“To hurt or injure by maltreatment; To assail with contemptuous, coarse or insulting language; an unjust, wrongful practice.”
American Heritage College Dictionary
“To inflict physical or emotional harm, intentionally or through the reckless disregard of another.”
Cornell and Taylor, 2008
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Women Abusers often fall into two categories:
1. Abusive Controllers: Women who want to control you so they can own you mind, body and
soul. You are an extension of herself, to be arranged and managed. She is not interested in who you are, but only in whom she requires you
to be. To her, compliance is love. Meeting her rigid expectations and giving her complete access to you, 24/7, is what she wants from you.
2. Abusive Consumers: Women who want to control you so they can have access to everything
you've got. You are a tool she uses to mold her own life. She is more
interested in than the relationship she has with you. To her, giving to her
is love. She may resist too much closeness, because closeness is really
more of a means to an end; beyond that, it's is problem for her.
**Important to Note: Some women take on aspects of both these postures, so watch and listen
carefully. One thing is certain: whether she’s a Controller, a Consumer or both,
it's all about her, all the time. Your role is limited to what you’re doing for her, or
failing to do for her.
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Abusive behavior in intimate partner relationships can be broken down into three general categories:
- Manipulation and Control Tactics
- Emotional Abuse
- Physical Abuse
The course of an abusive relationship often begins with manipulation and control tactics and escalates over time to include emotionally and physically abusive behavior. However, these behaviors can occur in any combination at any time. A person’s abuse experience will often spill over into all three groups simultaneously. Regardless of the type of abusive behavior, the pathological purpose behind it is control.It’s important to note, some women have a controlling, manipulative style in relationships with men, and while this is often inappropriate, it may not cross over into the abuse arena. The difference is in the tone behind her actions. You are looking for a threatening, commanding, intimidating tone behind her words, body language and actions toward you. If this is the case, you may be in the beginning stages of an abusive relationship, if not a fully established abuse scenario.
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Manipulation and Control Tactics:
These tactics are used to change the balance of power in the relationship. This begins in subtle ways early in the relationship with hidden invasions of privacy, jealousy and possessiveness disguised as passion, increasing demands for your time and attention, and extreme behavior.
The Abusive Consumer will use these methods to begin the process of getting what she wants from you.
The Abusive Controller will use these methods to begin taking control of your life away from you.
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Emotional Abuse:
A pattern of mental attack, causing a sense of impending threat in the relationship. Everything good between you dangles on the edge of abuse, depending solely on whether or not you remain in her good graces. These attacks involve demeaning verbal attacks on a person’s identity and the destruction of positive self-worth. This is used both as a punishment for failing to meet rigid, unhealthy expectations and as a means to manipulate the victim into falling back into line.
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Physical Abuse:
When anger becomes physical, there is physical as well as emotional harm being inflicted. Acts of violence, the threat of violence and the destruction of property all demonstrate a physical threat to one’s safety and well-being, whether an injury occurs or not. A woman’s ability to cause serious injury to a man should never be underestimated. The element of surprise and the use of weapons will quickly even the playing field.
Here are some behaviors you may experience in each category:
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Manipulation/Control
- Jealousy and possessiveness
- Highly sexualized behavior
- Extreme Behavior
- Risk-taking behavior
- Monitoring your phone calls
- Monitoring your email
- Checking your clothes for signs of another woman
- Unannounced visits to check on your whereabouts
- Sudden Mood changes
- Frequent or excessive phone calls
- Stalking and surveillance when you’re apart
- Growing mistrust, without cause
- Early isolation: keeping you all to herself
- Excessive spending habits
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Emotional Abuse
- Manipulation and control tactics continue, taking a threatening turn
- The Silent Treatment
- Angry outbursts: accusations, extreme reactions
- Verbal attacks: demeaning words, name-calling
- Blaming you for her bad behavior
- Denying the abusive behavior ever occurred
- Minimizing or making light of her bad behavior
- Exaggerating your behavior to justify her own
- Withholding affection as a bargaining tactic
- Financial abuse
- Destruction of personal, cherished belongings
- Threats: Abandonment, slander, false allegations
- Isolation tactics: cutting you off from friends / family
- Lies about you to others
- Excessive spending, Abuse of mutual finances
- Public scenes, humiliation; threats of public humiliation
- Threatening to abuse or neglect the children
- Threatening to leave with the children
- Threatening to prevent access to the children
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Physical Abuse
- Threats of violence
- Destruction of property
- Throwing objects at you, to intimidate or cause injury
- Spitting, slapping, scratching, biting, hitting, choking, cutting, punching
- Ambush attacks during sleep
- The use of objects or weapons to cause injury
- Sexual abuse: pain and/or injury deliberately inflicted to sexual areas of the body, during a fight, or in the form of an ambush during sex; also, pain and/or injury minimized as “rough sex”
- The use of poisons and chemicals to induce severe illness, injury or death.
- Manslaughter
- Murder
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