February 19, 2024 • 36 mins
We're back and still studying Lundy Bancroft's wonderful book, Why Does He Do That?
This week I'm explaining the myths (aka excuses) abusers use to justify their behavior. According to Lundy, there is a lot to unpack here. Do you blame your partner's behavior on his childhood? How about alcohol? Ex-partner who did him wrong? We're debunking all of that and explaining how those myths are just that--- a load of crap. Listen in to better understand your toxic situation.
Thank you so much for listening! I hope you enjoyed this podcast. If so, please leave a rating and review so we can spread the word to the women who need it the most. Below you'll find links to my website, social media, and resources for victims. If you believe you're in danger, please seek help immediately. There are people out there who want to help and who truly care. Myself included! You're worth so much more.
Also, some links in my show notes may be affiliate links. This means I earn a tiny amount of money if you buy a product I recommend. You should know, I never recommend crap.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's time to wake up witches.
I'm your host, cat Adams, andI'm here to remind you that, no
matter where you're at in life,you're not stuck.
All right, we are back.
(00:29):
And we're not even gonna talkabout the mess that has been the
past few weeks because Allright, yeah, I'm gonna talk
about it I've been getting myass kicked at work, plain and
simple.
I have been getting my asskicked at work.
Oh my gosh, this new role I'mtaking on.
(00:50):
For instance, it's a Saturdayand it is eight o'clock in the
morning, but for the past hourI've been working and I was like
I can't do this to myself.
I can't do this to myself.
I've got to step away and I'vegot to Record this podcast.
So, yeah, then can my asskicked.
(01:11):
But that's how you grow, right?
You know you do new stuff, youtry new stuff, you learn new
stuff, and then you grow and I'mnot done growing.
So that's what's going on withme with work.
So at the end of the day, Iseriously only have like the
capacity to Crawl into bed orlay on the couch and watch TV,
(01:33):
and I feel like a zombie.
I feel like a zombie.
It's, it's been defeating me.
I'm not gonna laugh.
And because it's been such achallenge, I've had to make some
tough decisions and one ofthose, unfortunately, was giving
up one of my volunteeropportunities and I was really
upset about that and it was veryhard for me to be real with
(01:58):
myself and do that.
But that's what this podcast isall about, right, authenticity,
truth, being real, being trueto yourself, knowing when to say
yes, knowing when to say no,knowing when to take action.
And I had I'd sign up tovolunteer with this agency in
December and you go through awhole process.
(02:18):
It's like interviewing,basically, and In January I
started their training and theirtraining was like, you know,
watch these videos or whatever,and it took me quite some time,
like I watched the videos, andIn the middle of my training is
when I got my promotion and so Ipushed through and I still
(02:42):
watched the videos and, you know, did everything they told me to
do to prepare and it's like asix-month commitment and I did.
And then, right after mytraining, I finished all my
training.
Right after my training, one ofthe workers there Asked me
before I got officially,officially started even though I
(03:03):
thought I had officiallystarted when I was doing,
spending my time doing thetraining, said hey, just want to
make sure two more questionswith for you before we move on.
Can you commit?
For six months and I had tocome to Jesus meeting with
myself and I was, I Was kind ofin breakdown mode because my new
(03:26):
job is a lot of pressure andstress and it's just not easy.
It's not easy and I Said I'msorry, I can't, that is not like
Me, that's that's not mebecause I.
It's not that I can't say no topeople, it's that I Can't say
(03:51):
no to myself.
And I wanted to connect withthis agency because it's like a
domestic violence support,survivor thing, and I wanted to
network with other survivors.
I wanted to learn the business,I wanted to understand how I
can better help people.
I wanted to see how a nonprofitworks.
(04:11):
I wanted to Give back, I wantedto do all those things.
But I need to get real withmyself when I'm physically
unable to Do anything else,because, don't forget, I already
volunteer for another agency aswell and it's way more touch
(04:31):
and go.
It's like, hey, you think youcan write this press release for
me and I'm like sure I can dothat.
Like you know, I can do that in10 minutes.
I'll do it on Sunday orwhatever, and I really have to
do it.
I guess it's touch and go, it'smaybe once every few weeks or
something, but this othercommitment Seemed like another
(04:53):
job.
Honestly it was.
It sounded like a lot, I don'tknow.
I didn't get into it, I justgot into the training.
But the way they set it up waslike me taking on another job.
And Back in December, when Iapplied, yes, yes, I would have
done that if I still was in myrole, my old role at my company.
(05:13):
But I'm in a new role in mycompany and I can't do it.
Ooh, that hurts, saying that Ijust couldn't do it.
So I feel like I let everybodydown and I feel like I let
myself down.
But guess what?
I didn't let myself down, Ijust gave myself a much needed
(05:35):
break.
I just got real with myself.
And that hurt for anoverachiever like me, because I
can spend my time at work,because I have to right, I have
to make a living.
I can spend my timevolunteering off and on.
But one thing I'm not gonna giveup is this right here my
(05:56):
podcast, my books, my brand, mylove for handling this sensitive
topic of abuse in my own way,which is usually lots of butt
jokes and F-bombs, right,because guess who runs this show
Me?
I get to do what I want with myown brand, my own business, run
(06:20):
it the way I want and not haveto be tied to.
You know, like a normal job.
This is just more than a hobby.
Like this is my passion, and ifI have any capacity at the end
of the day after my job thatbrings in income so I can
(06:45):
support my family, it's gonna goto this.
It's gonna go to catsshenanigans, because, also, I
think I don't give myself enoughcredit for all this work I do.
You know, like this is likevolunteer work too.
I am preaching to the massesabout how your man is an asshole
(07:07):
and you need to divorce him,and I think a lot of women need
to hear that.
So we're about to go over theshow.
One last thing I wanted tosuggest that was like, oh my
gosh, therapy for me Goatsnuggling.
Go find yourself some goats tosnuggle.
And so over here nearby we havea farm and it was like $10 for
(07:29):
an hour of goat snuggles.
I was like, fuck yeah, it'sbaby goat snuggle job.
These goats are like so tinyand you can pick them up.
They're like a cat and you justsnuggle them and I did it and I
loved it and it was liketherapy you just holding, loving
on a baby goat.
Does it eat your hair?
Yeah.
Does it poop on you?
(07:50):
Yeah, probably, but it wasstill so therapeutic.
So if you have like I don'tknow somewhere where we can go
snuggle something, go do it.
It felt amazing.
And also along those same plans,we have another farm that's not
far away and they have thoseScottish cows.
(08:14):
Is that what they're calledScottish Highlander Cow or
something?
Or is it just Highlander Cow?
They're not a Scot, I don'tknow.
They're the furry cows.
I want to go squeeze one ofthose.
So bad, I just, oh, my gosh,like they look so, so cute and
there's always a bunch of babiesrunning around like baby cows
(08:36):
and I don't think they have likea petting thing, cause it's
actually a beef farm and I'mactually going up there here in
two hours to get some beef andnow that makes me feel awful,
cause I want to cuddle thosecows and I want to eat them.
Gosh, I'm going to have torevisit that one.
Hmm, I mean, their beef isreally good, but find you
(08:58):
something to snuggle.
And I know if y'all alreadyprobably have pets and stuff.
I have a pet too.
Y'all know about my Bailey.
I can't snuggle her, she's oncrack.
But, oh my gosh, I'm rambling.
I was just trying to tell y'allwhat's going on with me.
Well, what's going on with thepodcast, what's going on with
the books and all that jazz, notquitting any of it, just trying
(09:19):
to set up my schedule, am Igoing to move to the podcast
once every two weeks?
I don't know.
I just don't know.
Yet my social media has beenput on pause and my writing has
been put on pause, but thispodcast is still chugging along
and, like I said, I don't knowabout the schedule.
If you have strong feelingsabout any of this, please,
please, reach out to me onInstagram at authorcatadams,
(09:42):
because I want to help peopleand if this is helping you and
you're like bitch, you betterdeliver this podcast on time
every week, tell me.
Like I said, this is my passion.
I love doing it.
I just need to figure out abalance and I can give up some
things to do something that issuper helpful for others.
(10:04):
So on with the show.
This show is about the mythologysurrounding abuse.
Now, last time we talked I knowwe talked about we're doing the
Matt Lundy book, right why doeshe do that?
And so we kind of visited whyhe does that, like the mystery
surrounding the behavior.
And in this episode we're goingto discuss the mythology, or
(10:28):
basically the bullshit.
They tell you.
In the bullshit you tellyourself about the situation.
So let me read some excerptshere, and this says some of the
mythology, some of these excusesyou might be saying, like, for
instance, he's crazy, he feelsso bad about himself.
I just need to build up hisself image a little bit.
He just loses it.
(10:50):
He's so insecure, his motherabused him and now he has a
grudging women and takes it outon me.
I'm so confused I don'tunderstand what's going on with
him.
That last one yes, we've beenthere, done that.
Matt says in one important wayan abusive man works like a
magician.
His tricks largely rely ongetting you to look off in the
wrong direction, distractingyour attention so that you won't
notice where the real action is.
(11:11):
He draws you into focusing onthe turbulent world of his
feelings to keep your eyesturned away from the true cause
of his abusiveness, which liesin how he thinks he leads you
into a convoluted maze, makingyour relationship with him a
labyrinth of twists and turns.
He wants you to puzzle over him, to try to figure him out, as
though he were a wonderful butbroken machine, for what you
(11:33):
only need to find and fix themalfunctioning parts to bring it
roaring to its full potential.
His desire, though he might notadmit it to himself, is that
you rack your brain in this wayso that you won't notice the
patterns and logic of hisbehavior, the consciousness
behind the craziness.
To further divert your gaze, hemay work to shape your view of
(11:54):
his past partners, to keep youfrom talking to them directly
and to prepare you to disbelievethem, should you happen to hear
what they say.
Ooh, we've all been.
Now I think that's even a meme.
Like if he says hisex-girlfriend's crazy, that's a
red flag because bullshit,that's probably him that's crazy
Above all, the abusive manwon't so void having you zero in
(12:14):
on his abusiveness itself.
So he tries to fill your headup with excuses and distortions
and keep you weighed down withself-doubt and self-blame.
And unfortunately, much of thesociety tends to follow
unsuspectingly along behind him,helping him to close your eyes
and his own to his problem.
Johnny Depp, the mythology aboutabusive men that runs through
(12:35):
modern culture has been createdlargely by the abusers
themselves.
So let's talk about this, allright.
They want you to be superconfused and they're gonna give
you all these excuses for theirbehavior and he is about to
break them down how those arebullshit excuses.
(12:56):
So we know he's mysterious, butwe know it's also by design and
he uses usually these thingsI'm about to touch on to make
you believe his behavior iscoming from another area.
And it's not.
It's just his way of thinking.
He's a woman-hater.
But let's break it down Now.
I'm not gonna go into every oneof these in detail, because
(13:18):
some of them to me is kind oflike in this day and age.
Yeah, we know that's ano-brainer, but some of them I
will go a little bit furtherinto some of them I'm still
hearing today.
If you want to go into these indetail, pick up this book.
It's.
I think it should be a mustread for any woman, honestly.
All right, so I'm flippingthrough the pages here.
(13:38):
The myths about abusers.
He was abused as a child.
His previous partner hurt him.
He abuses those he loves themost.
He holds in his feelings toomuch.
He has an aggressivepersonality.
He loses control.
He is too angry.
He is mentally ill.
We hear that all the time aboutmass shooters and they're
connected to domestic violence.
(13:59):
Let's break that one down.
He hates women.
He is afraid of intimacy andabandonment.
He has low self-esteem.
Oh, I just said he hates women,didn't I?
All right, his boss mistreatshim.
Maybe I'm not as smart as Ithink I was.
He has poor skills incommunication and conflict
resolution.
There's many abusive women asabusive men.
His abusiveness is bad for him.
(14:20):
As for his partner, what?
He's a victim of?
Racism.
He abuses alcohol, drugs, allright.
First one.
First myth he was abused as achild and he needs therapy for
it.
And this goes into is itbecause he was abused as a child
?
Short story here.
Let me sum this up he is goinginto research and he's like no,
(14:44):
all right, so we're crossingthat one off the list.
I don't hear that one muchanymore either.
I guess, if you now I do in theway of like okay, well, he saw
his dad doing that to his mombecause, right, that's the cycle
and they learn from that.
Let me go into this a littlebit deeper here.
Okay, this is interesting, hesays an abusive man may
(15:05):
embellish his childhoodsuffering once he discovers that
it helps him escaperesponsibility.
The National District AttorneyAssociation Bulletin reported a
revealing study that he wasconducted on another group of
destructive men child sexualabusers.
The researcher asked each manwhether he himself had been
sexually victimized as a child.
A hefty 67% of the subject saidyes.
However, the researcher theninformed the man that he was
(15:27):
gonna hook them up to a liedetector test and asked them the
same questions again.
Affirmative answers suddenlydropped to only 29%.
In other words, abusers of allvarieties tend to realize the
mileage they can get out ofsaying I'm abusive because the
same thing was done to me Ooh,that was a good one.
So basically, no, don't listento it, and honestly so.
(15:52):
There's still 29% of those menwho say that's why they are the
way they are.
But I'm not here for them.
I'm here for you and if you'rein this situation, I don't give
a fuck what happened to those29% men.
Get out, because we're alladults and we can all make
decisions.
And those 29% of men, even ifthey had been hurt as a child,
have the ability to not hurt you.
(16:15):
They can control their ownbehavior right.
That's what it's all about.
It's not about them being socrazy and out of control and,
like I said, we'll go to thementally ill thing.
No, no, I'm here for you, I'mnot here for them.
All right.
Myth number two he says he had aprevious partner who mistreated
him terribly and now he has aproblem with women as a result.
(16:35):
He's a wonderful man and thatbitch made him get like this.
Well, he escalated that quickly.
Come on, if you're talking likethat about another woman and
you truly believe that, then youneed to go to therapy too,
because maybe he did have anex-girlfriend.
That was not very nice, but weknow how these things tend to go
(16:56):
right.
I mean, have you been on thoseFacebook groups?
It's like, are we dating thesame guy?
And like, for instance, memphis, I mean I'm in that group and
I'm not dating anyone.
Obviously I'm very happilymarried, but the trauma in there
, oh my gosh.
And it's like, yeah, he saidhis ex-girlfriend was crazy.
And then his ex-girlfriend ison the same group and she's like
(17:19):
, no, he has five differentbabies, mamas, he doesn't pay
child support, blah, blah, blah.
And it's like those groups areamazing.
Again, I'm not going intodetail because there's a lot
here and I wanna get throughthese before the 30 minute mark
and we're already at almost 18.
Myth number three he's abusivebecause he feels so strongly
(17:40):
about me.
People call those that theycare about most, people call
those that they care about mostdeeply the most pain.
Nope, all right, if you feelthat way, definitely get into
therapy.
No, myth number four he holdsin his feelings too much and
they build up until he burst.
He needs to get in touch withhis emotions and learn to
express them to prevent thoseexplosive episodes.
(18:00):
Again, no, come on let's.
He's an adult.
What are you?
Married to?
A toddler?
I know many of us are man child, that's what they're called.
Right, been there, done that.
Come on.
Myth number five he has aviolent, explosive personality.
He needs to learn to be lessaggressive.
Again, this is excuses.
(18:23):
To me, this isn't even myths.
This is just excuses you'regiving him or he's giving you.
Now we're moving on.
Myth number six he loses controlof himself.
He just goes wild.
Yeah, that's probably true.
He does lose control, but he'sstill in control, if that makes
sense.
It may seem like he's losingcontrol, but you're always in
control of your actions, andhere's a good one.
(18:44):
Is he doing it on purpose?
All right, matt says.
When a client of mine tells methat he became abusive because
he lost control of himself.
Right, that's what we're justtalking about.
I asked him why he didn't dosomething even worse.
For example, I say you calledher a fucking whore.
You grabbed the phone out ofher hand and whipped it across
the room and then you gave her ashove and she fell down.
(19:05):
There she was, at your feet.
Where would it have been easyto kick her in the head?
Now you have just finishedtelling me that you were totally
out of control at the time, butyou didn't kick her.
What stopped you?
And the client can always giveme a reason.
Here are some commonexplanations.
I wouldn't want to cause her aserious injury.
I realized one of the childrenwas watching.
(19:26):
I was afraid someone would callthe police.
I would kill her if I did that.
The fight was getting loud andI was afraid neighbors would
hear.
But the most frequent responseto that question what stopped
you?
Is Jesus, I wouldn't do that.
I would never do something likethat to her.
(19:46):
Matt goes on to say theresponse that I almost never
heard.
I remember hearing it twice in15 years was, I don't know.
These ready answers strippedthe cover off my client's loss
of control excuses?
While a man is on an abusiverampage, verbally or physically,
his mind maintains awareness ofa number of questions.
Am I doing something that otherpeople could find out about so
(20:09):
it could make me look bad?
Am I doing anything that couldget me in legal trouble?
Could I get hurt myself?
Am I doing anything that Imyself could consider too cruel,
gross or violent?
A critical insight seeped intome from working with my first
few dozen clients.
An abuser almost never doesanything that he himself
considers morally unacceptable.
(20:31):
He may hide what he doesbecause he thinks other people
would disagree with it, but hefeels justified inside.
I can't remember a client everhaving said to me there's no way
I can defend what I did, it wasjust totally wrong.
He invariably has a reason thathe considers good enough.
In short, an abuser's coreproblem is that he has a
(20:51):
distorted sense of right andwrong.
Always remember that.
All right, he has a verydistorted sense of what's right
and wrong.
He has control of himself.
Moving along to myth numberseven, he's too angry.
(21:11):
He needs to learn angermanagement skills.
You can go into detail on that,but here's the one I wanna go
into detail on.
This is myth number eight.
He's crazy.
He's got some mental illnessthat he should be medicated for
Now.
Yes, I say this man's crazy allthe time.
Right, I am not afraid to sayhe's crazy, but I'm using that
(21:32):
in a different way.
I'm not using that as in likehe's seriously got a mental
illness and he needs help.
Or like we see on TV, like Isaid at the beginning of the
podcast, like someone is a massshooter and All the news outlets
are like oh, he's got somethingwrong with him in his head,
he's got some kind of mentalillness, and it's like bullshit,
(21:54):
bullshit.
And a lot of those massshooters, most of them, have a
domestic violence background.
Hmm, I wonder what the linkthere is.
But yeah, he's crazy, butthere's a lot of people with
mental illness out there whoaren't going around shooting up
people.
But let's break it down.
Let's see what Matt says aboutit.
When a man's face contorts inbitterness and hatred, he looks
(22:15):
a little insane.
When his mood changes fromelated to assaultive, and the
time it takes to turn around,his mental stability seems open
to question.
When he accuses his partner ofplotting to harm him.
He seems paranoid.
It's no wonder that the partnerof an abusive man would come to
suspect that he was mentallyill.
Yet the great majority of myclients over the years have been
psychology, have beenpsychologically normal.
(22:35):
Their minds work logically,they understand cause and effect
.
They don't hallucinate.
Their perceptions of most life,of most of life circumstances,
are reasonably accurate.
They get good reports at work,they do well in school or
training programs and no oneother than their partners and
children thinks that there'sanything wrong with them.
Ooh, dr Jekyll and I.
(22:57):
Their value system isn'thealthy, not their psychology.
Much of what appears to becrazy behavior in an abuser
actually works well for him.
The most recent research showsthat even in physically violent
abusers the rate of mentalillness is not high.
Several of my brutal batteringclients have had psychological
(23:17):
evaluations and only one of themwas found to have a mental
illness.
At the same time, some of myclients whom I believe to be
truly insane have notnecessarily been among the most
violent.
Research does indicate that themost extreme physical batterers
, the ones who choke theirpartners to unconsciousness, who
hold guns to their heads, whostalk and kill, have increased
rates of mental illness, butthere is no particular mental
(23:40):
health condition that is typicalof these batterers.
They can't have a range ofdiagnoses, including psychosis,
borderline personality, manicdepression, antisocial
personality, obsessivecompulsive disorder and others.
And even among the mostdangerous abusers there are many
who do not show clearpsychiatric symptoms of any time
.
How can all these differentmental illnesses cause such
(24:03):
similar behavioral patterns?
The answer is they don't.
Mental illness doesn't causeabuseness anymore than alcohol
does.
What happens is rather that themain psychiatric problem
interacts with his abusivenessto form a volatile combination.
If he is severely depressed,for example, he may stop caring
(24:24):
about the consequences of hisactions, which can increase the
danger that he will decide tocommit a serious attack against
his partner or children.
A mentally ill abuser has twoseparate though interrelated
problems, just as the alcoholicor direct addicted one does, and
he talks in depth about this.
So if you wanna go into moredetail, get this book.
(24:47):
But basically he just told yourass like no, do not blame it on
mental illness, all right.
Myth number nine he hates women.
His mother or some other womanmust have done something
terrible to him.
All right, now, I don't buyinto all that, but do I think
they hate women, and I'm readinga little bit more into this and
(25:08):
he's talking about how theydon't always hate women.
They just respect women andthey feel superior to women.
So, yes, they do feel superiorto women, but do they hate all
women, not all abusers?
But in my head, like, come on,if you're disrespectful and you
have a superiority complex towomen, I feel like that's kinda
I feel like that's hating them.
(25:28):
Well, maybe not, I don't know.
You can dig deeper into thatone.
That one's a really shortcouple of paragraphs that he
explains.
But in my mind, if you are,like, hung up on any of these,
ask yourself a question why areyou digging into all these myths
to find the one that you cansay, no, this is true, you know,
(25:53):
no, this.
My husband does experience thisand this is why I'm gonna stay
Excuses.
Go back to my podcast series.
Is my Husband Abusive or HisAny Asshole?
And listen to what I explainedthere.
Like, doesn't matter.
If you're at the point whereyou're reading this book, it's
great to have the knowledge, butI hope you're already forming
(26:14):
an exit plan.
Alright, moving on Myth 10.
He is afraid of intimacy in aband.
Imminent Myth 11.
He suffers from low self-esteem.
He needs his self-image shortup.
I'm going to talk about allthose.
His boss is myth 12.
His boss abuses him so he feelspowerless and then successful.
He comes home and takes it outon his family because that is
(26:36):
one place he can feel powerful,barf.
Come on now On that one.
It says the most importantpoint is this one In my 15 years
in the field of abuse, I havenever once had a client whose
behavior at home has improvedbecause his job situation
improved.
There Shot that myth in thebutt.
Myth number 13.
He has poor communication,conflict resolution and stress
(26:57):
management skills.
He needs training.
You know what?
In my experience, a lot ofthese abusive, narcissistic
assholes are really great atwork, like super charismatic and
high achievers.
So the whole poor communication, conflict resolution, stress
management skills no, also anexcuse.
(27:20):
Myth number 14.
There are just as many abusivewomen as abusive men.
These men are invisible becausethey are ashamed to tell.
And we're going to go into thisone, because I always hear this
Anytime you bring up abuse andhow, it's usually like women's
problem.
There's those people, men andwomen Might be some pick me out
there who's like, but men too.
(27:41):
Okay.
So Matt says there certainly aresome women who treat their male
partners badly, berating them,calling them names, attempting
to control them.
The negative impact on thesemen's lives can be considerable.
But do we see men whoself-esteem is gradually
destroyed through the process?
Do we see men whose progress inschool and their careers grinds
(28:01):
to a halt because of theconstant criticism and
undermining?
Where are the men whosepartners are forcing them to
have unwanted sex?
Where are the men who arefleeing to shelters and fear for
their lives?
How about the ones who try toget to a phone to call for help,
but the women block their wayor cut the line?
The reason we don't generallysee these men is simple they're
(28:21):
rare.
I don't question howembarrassing it would be for a
man to come forward and admitthat a woman is abusing him, but
don't underestimate howhumiliated a woman feels when
she reveals abuse.
Women crave dignity just asmuch as men do.
If shame stopped people fromcoming forward, no one would
tell.
Even if abused men didn't wantto come forward, they would have
been discovered by now.
Neighbors don't turn a deaf earto abuse the way they might
(28:43):
have 10 or 20 years ago.
Now, when people hear screamingobjects smashing its walls,
loud slaps landing on skin, theycall the police.
Among my physically abusiveclients, nearly one-third have
been arrested as a result of acall to police that came from
someone other than the abusedwoman.
If there were millions ofcow-trimbling men out there, the
police would be finding them.
(29:05):
Abusive men commonly like toplay the role of victim, and
most men who claim to bebattered men are actually the
perpetrators of violence, notthe victims.
In their efforts to adoptvictim status, my clients try to
exaggerate their partner'sverbal power.
Sure, I can win a physicalfight, but she is much better
with her mouth than I am, so I'dsay it balances out.
One very violent man said inhis group session she stabs me
(29:27):
through the heart with her wordsto justify the fact that he
stabbed his partner in the chestwith his knife.
But abuse is not a battle thatyou win by being better at
expressing yourself.
You win it by being better atsarcasm, put-downs, twisting
everything around backward andabusing other tactics of control
.
An arena in which my clientswin hands down over their
partners, just as they do in aviolent altercation.
(29:48):
Who can be an abuser at his owngame?
Men can be abused by other men,however, and women can be
abused by women, sometimesthrough means that include
physical intimidation orviolence.
If you're a gay man or lesbianwho's been abused by a partner
who's facing abuse now, most ofwhat I explained in this book
will ring loud bells for you.
The he and she language that Iuse obviously won't fit your
(30:09):
experience, but the underlyingdynamics that I describe largely
well.
All right.
Well, he just broke down thatmyth.
So the next time you hear a mansay, but what about the men?
You just go back to what I justexplained, like, does it
completely tear them down towhere they just have trouble,
you know?
Succeeding in life?
No, not likely.
(30:30):
Myth number 15, abuses is a badfor the man who's doing it, as
it is for his partner.
They are both victims.
Myth number 16, he is abusivebecause he has faced so much
societal discrimination anddisempowerment as a man of color
.
So at home he needs to feelpowerful.
And again, I'm skimming overthese because it's gonna be too
long.
I'm already at the 30 minutemark.
I'm so sorry I'm rambling on,but this is super useful
(30:53):
information, but it's superdetailed and this would be two
hours long if I kept going intoevery one of these.
So if they spark your interest,read the book, myth number 17,.
The alcohol is what makes himabusive.
If I can get him to stay sober,our relationship will be fine.
Now this one I do want to touchon a little bit, because I
actually hear it a lot.
Still so many men hide theirabusiveness under the cover of
(31:16):
alcoholism or drug addictionthat have chosen to devote
chapter 8 to explore this, toexplore the issue of addiction
in detail.
Ooh, we're gonna have to readthat one.
The most important point to beaware of is this Alcohol cannot
create an abuser and sobrietycannot cure one.
The only way a man can overcomehis abusiveness is by dealing
with his abusiveness, and youare not enabling your partner to
(31:39):
mistreat you.
He is entirely responsible forhis own actions, and that's
actually all he says about thatin this chapter, I guess, since
he has a whole chapter devotedto that.
But let me go over some keypoints he has here.
He says an abusive man'semotional problems do not cause
his abusiveness.
You can't change him byfiguring out what is bothering
(31:59):
him, helping him feel better orimproving the dynamics of your
relationship.
Right, you know what I say.
You know the slogan.
It's you're not stuck.
No, he won't change, but youwill stop trying to change him
and change yourself.
Figure out what's bothering you.
Help you feel better.
Improve the dynamics of youMoving on.
(32:20):
Feelings do not governabusiveness or controlling
behavior.
Beliefs, values and habits arethe driving force.
The reasons that an abusive mangives for his behavior are
simply excuses.
You said it, matt.
There's no way to overcome aproblem with abusiveness by
focusing on tangents such asself-esteem, comfort, resolution
, anger management are impulsiveor impulse control.
(32:41):
Abusiveness is resolved bydealing with abusiveness, plain
and simple.
I mean.
Remember that.
That is like the simpleststatement.
Abusiveness is resolved bydealing with abusiveness, and
that's the hard part, right?
That's why they don't ever fixthemselves.
Abusers thrive on creatingconfusion, including confusion
about the abuse itself.
And there is nothing wrong withyou.
(33:02):
Your partner's abuse problem ishis own.
That's how he ends that chapter.
So if this has been helpful foryou, please let me know.
I'm hoping you know I know mypodcast is mostly for empowering
women.
That's what I want to focus on.
But if it is helping you to beeducated and understanding why
he's doing that, the mysterysurrounding it and the myths
(33:24):
that you might be tellingyourself or he may be telling
you, we also need to armourselves with this knowledge so
we can move forward and be atpeace with the actions we're
taking and have that kind ofclosure and answers, because I
know, when I was in myrelationship I always was like
but I don't understand.
I don't understand.
I understand now, and if you'refeeling the same way, I hope
(33:46):
this again has been helpful.
That's all I got for today.
I have to go pick up some furrycow meat.
I hope I'm not like if I have avegetarian audience.
I'm so sorry.
I know that sounds horrible,doesn't it?
I'm starting to question thisdecision now.
I'm starting to feel too bad,especially after that dark topic
(34:09):
.
Right, but we're going to moveon next time with the next
podcast and dig a little bitdeeper into these and get to
that point where we're talkingabout the different types of
abusers, because I think that'ssuper enlightening.
In the meantime, please staysafe and, again, drop me a line
on Instagram at author cat Adams, slide into my DMs.
(34:31):
Well, let me know how you feelabout the podcast, podcast
scheduling, if anything has beenyour favorite, what you like,
what you don't like, what youwant to hear more of, and I can
totally do that.
I'm putting it in your hands.
Give me some feedback here.
Until next time.
No, he will not change, but youwill.
Thank you so much for listening.
(34:55):
If you love the show, pleaseleave a rating, a review, and if
you know anyone who also mightlove the show or who could
benefit from this information,please be sure to share it and
subscribe.
The more we get this out topeople, the more people we can
help, and I truly believethere's so many women who need
to hear these words, because somany women are feeling stuck.
(35:17):
Also, if you're looking for me,you can usually find me on the
ground, at author cat Adams, andbe sure to head over to my
website and that's cat Adams.
Adams with a double D'scom.
Subscribe to my newsletter forthe latest information.
Also, when you subscribe,you're going to get free novella
.
And just be for warned, myraunchy romcom is as dirty as my
(35:41):
mouth.
So if that's your thing, go forit.
It's super hilarious.
But thank you again for tuningin.
Until next time, please staysafe and I'll see you on the
other side.
It's time to wake up witches.
I'm your host, cat Adams, andI'm here to remind you that, no
matter where you're at in life,you're not stuck.
All right, we are back.
(00:29):
And we're not even gonna talkabout the mess that has been the
past few weeks because Allright, yeah, I'm gonna talk
about it I've been getting myass kicked at work, plain and
simple.
I have been getting my asskicked at work.
Oh my gosh, this new role I'mtaking on.
(00:50):
For instance, it's a Saturdayand it is eight o'clock in the
morning, but for the past hourI've been working and I was like
I can't do this to myself.
I can't do this to myself.
I've got to step away and I'vegot to Record this podcast.
So, yeah, then can my asskicked.
(01:11):
But that's how you grow, right?
You know you do new stuff, youtry new stuff, you learn new
stuff, and then you grow and I'mnot done growing.
So that's what's going on withme with work.
So at the end of the day, Iseriously only have like the
capacity to Crawl into bed orlay on the couch and watch TV,
(01:33):
and I feel like a zombie.
I feel like a zombie.
It's, it's been defeating me.
I'm not gonna laugh.
And because it's been such achallenge, I've had to make some
tough decisions and one ofthose, unfortunately, was giving
up one of my volunteeropportunities and I was really
upset about that and it was veryhard for me to be real with
(01:58):
myself and do that.
But that's what this podcast isall about, right, authenticity,
truth, being real, being trueto yourself, knowing when to say
yes, knowing when to say no,knowing when to take action.
And I had I'd sign up tovolunteer with this agency in
December and you go through awhole process.
(02:18):
It's like interviewing,basically, and In January I
started their training and theirtraining was like, you know,
watch these videos or whatever,and it took me quite some time,
like I watched the videos, andIn the middle of my training is
when I got my promotion and so Ipushed through and I still
(02:42):
watched the videos and, you know, did everything they told me to
do to prepare and it's like asix-month commitment and I did.
And then, right after mytraining, I finished all my
training.
Right after my training, one ofthe workers there Asked me
before I got officially,officially started even though I
(03:03):
thought I had officiallystarted when I was doing,
spending my time doing thetraining, said hey, just want to
make sure two more questionswith for you before we move on.
Can you commit?
For six months and I had tocome to Jesus meeting with
myself and I was, I Was kind ofin breakdown mode because my new
(03:26):
job is a lot of pressure andstress and it's just not easy.
It's not easy and I Said I'msorry, I can't, that is not like
Me, that's that's not mebecause I.
It's not that I can't say no topeople, it's that I Can't say
(03:51):
no to myself.
And I wanted to connect withthis agency because it's like a
domestic violence support,survivor thing, and I wanted to
network with other survivors.
I wanted to learn the business,I wanted to understand how I
can better help people.
I wanted to see how a nonprofitworks.
(04:11):
I wanted to Give back, I wantedto do all those things.
But I need to get real withmyself when I'm physically
unable to Do anything else,because, don't forget, I already
volunteer for another agency aswell and it's way more touch
(04:31):
and go.
It's like, hey, you think youcan write this press release for
me and I'm like sure I can dothat.
Like you know, I can do that in10 minutes.
I'll do it on Sunday orwhatever, and I really have to
do it.
I guess it's touch and go, it'smaybe once every few weeks or
something, but this othercommitment Seemed like another
(04:53):
job.
Honestly it was.
It sounded like a lot, I don'tknow.
I didn't get into it, I justgot into the training.
But the way they set it up waslike me taking on another job.
And Back in December, when Iapplied, yes, yes, I would have
done that if I still was in myrole, my old role at my company.
(05:13):
But I'm in a new role in mycompany and I can't do it.
Ooh, that hurts, saying that Ijust couldn't do it.
So I feel like I let everybodydown and I feel like I let
myself down.
But guess what?
I didn't let myself down, Ijust gave myself a much needed
(05:35):
break.
I just got real with myself.
And that hurt for anoverachiever like me, because I
can spend my time at work,because I have to right, I have
to make a living.
I can spend my timevolunteering off and on.
But one thing I'm not gonna giveup is this right here my
(05:56):
podcast, my books, my brand, mylove for handling this sensitive
topic of abuse in my own way,which is usually lots of butt
jokes and F-bombs, right,because guess who runs this show
Me?
I get to do what I want with myown brand, my own business, run
(06:20):
it the way I want and not haveto be tied to.
You know, like a normal job.
This is just more than a hobby.
Like this is my passion, and ifI have any capacity at the end
of the day after my job thatbrings in income so I can
(06:45):
support my family, it's gonna goto this.
It's gonna go to catsshenanigans, because, also, I
think I don't give myself enoughcredit for all this work I do.
You know, like this is likevolunteer work too.
I am preaching to the massesabout how your man is an asshole
(07:07):
and you need to divorce him,and I think a lot of women need
to hear that.
So we're about to go over theshow.
One last thing I wanted tosuggest that was like, oh my
gosh, therapy for me Goatsnuggling.
Go find yourself some goats tosnuggle.
And so over here nearby we havea farm and it was like $10 for
(07:29):
an hour of goat snuggles.
I was like, fuck yeah, it'sbaby goat snuggle job.
These goats are like so tinyand you can pick them up.
They're like a cat and you justsnuggle them and I did it and I
loved it and it was liketherapy you just holding, loving
on a baby goat.
Does it eat your hair?
Yeah.
Does it poop on you?
(07:50):
Yeah, probably, but it wasstill so therapeutic.
So if you have like I don'tknow somewhere where we can go
snuggle something, go do it.
It felt amazing.
And also along those same plans,we have another farm that's not
far away and they have thoseScottish cows.
(08:14):
Is that what they're calledScottish Highlander Cow or
something?
Or is it just Highlander Cow?
They're not a Scot, I don'tknow.
They're the furry cows.
I want to go squeeze one ofthose.
So bad, I just, oh, my gosh,like they look so, so cute and
there's always a bunch of babiesrunning around like baby cows
(08:36):
and I don't think they have likea petting thing, cause it's
actually a beef farm and I'mactually going up there here in
two hours to get some beef andnow that makes me feel awful,
cause I want to cuddle thosecows and I want to eat them.
Gosh, I'm going to have torevisit that one.
Hmm, I mean, their beef isreally good, but find you
(08:58):
something to snuggle.
And I know if y'all alreadyprobably have pets and stuff.
I have a pet too.
Y'all know about my Bailey.
I can't snuggle her, she's oncrack.
But, oh my gosh, I'm rambling.
I was just trying to tell y'allwhat's going on with me.
Well, what's going on with thepodcast, what's going on with
the books and all that jazz, notquitting any of it, just trying
(09:19):
to set up my schedule, am Igoing to move to the podcast
once every two weeks?
I don't know.
I just don't know.
Yet my social media has beenput on pause and my writing has
been put on pause, but thispodcast is still chugging along
and, like I said, I don't knowabout the schedule.
If you have strong feelingsabout any of this, please,
please, reach out to me onInstagram at authorcatadams,
(09:42):
because I want to help peopleand if this is helping you and
you're like bitch, you betterdeliver this podcast on time
every week, tell me.
Like I said, this is my passion.
I love doing it.
I just need to figure out abalance and I can give up some
things to do something that issuper helpful for others.
(10:04):
So on with the show.
This show is about the mythologysurrounding abuse.
Now, last time we talked I knowwe talked about we're doing the
Matt Lundy book, right why doeshe do that?
And so we kind of visited whyhe does that, like the mystery
surrounding the behavior.
And in this episode we're goingto discuss the mythology, or
(10:28):
basically the bullshit.
They tell you.
In the bullshit you tellyourself about the situation.
So let me read some excerptshere, and this says some of the
mythology, some of these excusesyou might be saying, like, for
instance, he's crazy, he feelsso bad about himself.
I just need to build up hisself image a little bit.
He just loses it.
(10:50):
He's so insecure, his motherabused him and now he has a
grudging women and takes it outon me.
I'm so confused I don'tunderstand what's going on with
him.
That last one yes, we've beenthere, done that.
Matt says in one important wayan abusive man works like a
magician.
His tricks largely rely ongetting you to look off in the
wrong direction, distractingyour attention so that you won't
notice where the real action is.
(11:11):
He draws you into focusing onthe turbulent world of his
feelings to keep your eyesturned away from the true cause
of his abusiveness, which liesin how he thinks he leads you
into a convoluted maze, makingyour relationship with him a
labyrinth of twists and turns.
He wants you to puzzle over him, to try to figure him out, as
though he were a wonderful butbroken machine, for what you
(11:33):
only need to find and fix themalfunctioning parts to bring it
roaring to its full potential.
His desire, though he might notadmit it to himself, is that
you rack your brain in this wayso that you won't notice the
patterns and logic of hisbehavior, the consciousness
behind the craziness.
To further divert your gaze, hemay work to shape your view of
(11:54):
his past partners, to keep youfrom talking to them directly
and to prepare you to disbelievethem, should you happen to hear
what they say.
Ooh, we've all been.
Now I think that's even a meme.
Like if he says hisex-girlfriend's crazy, that's a
red flag because bullshit,that's probably him that's crazy
Above all, the abusive manwon't so void having you zero in
(12:14):
on his abusiveness itself.
So he tries to fill your headup with excuses and distortions
and keep you weighed down withself-doubt and self-blame.
And unfortunately, much of thesociety tends to follow
unsuspectingly along behind him,helping him to close your eyes
and his own to his problem.
Johnny Depp, the mythology aboutabusive men that runs through
(12:35):
modern culture has been createdlargely by the abusers
themselves.
So let's talk about this, allright.
They want you to be superconfused and they're gonna give
you all these excuses for theirbehavior and he is about to
break them down how those arebullshit excuses.
(12:56):
So we know he's mysterious, butwe know it's also by design and
he uses usually these thingsI'm about to touch on to make
you believe his behavior iscoming from another area.
And it's not.
It's just his way of thinking.
He's a woman-hater.
But let's break it down Now.
I'm not gonna go into every oneof these in detail, because
(13:18):
some of them to me is kind oflike in this day and age.
Yeah, we know that's ano-brainer, but some of them I
will go a little bit furtherinto some of them I'm still
hearing today.
If you want to go into these indetail, pick up this book.
It's.
I think it should be a mustread for any woman, honestly.
All right, so I'm flippingthrough the pages here.
(13:38):
The myths about abusers.
He was abused as a child.
His previous partner hurt him.
He abuses those he loves themost.
He holds in his feelings toomuch.
He has an aggressivepersonality.
He loses control.
He is too angry.
He is mentally ill.
We hear that all the time aboutmass shooters and they're
connected to domestic violence.
(13:59):
Let's break that one down.
He hates women.
He is afraid of intimacy andabandonment.
He has low self-esteem.
Oh, I just said he hates women,didn't I?
All right, his boss mistreatshim.
Maybe I'm not as smart as Ithink I was.
He has poor skills incommunication and conflict
resolution.
There's many abusive women asabusive men.
His abusiveness is bad for him.
(14:20):
As for his partner, what?
He's a victim of?
Racism.
He abuses alcohol, drugs, allright.
First one.
First myth he was abused as achild and he needs therapy for
it.
And this goes into is itbecause he was abused as a child
?
Short story here.
Let me sum this up he is goinginto research and he's like no,
(14:44):
all right, so we're crossingthat one off the list.
I don't hear that one muchanymore either.
I guess, if you now I do in theway of like okay, well, he saw
his dad doing that to his mombecause, right, that's the cycle
and they learn from that.
Let me go into this a littlebit deeper here.
Okay, this is interesting, hesays an abusive man may
(15:05):
embellish his childhoodsuffering once he discovers that
it helps him escaperesponsibility.
The National District AttorneyAssociation Bulletin reported a
revealing study that he wasconducted on another group of
destructive men child sexualabusers.
The researcher asked each manwhether he himself had been
sexually victimized as a child.
A hefty 67% of the subject saidyes.
However, the researcher theninformed the man that he was
(15:27):
gonna hook them up to a liedetector test and asked them the
same questions again.
Affirmative answers suddenlydropped to only 29%.
In other words, abusers of allvarieties tend to realize the
mileage they can get out ofsaying I'm abusive because the
same thing was done to me Ooh,that was a good one.
So basically, no, don't listento it, and honestly so.
(15:52):
There's still 29% of those menwho say that's why they are the
way they are.
But I'm not here for them.
I'm here for you and if you'rein this situation, I don't give
a fuck what happened to those29% men.
Get out, because we're alladults and we can all make
decisions.
And those 29% of men, even ifthey had been hurt as a child,
have the ability to not hurt you.
(16:15):
They can control their ownbehavior right.
That's what it's all about.
It's not about them being socrazy and out of control and,
like I said, we'll go to thementally ill thing.
No, no, I'm here for you, I'mnot here for them.
All right.
Myth number two he says he had aprevious partner who mistreated
him terribly and now he has aproblem with women as a result.
(16:35):
He's a wonderful man and thatbitch made him get like this.
Well, he escalated that quickly.
Come on, if you're talking likethat about another woman and
you truly believe that, then youneed to go to therapy too,
because maybe he did have anex-girlfriend.
That was not very nice, but weknow how these things tend to go
(16:56):
right.
I mean, have you been on thoseFacebook groups?
It's like, are we dating thesame guy?
And like, for instance, memphis, I mean I'm in that group and
I'm not dating anyone.
Obviously I'm very happilymarried, but the trauma in there
, oh my gosh.
And it's like, yeah, he saidhis ex-girlfriend was crazy.
And then his ex-girlfriend ison the same group and she's like
(17:19):
, no, he has five differentbabies, mamas, he doesn't pay
child support, blah, blah, blah.
And it's like those groups areamazing.
Again, I'm not going intodetail because there's a lot
here and I wanna get throughthese before the 30 minute mark
and we're already at almost 18.
Myth number three he's abusivebecause he feels so strongly
(17:40):
about me.
People call those that theycare about most, people call
those that they care about mostdeeply the most pain.
Nope, all right, if you feelthat way, definitely get into
therapy.
No, myth number four he holdsin his feelings too much and
they build up until he burst.
He needs to get in touch withhis emotions and learn to
express them to prevent thoseexplosive episodes.
(18:00):
Again, no, come on let's.
He's an adult.
What are you?
Married to?
A toddler?
I know many of us are man child, that's what they're called.
Right, been there, done that.
Come on.
Myth number five he has aviolent, explosive personality.
He needs to learn to be lessaggressive.
Again, this is excuses.
(18:23):
To me, this isn't even myths.
This is just excuses you'regiving him or he's giving you.
Now we're moving on.
Myth number six he loses controlof himself.
He just goes wild.
Yeah, that's probably true.
He does lose control, but he'sstill in control, if that makes
sense.
It may seem like he's losingcontrol, but you're always in
control of your actions, andhere's a good one.
(18:44):
Is he doing it on purpose?
All right, matt says.
When a client of mine tells methat he became abusive because
he lost control of himself.
Right, that's what we're justtalking about.
I asked him why he didn't dosomething even worse.
For example, I say you calledher a fucking whore.
You grabbed the phone out ofher hand and whipped it across
the room and then you gave her ashove and she fell down.
(19:05):
There she was, at your feet.
Where would it have been easyto kick her in the head?
Now you have just finishedtelling me that you were totally
out of control at the time, butyou didn't kick her.
What stopped you?
And the client can always giveme a reason.
Here are some commonexplanations.
I wouldn't want to cause her aserious injury.
I realized one of the childrenwas watching.
(19:26):
I was afraid someone would callthe police.
I would kill her if I did that.
The fight was getting loud andI was afraid neighbors would
hear.
But the most frequent responseto that question what stopped
you?
Is Jesus, I wouldn't do that.
I would never do something likethat to her.
(19:46):
Matt goes on to say theresponse that I almost never
heard.
I remember hearing it twice in15 years was, I don't know.
These ready answers strippedthe cover off my client's loss
of control excuses?
While a man is on an abusiverampage, verbally or physically,
his mind maintains awareness ofa number of questions.
Am I doing something that otherpeople could find out about so
(20:09):
it could make me look bad?
Am I doing anything that couldget me in legal trouble?
Could I get hurt myself?
Am I doing anything that Imyself could consider too cruel,
gross or violent?
A critical insight seeped intome from working with my first
few dozen clients.
An abuser almost never doesanything that he himself
considers morally unacceptable.
(20:31):
He may hide what he doesbecause he thinks other people
would disagree with it, but hefeels justified inside.
I can't remember a client everhaving said to me there's no way
I can defend what I did, it wasjust totally wrong.
He invariably has a reason thathe considers good enough.
In short, an abuser's coreproblem is that he has a
(20:51):
distorted sense of right andwrong.
Always remember that.
All right, he has a verydistorted sense of what's right
and wrong.
He has control of himself.
Moving along to myth numberseven, he's too angry.
(21:11):
He needs to learn angermanagement skills.
You can go into detail on that,but here's the one I wanna go
into detail on.
This is myth number eight.
He's crazy.
He's got some mental illnessthat he should be medicated for
Now.
Yes, I say this man's crazy allthe time.
Right, I am not afraid to sayhe's crazy, but I'm using that
(21:32):
in a different way.
I'm not using that as in likehe's seriously got a mental
illness and he needs help.
Or like we see on TV, like Isaid at the beginning of the
podcast, like someone is a massshooter and All the news outlets
are like oh, he's got somethingwrong with him in his head,
he's got some kind of mentalillness, and it's like bullshit,
(21:54):
bullshit.
And a lot of those massshooters, most of them, have a
domestic violence background.
Hmm, I wonder what the linkthere is.
But yeah, he's crazy, butthere's a lot of people with
mental illness out there whoaren't going around shooting up
people.
But let's break it down.
Let's see what Matt says aboutit.
When a man's face contorts inbitterness and hatred, he looks
(22:15):
a little insane.
When his mood changes fromelated to assaultive, and the
time it takes to turn around,his mental stability seems open
to question.
When he accuses his partner ofplotting to harm him.
He seems paranoid.
It's no wonder that the partnerof an abusive man would come to
suspect that he was mentallyill.
Yet the great majority of myclients over the years have been
psychology, have beenpsychologically normal.
(22:35):
Their minds work logically,they understand cause and effect
.
They don't hallucinate.
Their perceptions of most life,of most of life circumstances,
are reasonably accurate.
They get good reports at work,they do well in school or
training programs and no oneother than their partners and
children thinks that there'sanything wrong with them.
Ooh, dr Jekyll and I.
(22:57):
Their value system isn'thealthy, not their psychology.
Much of what appears to becrazy behavior in an abuser
actually works well for him.
The most recent research showsthat even in physically violent
abusers the rate of mentalillness is not high.
Several of my brutal batteringclients have had psychological
(23:17):
evaluations and only one of themwas found to have a mental
illness.
At the same time, some of myclients whom I believe to be
truly insane have notnecessarily been among the most
violent.
Research does indicate that themost extreme physical batterers
, the ones who choke theirpartners to unconsciousness, who
hold guns to their heads, whostalk and kill, have increased
rates of mental illness, butthere is no particular mental
(23:40):
health condition that is typicalof these batterers.
They can't have a range ofdiagnoses, including psychosis,
borderline personality, manicdepression, antisocial
personality, obsessivecompulsive disorder and others.
And even among the mostdangerous abusers there are many
who do not show clearpsychiatric symptoms of any time
.
How can all these differentmental illnesses cause such
(24:03):
similar behavioral patterns?
The answer is they don't.
Mental illness doesn't causeabuseness anymore than alcohol
does.
What happens is rather that themain psychiatric problem
interacts with his abusivenessto form a volatile combination.
If he is severely depressed,for example, he may stop caring
(24:24):
about the consequences of hisactions, which can increase the
danger that he will decide tocommit a serious attack against
his partner or children.
A mentally ill abuser has twoseparate though interrelated
problems, just as the alcoholicor direct addicted one does, and
he talks in depth about this.
So if you wanna go into moredetail, get this book.
(24:47):
But basically he just told yourass like no, do not blame it on
mental illness, all right.
Myth number nine he hates women.
His mother or some other womanmust have done something
terrible to him.
All right, now, I don't buyinto all that, but do I think
they hate women, and I'm readinga little bit more into this and
(25:08):
he's talking about how theydon't always hate women.
They just respect women andthey feel superior to women.
So, yes, they do feel superiorto women, but do they hate all
women, not all abusers?
But in my head, like, come on,if you're disrespectful and you
have a superiority complex towomen, I feel like that's kinda
I feel like that's hating them.
(25:28):
Well, maybe not, I don't know.
You can dig deeper into thatone.
That one's a really shortcouple of paragraphs that he
explains.
But in my mind, if you are,like, hung up on any of these,
ask yourself a question why areyou digging into all these myths
to find the one that you cansay, no, this is true, you know,
(25:53):
no, this.
My husband does experience thisand this is why I'm gonna stay
Excuses.
Go back to my podcast series.
Is my Husband Abusive or HisAny Asshole?
And listen to what I explainedthere.
Like, doesn't matter.
If you're at the point whereyou're reading this book, it's
great to have the knowledge, butI hope you're already forming
(26:14):
an exit plan.
Alright, moving on Myth 10.
He is afraid of intimacy in aband.
Imminent Myth 11.
He suffers from low self-esteem.
He needs his self-image shortup.
I'm going to talk about allthose.
His boss is myth 12.
His boss abuses him so he feelspowerless and then successful.
He comes home and takes it outon his family because that is
(26:36):
one place he can feel powerful,barf.
Come on now On that one.
It says the most importantpoint is this one In my 15 years
in the field of abuse, I havenever once had a client whose
behavior at home has improvedbecause his job situation
improved.
There Shot that myth in thebutt.
Myth number 13.
He has poor communication,conflict resolution and stress
(26:57):
management skills.
He needs training.
You know what?
In my experience, a lot ofthese abusive, narcissistic
assholes are really great atwork, like super charismatic and
high achievers.
So the whole poor communication, conflict resolution, stress
management skills no, also anexcuse.
(27:20):
Myth number 14.
There are just as many abusivewomen as abusive men.
These men are invisible becausethey are ashamed to tell.
And we're going to go into thisone, because I always hear this
Anytime you bring up abuse andhow, it's usually like women's
problem.
There's those people, men andwomen Might be some pick me out
there who's like, but men too.
(27:41):
Okay.
So Matt says there certainly aresome women who treat their male
partners badly, berating them,calling them names, attempting
to control them.
The negative impact on thesemen's lives can be considerable.
But do we see men whoself-esteem is gradually
destroyed through the process?
Do we see men whose progress inschool and their careers grinds
(28:01):
to a halt because of theconstant criticism and
undermining?
Where are the men whosepartners are forcing them to
have unwanted sex?
Where are the men who arefleeing to shelters and fear for
their lives?
How about the ones who try toget to a phone to call for help,
but the women block their wayor cut the line?
The reason we don't generallysee these men is simple they're
(28:21):
rare.
I don't question howembarrassing it would be for a
man to come forward and admitthat a woman is abusing him, but
don't underestimate howhumiliated a woman feels when
she reveals abuse.
Women crave dignity just asmuch as men do.
If shame stopped people fromcoming forward, no one would
tell.
Even if abused men didn't wantto come forward, they would have
been discovered by now.
Neighbors don't turn a deaf earto abuse the way they might
(28:43):
have 10 or 20 years ago.
Now, when people hear screamingobjects smashing its walls,
loud slaps landing on skin, theycall the police.
Among my physically abusiveclients, nearly one-third have
been arrested as a result of acall to police that came from
someone other than the abusedwoman.
If there were millions ofcow-trimbling men out there, the
police would be finding them.
(29:05):
Abusive men commonly like toplay the role of victim, and
most men who claim to bebattered men are actually the
perpetrators of violence, notthe victims.
In their efforts to adoptvictim status, my clients try to
exaggerate their partner'sverbal power.
Sure, I can win a physicalfight, but she is much better
with her mouth than I am, so I'dsay it balances out.
One very violent man said inhis group session she stabs me
(29:27):
through the heart with her wordsto justify the fact that he
stabbed his partner in the chestwith his knife.
But abuse is not a battle thatyou win by being better at
expressing yourself.
You win it by being better atsarcasm, put-downs, twisting
everything around backward andabusing other tactics of control
.
An arena in which my clientswin hands down over their
partners, just as they do in aviolent altercation.
(29:48):
Who can be an abuser at his owngame?
Men can be abused by other men,however, and women can be
abused by women, sometimesthrough means that include
physical intimidation orviolence.
If you're a gay man or lesbianwho's been abused by a partner
who's facing abuse now, most ofwhat I explained in this book
will ring loud bells for you.
The he and she language that Iuse obviously won't fit your
(30:09):
experience, but the underlyingdynamics that I describe largely
well.
All right.
Well, he just broke down thatmyth.
So the next time you hear a mansay, but what about the men?
You just go back to what I justexplained, like, does it
completely tear them down towhere they just have trouble,
you know?
Succeeding in life?
No, not likely.
(30:30):
Myth number 15, abuses is a badfor the man who's doing it, as
it is for his partner.
They are both victims.
Myth number 16, he is abusivebecause he has faced so much
societal discrimination anddisempowerment as a man of color
.
So at home he needs to feelpowerful.
And again, I'm skimming overthese because it's gonna be too
long.
I'm already at the 30 minutemark.
I'm so sorry I'm rambling on,but this is super useful
(30:53):
information, but it's superdetailed and this would be two
hours long if I kept going intoevery one of these.
So if they spark your interest,read the book, myth number 17,.
The alcohol is what makes himabusive.
If I can get him to stay sober,our relationship will be fine.
Now this one I do want to touchon a little bit, because I
actually hear it a lot.
Still so many men hide theirabusiveness under the cover of
(31:16):
alcoholism or drug addictionthat have chosen to devote
chapter 8 to explore this, toexplore the issue of addiction
in detail.
Ooh, we're gonna have to readthat one.
The most important point to beaware of is this Alcohol cannot
create an abuser and sobrietycannot cure one.
The only way a man can overcomehis abusiveness is by dealing
with his abusiveness, and youare not enabling your partner to
(31:39):
mistreat you.
He is entirely responsible forhis own actions, and that's
actually all he says about thatin this chapter, I guess, since
he has a whole chapter devotedto that.
But let me go over some keypoints he has here.
He says an abusive man'semotional problems do not cause
his abusiveness.
You can't change him byfiguring out what is bothering
(31:59):
him, helping him feel better orimproving the dynamics of your
relationship.
Right, you know what I say.
You know the slogan.
It's you're not stuck.
No, he won't change, but youwill stop trying to change him
and change yourself.
Figure out what's bothering you.
Help you feel better.
Improve the dynamics of youMoving on.
(32:20):
Feelings do not governabusiveness or controlling
behavior.
Beliefs, values and habits arethe driving force.
The reasons that an abusive mangives for his behavior are
simply excuses.
You said it, matt.
There's no way to overcome aproblem with abusiveness by
focusing on tangents such asself-esteem, comfort, resolution
, anger management are impulsiveor impulse control.
(32:41):
Abusiveness is resolved bydealing with abusiveness, plain
and simple.
I mean.
Remember that.
That is like the simpleststatement.
Abusiveness is resolved bydealing with abusiveness, and
that's the hard part, right?
That's why they don't ever fixthemselves.
Abusers thrive on creatingconfusion, including confusion
about the abuse itself.
And there is nothing wrong withyou.
(33:02):
Your partner's abuse problem ishis own.
That's how he ends that chapter.
So if this has been helpful foryou, please let me know.
I'm hoping you know I know mypodcast is mostly for empowering
women.
That's what I want to focus on.
But if it is helping you to beeducated and understanding why
he's doing that, the mysterysurrounding it and the myths
(33:24):
that you might be tellingyourself or he may be telling
you, we also need to armourselves with this knowledge so
we can move forward and be atpeace with the actions we're
taking and have that kind ofclosure and answers, because I
know, when I was in myrelationship I always was like
but I don't understand.
I don't understand.
I understand now, and if you'refeeling the same way, I hope
(33:46):
this again has been helpful.
That's all I got for today.
I have to go pick up some furrycow meat.
I hope I'm not like if I have avegetarian audience.
I'm so sorry.
I know that sounds horrible,doesn't it?
I'm starting to question thisdecision now.
I'm starting to feel too bad,especially after that dark topic
(34:09):
.
Right, but we're going to moveon next time with the next
podcast and dig a little bitdeeper into these and get to
that point where we're talkingabout the different types of
abusers, because I think that'ssuper enlightening.
In the meantime, please staysafe and, again, drop me a line
on Instagram at author cat Adams, slide into my DMs.
(34:31):
Well, let me know how you feelabout the podcast, podcast
scheduling, if anything has beenyour favorite, what you like,
what you don't like, what youwant to hear more of, and I can
totally do that.
I'm putting it in your hands.
Give me some feedback here.
Until next time.
No, he will not change, but youwill.
Thank you so much for listening.
(34:55):
If you love the show, pleaseleave a rating, a review, and if
you know anyone who also mightlove the show or who could
benefit from this information,please be sure to share it and
subscribe.
The more we get this out topeople, the more people we can
help, and I truly believethere's so many women who need
to hear these words, because somany women are feeling stuck.
(35:17):
Also, if you're looking for me,you can usually find me on the
ground, at author cat Adams, andbe sure to head over to my
website and that's cat Adams.
Adams with a double D'scom.
Subscribe to my newsletter forthe latest information.
Also, when you subscribe,you're going to get free novella
.
And just be for warned, myraunchy romcom is as dirty as my
(35:41):
mouth.
So if that's your thing, go forit.
It's super hilarious.
But thank you again for tuningin.
Until next time, please staysafe and I'll see you on the
other side.
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