Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men (29 page)

Does he think carefully through these concerns? Probably not entirely. He reacts largely on automatic, based on ruts in his thinking and behavior that have been deepening for years. And yet, I also keep observing how much more aware my clients are of their own strategies than you might expect; when they are upset with me, as they so often are, they often forget to keep their masks on, and they blurt out their honest thoughts and plans.

T
HE
A
BUSER
W
HO
W
ANTS
THE
R
ELATIONSHIP TO
E
ND

What if your partner is the one who breaks off the relationship, or what if he’s in complete agreement that you two don’t belong together? The good news is that, if you don’t have children with him, he may stay largely out of your hair. Perhaps he is interested in another woman or just wants to return to pursuing his fantasy of the dream girl who does everything for him and never challenges him. Or maybe something else altogether is occupying his mind.

I regret to say that even then peace is not an entirely sure thing (although I have not often heard of
physical
assaults by an abuser postseparation if he accepts the breakup, except in cases of ongoing conflicts over the children). Even the abusive man who is ready to be single again may still crave retaliation for all the ways he feels you hurt him, which in his distorted perceptual system may include all the times you defended yourself, questioned the superiority of his knowledge and judgment, or refused to simply be a carbon copy of him. So he may spread distorted stories about the history of your relationship or tell outright lies to try to turn people against you. Since he has to see himself as the more powerful one, he may declare that
he
broke things off while you “begged” him for another chance and that
you
“promised to change.” These kinds of aftershocks of abusive behavior can be painful.

An abuser who accepts the end of the relationship, or even desires it, may nonetheless continue to try to settle old scores with you through the children, a matter we explore further in Chapter 10.

There are cases, of course, where the woman genuinely wants to continue the relationship and the abuser does not. My clients sometimes leave a woman to punish her. Women in this position can experience the abuser’s departure as one final slap in the face following a long line of previous ones—figuratively or literally—that leaves her feeling even more humiliated and unlovable. Therefore it does not help an abused woman when people say to her: “What are you upset about? You’re lucky to be rid of him.” Anyone who wants to support an abused woman’s recovery and empowerment needs to have room for both her sadness and her outrage about being left and to understand that his exit was just one more way she was walked on.

Abusers who take off often leave other damage in their wake besides the emotional or physical injuries to the woman. Debts, destroyed belongings, pregnancy, or traumatized children may be dumped in her lap. Communities that want to support abused women need to recognize that the abuser can create difficulties that endure long beyond his departure.

L
EAVING AN
A
BUSER
S
AFELY

Attempting to determine the level of risk that a particular abuser will become physically violent is a complex and imprecise process. If you are concerned that your partner may react destructively or violently to being left, listen carefully to your intuitions even if he has not been violent, or not extremely so, in the past. A recent study found that women’s own predictions regarding future violence by their abusive partners were far more accurate than assessments based on any other factor.

Separation can be an especially risky time. I was close to a case recently in which a woman left a psychological abuser who became increasingly threatening and scary over the months after she left him, to the point where she went as far as making arrangements with relatives regarding who should care for her two children in the event of her death. And although he had never hit her during their relationship, he tragically did in fact kill her, hiding a block away from the courthouse to ambush her as she was leaving a hearing where she had obtained a restraining order against him, after which he committed suicide. (As a result of a brief speech I gave about this homicide death, I have come to know her heartbroken parents personally.)

A
SSESSING THE
P
OTENTIAL
V
IOLENCE OF AN
A
BUSER

The danger signs below can be useful whether or not you are currently thinking of leaving your partner. Some combination of these elements has been found to be present frequently—though not always—in cases where abusers have committed the most seriously violent acts. Pay attention to your own inner voice as you consider these indicators:

There is, regrettably, no science to using these indicators. It would be misleading for me to say, for example, “Three to five ‘yes’ answers reflect moderate danger, six and up mean ‘severe danger,’” or offer a similar interpretation, because the reality is not that simple. Some guides to assessing the risk of violence from abusers have created such “low-, moderate-, and high-risk” categories and by so doing can encourage women to underestimate the danger they are in by causing them to ignore their intuition. A small number of abusers who kill or severely injure their partners do so with
few or none
of the above elements known to be present, which is all the more reason to rely ultimately on your own “gut” feelings of how dangerous he is.

S
AFETY
P
LANNING

The fact that you are even wondering how far your partner’s abuse might go suggests to me that you have already seen aspects of him that are disquietingly mysterious or frightening. I urge you to seek assistance from a program for abused women (see “Resources”) and to create a
strategic safety plan
with an abuse specialist through that program. Safety plans can involve two different sets of steps, one for increasing your safety while living with your partner and another for if and when you decide to leave him. Bear in mind that the process of leaving an abusive man can be risky, so if you are preparing for a breakup put some extra thought into the kinds of precautions that you can take. Specialists who work with abused women report that those women who succeed in leaving and staying away almost always have a plan before they go.

A safety plan while you are living with your abusive partner can include the following elements, among many others:

• Plan different escape routes from your house in case your partner becomes violent, and plan where you would go if you needed to stay away overnight.
  
• Hide spare car keys and important documents (birth certificates, health cards, bank cards) in places where they are safe and where you could grab them and leave quickly.
  
• Try to get out of dangerous places during arguments, such as leaving the kitchen where there are knives and other sharp objects the abuser could use to assault you.
  
• Obtain a private post office box or some other address you can use to receive confidential mail.
  
• Set code words with friends or relatives and with your children that indicate an emergency, and plan how they are to respond if you say the code word in person or over the telephone.
  
• Open a secret bank account so that you will have access to funds should you need to flee.
  
• Keep a working phone in a room with a door that locks so that you will be able to call for help in an emergency.
  
• Carry a cell phone.
  
• Obtain a firearm permit so that you can carry pepper spray.
  
• Stay away from drugs or alcohol yourself to make sure that your judgment is never impaired, and seek substance-abuse treatment for yourself if necessary.
  
• Call the abused women’s hotline if you are afraid, and call the police if the danger is immediate.
  

After you leave your abusive partner, there are additional items you can add to your safety plan, a few of which include:

• Change the locks on your home.
  
• Inform neighbors of the danger and give them descriptions or photographs of the abuser and his car.
  
• Inform people at your workplace of the potential danger to you.
  
• Tell your children not to talk to the abuser and to seek assistance immediately if they see him.
  
• Advise the local police department of the risk to you, including any past threats or violence by your ex-partner, and ask what special services or protections might be available.
  
• Inform the children’s schoolteachers and administrators of the risk, and provide them with a photograph of the abuser and other information, including a copy of your restraining order if you have one.
  
• Teach your children how to dial 911 from home and cell phones.
  
• Vary the routes that you and your children travel.
  
• If you plan to involve the court, such as by seeking a restraining order, contact a court advocate if one is available, and develop an additional safety plan with the advocate that specifically addresses how you can most safely use the court process. If you do obtain a restraining order, keep a copy on your person at all times and leave additional copies in your home, vehicles, and workplace.
  

These are selected examples of plans you can make, ideally with the assistance of an abuse specialist, to increase your safety and protect your children. You can call an abuse hotline and develop a safety plan without even providing your name or telephone number, ensuring your complete privacy. If you can go to the abused women’s program and meet with an advocate face-to-face, all the better. I also strongly recommend the books
When Love Goes Wrong
and
It’s
My
Life Now,
both listed in the “Resources” section, for any woman who is struggling to get safe from a frightening partner.

If you are afraid of your abusive partner it is important to make a safety plan
even if you do not plan to leave him at this point.
If he has demonstrated that he has a capacity for violence, or you suspect that he does, there is every reason to start planning
now
for how you will keep yourself and your children safe should a dangerous situation arise in the future.

Some psychologically abused women feel confident that their partners would never escalate to violence or threats. However, my experience is that most abusive men—though not all—do become physically frightening sooner or later, even if they never follow through with using violence. It makes sense for every abused woman to spend some time considering how she will respond if the unexpected happens.

If you are prepared to leave your relationship, safety planning becomes even more important. If you are afraid of your partner, don’t tell him that you are breaking up with him until you have a clear plan and feel that you can inform him in a safe way. Then break all contact with him. Staying out of touch with an abusive ex-partner can be very difficult. The more afraid you are of him, the more tempted you may feel to check up on how he is doing, because in the past your safety may have depended on your constant awareness of his moods and readiness to respond to them. But making contact with him can be very dangerous as he may sound friendly and say that he just wants to see you for one final talk or to say good-bye, and then use that opportunity to attack you physically or sexually. I have been aware of a few cases where the man made an innocent-sounding excuse to get together “just once” and then murdered the woman for having left him. It is natural to have the hope of staying friends with an ex-partner, but this is rarely possible with an abusive man and is absolutely impossible with one who is physically dangerous to you. And if he doesn’t choose to hurt you, he may lure you into becoming reinvolved with him instead.

A
BUSED
W
OMEN WITH
C
HILDREN

Ending a relationship with an abusive man can be considerably more complicated for a woman with children, especially if the abuser is the children’s legal father (biological or adoptive). The risk that the abuser will try to harm the children, turn them against you, or attempt to win custody of them through the legal system requires an additional strategic planning process. These issues are examined in detail in the next chapter.