man, with the exception of physical intimidation. Many nonabusive men may exhibit a number of these behaviors to a limited degree. What, then, should a woman do to protect herself from having a relationship turn abusive?

Although there is no foolproof solution, the best plan is:

1. Make it clear to him as soon as possible which behaviors or attitudes are unacceptable to you and that you cannot be in a relationship with him if they continue.
2. If it happens again, stop seeing him for a substantial period of time. Don’t keep seeing him with the warning that this time you ‘really mean it,’ because he will probably interpret that to mean that you don’t.
3. If it happens a third time, or he switches to other behaviors that are warning flags, chances are great that he has an abuse problem. If you give him too many chances, you are likely to regret it later….

Finally, be aware that as an abuser begins his slide into abuse, he believes that you are the one who is changing. His perceptions work this way because he feels so justified in his actions that he can’t imagine the problem might be with him. All he notices is that you don’t seem to be living up to his image of the perfect, all-giving, deferential woman.”

Have I ever ignored red flags? Usually, I have been able to rely on instinct, but there was a time when I was under so much stress I ignored a few – nothing dreadful happened, but that was more through luck than judgement.

My BBC career died due to a diagnosis of M.S. and the BBC’s all-encompassing disability discrimination – she wants a career when she should be grateful to have a job! His career seemed to be taking off (at least in his head). He’d got Hollywood talent interested in his script. He was good-looking and… I badly needed distraction.

He told me he loved me way too early Red Flag. All his ex-girlfriends were ‘mad‘, apparently Red Flag. He wasn’t really interested in me, not genuinely, just wanted someone to be endlessly impressed with his big idea for a movie. Red Flag. I didn’t care, I needed a distraction. I would have gone out with a blue elephant had there been one handy at the time.

He took me for a trip to his home country to think about locations for his movie, and I met some of his family – way too early, Red Flag. It all felt strangely impersonal, like a trip a location scout might take with a director. I felt like I was an actor in an audition where the director couldn’t make up his mind. I wasn’t quite right for the role, I don’t do endlessly impressed, thank God!

Once back, I went away for a weekend to see my oldest school friend. He was going to meet me at Paddington on my return. However, there was a fire on the track, and the three-hour journey back took six hours. He was furious – like it was my fault? No hug of return, just silent fury. Red flag.

I wasn’t allowed to initiate sex Red Flag. Then we went for an evening to one of his friends’ flats. We were talking about a film he and I had seen, a drama set in his homeland. I offered a slight criticism, and he turned on me, rubbishing what I said, turning nasty totally out of the blue. That Red Flag I got. I wish I’d said to him, I’m the one with a decade of experience in drama, not you. I’m the one who has actually directed a drama, not you. I wish I’d just gotten up and left, but I didn’t. I sat there thinking he’s upset about his film having fallen through, the film we’d seen was set in his country, so there might have been cultural sensitivities to consider. The shit I was going through at the time, most people would agreed was awful and I wasn’t turning on anyone. Disproportionate fury, disrespect, and double standards Red flags.

That’s what nice girls do: they understand, they’re patient, and they cater to their boyfriends. He dumped me, but if I’m honest, I just felt irritation and relief; I didn’t want that part. I’d been out with friends in Nottinghill about six months later, and as I walked down a crowded platform, I bumped into him. I just kept walking. He got off at the next station, nonchalantly moving toward my carriage while waiting for his connecting tube. I slunk back into my seat. There was no power on earth that was going to move me. That was it. The lesson I learnt was DON’T date mean.

#WhyDoesHeDoThat