Stay Safe: Signs of a Potential Abuser

Emmature wrote:

Oh, Max. (Prays for your mom)

Me too. God, 10 years...

Yes, he wasn't always like that... and mom thought a baby would help to their relationship; instead... well, you see. Not surprising, his marriage ended up like that... he has three daughters and all of them from different women.

Sounds like he receives much more love than he gives.

Guess who's back, yep, mom's decade-long boyfriend. Sleeping on her bed, eating our food and told mom he would leave yesterday... blah, sh!tty world.

Oh, Max!


Your mom knows enough about good men to raise one... why can't she also date one?

She's really dependent on people, she's bound to him since she needs a handyman, someone who do the hardwork around the house and I heavily suspects she doesn't know how to date.

All those signs were exhibited by my ex, I knew it, and I called him on it.

Maxmordon wrote:

She's really dependent on people, she's bound to him since she needs a handyman, someone who do the hardwork around the house and I heavily suspects she doesn't know how to date.

That's how my abusive ex's mom is. I love her so dearly, but since she had him when she was a teen and married his abusive father she knows how to do nothing for herself.

It's funny, because she had him so young and because she's been so victimized she's both physically and mentally younger than some of the people I consider my "peers", even on this forum.

I once had to change her smoke alarm battery for her; she was about to call over one of her loser bfs to do it.

I feel like a simple home repair course for battered women could do an awful lot of good.

^^Neat- that was my hundreth post!

Emmature wrote:

Maxmordon wrote:

She's really dependent on people, she's bound to him since she needs a handyman, someone who do the hardwork around the house and I heavily suspects she doesn't know how to date.

That's how my abusive ex's mom is. I love her so dearly, but since she had him when she was a teen and married his abusive father she knows how to do nothing for herself.

It's funny, because she had him so young and because she's been so victimized she's both physically and mentally younger than some of the people I consider my "peers", even on this forum.

I once had to change her smoke alarm battery for her; she was about to call over one of her loser bfs to do it.

I feel like a simple home repair course for battered women could do an awful lot of good.

She got me when she was young and always had my grandpa for helping her until he got senile. The he got his boyfriend when I was like 6 or 7 and they have been together ever since. She always tells me she needs a man for doing the manly work around the house. (painting, plumping, repairing the car, etc.)

*Names have been changed.

Today I was at hobby Lobby and I ran into an old friend. Being surrounded by art supplies we got distracted talking about those, but the subject soon turned darker. She asked me if Chris* had finally moved out. I told her he had, and had then been sent to jail for assault. He's out now, so I'm watching my back. I told her that next time Chris comes around I'm not opening the door. She warned me that that's what the father of her two children is in jail for now- she wouldn't open the door so he broke it down and beat her worse than ever before.

She's still with him.

The state makes her go to classes and they cover those very same signs of a potential abuser. She reflected to me that they're "Bullshit- Matt* never exhibited any of those signs." Chris* didn't either. We talked about that. Next thing we knew we had been in Hobby Lobby for 3 hours.

I realized so much about myself, and more-so the overall battered woman mentalaty. First off, Me, my friend, and Chris's mom would never see ourselves as "battered women." We are strong, and we prove our strength by staying with men who are broken beyond repair. What heroes we would be if we repaired these men! How noble we are just for staying with them!

I tried to talk my friend down from this mindset but it was hard for me not to drown in it myself.

Also, when you're dealing with a punk-rock chick like my friend or a quirky goth like me, the feeling that one can live outside the norm is a way of life. Tell us "he'll never change- he's bad for you-" and (like satan-worship and absithe) it only seems like more fun. This is a bet you think you can win. Afterall, do you do anything else the way society tells you to?

It's strange, remembering how to see it through the abused's eyes. I don't exist like that any more, but my friend and so many others do.

I wish I had a happy ending to this story, but at the end my friend left with some new markers and I left praying my new boyfriend's not a hitter.

It's not necessarily only an anger issue, usually there are control issues there as well. My first "love" was abusive, and he had a lot of control issues. If I did something that wasn't in his realm of acceptability, he would freak out. He would also expect me to read his mind and know what I did wrong without telling me.

The two things in that article that were really applicable to my experience were the "Too Much, Too Fast" and the "Blame Game." He told me he loved me on our second date, and also he would blame everyone else for his problems, ESPECIALLY the ones that were his own fault (i.e. he skipped work one day without calling in, and when they fired him he blamed me, them, his friends, everyone but himself).

Last year, after I got dumped by yet another a**hole (but not an abusive one), this ex contacted me and we hung out a few times. I had no intention of getting back with him but I really wanted to see if he had changed. He kept telling me that he had. I saw a lot of things to indicate that he hadn't, and when he started getting to close I cut off all contact with him.

So there's another lesson in there....people can change, but don't let them be the judge of that. He might think he changed a lot but I disagreed.

Its really weird as if you are with someone that has control issues you tend to apologize way to much for things that are really not your fault or control. I just think that some people can change but they have to want to change. Then there are the people that are abusers whether they be the physical or mental seem to always have abusive pasts and those people seem to be the ones that never change no matter how much they say they have.Its like a cycle that keeps repeating itself over and over again.

Yeah, control does seem to be at the heart of the other issues. The control aspect is the one that turns my stomach: the very notion that one person thinks s/he has the right to commandeer another person's life.

I know my father had pretty intense OCD, and I think I have vestiges of it too. In light of knowledge about my father (and of the thinking I've done because of conversations on this thread -- thank you to everyone who has posted) I try really hard not to fly off the handle if my husband does something that annoys me.

Thanks for posting the article. I've never dated, but at least now I know what to look out for when/if I do.

I don't have much else to add since I've never been in this situation or had someone close to me be in this situation.

Also, does anyone else find this article to be a little...biased?

I mean couldn't the same thing happen in same-sex relationships, or in the reverse?
What about the men in relationships with abusive women. Or the women dating other, abusive women.
I'm willing to bet there aren't as many help centers for them.
I feel bad for the men with abusive wives or husbands because no one seems to talk about those situations. That or the men themselves may be afraid to go to anyone for help.

^^ Yeah, absolutely. It can happen in same-sex relationships (in these cases it goes unreported, for a lot of reasons), and there are cases in which a man's wife or GF is abusive -- people might say, why doesn't he fight back? The core answer is, he knows it's wrong to hit.

I don't think the article is biased, since abusive man / abused woman is a very common scenario. It was also socially acceptable at one time, which is another reason why that particular circumstance gets the lion's share of study -- to alter the perspective that it should ever be OK. And there have been arguments to justify it or sweep it under the rug, so in response to this, it is the scenario that gets the most coverage.