March 4, 2024 • 37 mins
Ready for more hard truth bombs? Today, we're continuing to discuss the realities of why your toxic partner treats you like crap. If you're looking for red flags, and a better understanding of why you feel so confused on the rollercoaster you call a relationship, here's your sign.
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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.
And we're back and it is abeautiful sunny day outside and
(00:32):
it's gonna be like 72 degreesand it's already 11 o'clock in
the morning because I've beenlazy, is a lazy Sunday and I'm
like Just enjoying it.
So I'm gonna get started hereand cut out the riffraff,
because nothing new to report,nothing new, just it's a
(00:53):
beautiful day and I am going togo enjoy it and I hope you do
too.
But first you have to Listen inand educate yourself, because
we're continuing on with theseries from it's like a book
study series from Matt Lundy'sbook called why does he do that
(01:16):
inside the minds of angry andcontrolling men and no, I hate
talking about abusive men.
I much prefer talking aboutvictims of abuse and surviving
it and and offering them theknowledge I have and the support
and the empowerment, because Inever want my work to be about
(01:39):
the abusers, because theyalready make everything about
them anyways.
But I do think it's importantto know, if you're in a toxic
relationship, what's going on soyou can realize like, yeah,
there's no hope there.
I just have to move on and getout, which is true and I know a
lot of people are like don'twant to hear that, but it is
(02:03):
what it is.
So, yeah, my podcast and mybooks and my work love to focus
it on Women, empowerment, thewoo-woo juju, the full moon,
living within the seasons, aty'all.
I love that stuff so much.
Actually, yeah, I do havesomething to report.
I went and got a, a.
(02:23):
I got some magic Woo-woo jujustuff yesterday and I don't know
what's going on with me, but Isaw a painting of a peacock a
Few months ago when I wasredoing my office and I was like
this just looks like it belongsin my office and my office is
burgundy, but I just had to haveit and so I got that.
(02:45):
And then I was at home goodsand I saw, oh my gosh, there's
like this peacock table.
It's just like a mini sidetable.
It matches the painting.
I gotta get that.
I Don't know anything aboutpeacocks.
They just been calling to melately and you know, usually I'm
all about like zebra stripesstill am, but the peacocks have
been calling to me.
(03:06):
So we went to a Magic shopyesterday when we had our little
.
It's just like explore Memphisand eat all the foods tour.
And they had like this fan,like one of those like feather
fans that you use to like spreadsage.
Like when you're burning sage,just mud your house and stuff
(03:29):
and just like spread it aroundor whatever.
I don't know, but they havelike a.
They had one is it's like abunch of feathers put together
and it's peacock feathers andit's got like crystals on it and
all within the peacock colorsand I'm like, well, gonna get
that.
So I got that.
And then I got some also.
(03:49):
I got some like chime candlesand Stuff because I'm trying to
get back to the Sorry if thatgot loud I'm moving around here.
I'm trying to get back to a morebalanced Spiritual place
because I've not.
I have not been in that placeand quite some time and I miss
(04:10):
it.
I miss.
I need like a line my chakrasor something, get some Reiki.
I don't know, but I've been Notas in tune with that side of me
as I want to be and I know it'sbecause work, like it's because
I have to wear a Different hatthese days and I have trouble
(04:31):
separating that hat from the hatI want to wear, you know, and
the stuff I want to do, and it'skind of got me upset.
You know, like I was telling myhusband if I could do anything,
anything, anything, anything,anything.
(04:52):
It'd be writing again, and noteven like nonfiction writing,
although I love that.
But I'm kind of like it's whatI'm doing on this podcast, right
, the nonfiction empowermentstuff, but like the writing
where I get to create characters, make them fall in love or, you
know, have them go through sometragedy.
I like it, that's me.
I'm a writer.
I miss it.
(05:12):
I haven't done it in foreverbecause I just got too much shit
going on.
And he's like, why are youstill doing the podcast every
week?
Why can't you just someweekends you spend writing and
blah, blah, blah.
I'm like, yeah, I need to dothat, I need to force myself to
do it.
I really do because I've beenputting it off.
But anyways, all that to say,you know I've said it before,
(05:36):
maybe I'm going to move to anevery two weeks thing.
I just haven't made that leapyet.
Maybe some of this woo jujustuff can give me clarity and I
really want to get back intojust being in my feels and being
more grounded.
I haven't been meditating.
I don't know that sounds likeoh my gosh, so millennial, but
you know what it's freaking lifechanging.
(05:57):
If you can get into ameditation schedule and like do
that every day, oh my gosh, it'slife changing.
But I've been too busy tomeditate and I know that sounds
ridiculous because there's somequote out there who's like I
don't know if it's gone to yoursomeone's like if you're too
busy to do a five minutemeditation, then you need to be
doing like five, five minutemeditation Basically and I feel
(06:18):
it.
But yeah, I guess that was alittle bit of an update, but I'm
not going to bore you anylonger with where I'm at.
I want to talk to you aboutabusive jerks Now.
When I talk about toxic partners, they come in a wide variety of
scales.
They can be like just a jerkwho likes to take jobs at you
(06:42):
every now and then as in kind ofcut you down or make you feel
stupid and make him feel likehe's.
He thinks he's superior.
You know, in your inferior, oryou know we'll just take a shot
at your family, or justsomething to make you feel bad.
To the more dangerous toxicpartners who will literally take
(07:04):
a job at you with like a knife.
So there is a wide, wide, widevariety of abusive behavior and
I don't want people to tune thisout who think, oh my gosh, well
, my man's not hitting me, I'mnot getting black eyes, so I'm
not going to listen.
Look, I know so many marriedcouples who are miserable and
they don't want to admit thatmost of their misery is coming
(07:29):
from their husband being abusivein a way that they don't want
to admit is abusive.
Right, it's more like emotional, it's more quiet, it's more
like those silent or not sosilent.
But the smaller jabs, theeveryday jabs, it's the
controlling things they do thatyou might not think are
(07:50):
controlling, because maybeyou've, you know, lived this way
your whole life, like maybeit's religious abuse and you've
grown up your whole life in thechurch and you know you have no
idea that that's not normal forhim to say, you know you can't
wear a skirt or something.
I know that's an extremeexample, but I'm just trying to
(08:11):
say I know plenty of women whothink they're in, like I'm not
going to say, happy marriage,they're in a miserable marriage,
but they don't understand, like, what their husband's doing is
abusive and some of the stuffthey do is pretty abusive too.
There's a wide range in when wetalk about toxic behavior and
abusiveness, and that's why Itend to say toxicity and toxic
(08:33):
behavior instead of abusiveness.
I don't want to scare peopleoff who are like, yeah, well,
I'm not being hit.
You know, there's no domesticviolence.
Which is because there's notdomestic violence doesn't mean
there's not domestic abuse, andI think that's a lot more
prevalent than domestic violence, because that is a hard number
to measure how many people arebeing emotionally abused and so
(08:54):
we don't have accurate numberson that.
But the statistics I saw lasttime was guessing is like oh, or
50% of relationships, which isscary, and it works both ways.
But yeah, so let's continuewhere we left off last time, and
we were talking about therealities of his controlling
(09:14):
behavior, because remember, whenwe went through the mystery, we
were through the mist and thenthe last one, we're going
through reality since a longchapter.
So I'm having to break it up.
Let's continue on the reality.
Number four in your relationship, if you're with an abuser, is
hard truth.
Here he disrespects his partnerand considers himself superior
(09:37):
to her.
All right, so this is what Mattsays about that.
The abuser tends to see hispartner as less intelligent,
less competent, less logical andeven less sensitive than he is.
He will tell me, for example,that she isn't the compassionate
person he is.
He often has difficultyconceiving her as a human being.
(09:59):
This tendency in abusers isknown as objectification or
depersonalization.
Most abusers verbally attacktheir partners in degrading,
revolting ways.
They reach for the words thatthey know are most disturbing to
women, such as bitch, whore andkind, often preceded by the
word fact.
These words assault herhumanity, reducing her to an
(10:20):
animal, a nonliving object or adegraded sexual body part.
The partners in my clients tellme that these disgusting words
carry a force and an uglinessthat feel like violence, though
that through these carefullychosen epithets I hate that word
, I don't know how to pronounceit and my clients sometimes
admit that their abusers makethem feel both debased and
(10:42):
unsafe.
Abuse is a critical reason whyan abuser tends to get worse
over time.
Listen in here, because this issuper important.
Okay, this is exactly what Iwas talking about there as a
scale.
So he may start with the namecalling, but it gets worse.
It always gets worse.
So I'm going to repeat thatsentence and move on.
(11:05):
Objectification is a criticalreason why an abuser tends to
get worse over time as hisconscious, as his conscience,
adapts to one level of crueltyor violence, he builds to the
next.
By depersonalizing his partner,the abuser protects himself
from the natural human emotionsof guilt and empathy so that he
can sleep at night with a clearconscience.
He distanced himself so farfrom her humanity that her
(11:29):
feelings no longer count orsimply cease to exist.
These walls tend to grow overtime, so that after a few years
in a relationship, my clientscan reach a point where they
feel no more guilt overdegrading or threatening their
partners than you or I wouldfeel after angrily kicking a
stone in the driveway.
And that's how it all starts.
And that's why I don't want toscare anyone away when I'm
(11:51):
talking about domestic abuse andyou're like oh well, he doesn't
abuse me, he doesn't hit me,but he will, or he will build up
.
He will build up in his headthe justification that he can
because he feels superior to you.
And this is like hard truth,right?
This isn't the myth.
(12:12):
We're not talking about thisanymore.
This is reality of how theythink.
Abuse and respect are diametricopposites.
You do not respect someone whomyou abuse and you do not abuse
someone whom you respect.
So if you are experiencing this, he doesn't respect you, and my
(12:37):
job and my hope is for you tolearn how to respect yourself so
you can say bye bitch and livea much happier life on what I
like to call the other side.
Moving on to the next reality isa little bit of a hot topic for
me, coming from the romanceindustry book romance industry,
(13:02):
right.
The author Romcom, writer here.
I have talked about this onBlue in the Face.
One of the reasons why Istepped back from romance was it
was making me feel icky becauseit was glorifying abuse and I
got so much hate for that and Istill do.
But I don't give two shitsbecause it's the truth.
(13:25):
I'm not going to glorify abuseand say, oh well, you know, it's
okay because in the end thedude changes and he loves her or
he's just mean to everybody buther because he's possessive and
that's sexy.
It's not sexy, there's nothingsexy about it.
There's nothing in realityabout it because we know the
(13:47):
majority of these men do notchange.
So I think it's selling women alie and it's really doing a
disservice for women, especiallythe teenage girls who are
picking up these books andlearning from them.
So that's my soapbox.
But let me tell you Matt'ssoapbox on this.
All right Reality, number fivehe confuses love and abuse.
(14:08):
All right here, comments myclients commonly make to me.
The reason I abuse her isbecause I have such strong
feelings for her.
You hurt the ones you love themost.
No one can get me as upset asshe can.
Yeah, I told her she'd be,she'd be, she'd better not ever
try to leave me.
You have no idea how much Ilove this girl.
I was sick of watching herrunning her life.
(14:28):
I care too much to sit back anddo nothing about it.
An abusive man often tries toconvince his partner that his
mistreatment of her is proof ofhow deeply he cares.
But the reality is that abuseis the opposite of love.
Hello Romance writers, the morea man abuses you, the more he
is demonstrating that he caresonly about himself.
(14:50):
He may feel a powerful desireto receive your love and
caretaking, but he only wants togive love when it's convenient.
So is he lying when he says heloves you?
No, usually not.
Most of my clients do feel apowerful sensation inside that
they call love.
For many of them, it's the onlykind of feeling toward a female
partner that they have ever had, so they have no way of knowing
(15:11):
that it isn't love.
When abusive man feels thepowerful stirring inside that
other people call love, he ispossibly largely feeling one,
the desire to have you devoteyour life to keeping him happy,
with no outside interference.
Two, the desire to have sexualaccess.
Three, the desire to impressothers by having you be his
partner.
And four, the desire to possessand control you, and we're
(15:33):
going to talk more about that ina little bit.
These desires are importantaspects of what romantic love
means to him.
He may well be capable offeeling genuine love for you,
but first he will have todramatically reorient his
outlook in order to separateabusiveness and possessive
desires from true caring andbecome able to really see you.
The confusion of love with abuseis what allows abusers who kill
(15:54):
their partners to make theabsurd claim that they were
driven by the depths of theirlove feelings, their loving
feelings and we've heard thatbefore right, an active passion.
Out of an active passion hekilled her.
Bull shit.
The news media regrettablyoften accepts the aggressor's
view of these acts, describingthem as crimes of passion.
I should write a book like this.
(16:16):
But what more could.
But what could more thoroughlyprove that a man did not love
his partner?
If a mother were to kill one ofher children, would we ever
accept the claim that she did itbecause she was overwhelmed by
how much she cared?
Not for an instant bitch.
Nor should we.
Genuine love means respectingthe humanity of the other person
, wanting what is best for himor her and supporting the other
(16:38):
person's self-esteem andindependence.
This kind of love isincompatible with abuse and
coercion.
Moving on to reality, number six, as he is manipulative and Matt
says, few abusive men relyentirely on verbal abuse or
intimidation to control theirpartners.
Being a nonstop bully is toomuch work and it makes the man
look bad.
(16:59):
If he is abusive all the time,his partner starts to recognize
that she's being abused and thatman may feel too guilty about
his behavior.
The abuser therefore tends toswitch frequently to
manipulating his partner to getwhat he wants.
He may also sometimes use thesetactics to just just to get her
upset or confused.
Remember the mystery.
There are some signs ofmanipulation by abusers that you
(17:19):
can watch for, one changing hismoods abruptly and frequently
so that you find it difficult totell who he is or how he feels
keeping you constantly offbalance.
His feelings toward you areespecially changeable.
Two denying the obvious aboutwhat he is doing or feeling.
He'll speak to you with hisvoice trembling with anger, or
he'll blame a difficulty on you,or he'll suck for two hours and
(17:40):
then deny it to your face.
You know what he did, and sodoes he, but he refuses to admit
it, which can drive you crazywith frustration.
Then he may call you irrationalfor getting so upset by his
denial.
Man that sounds so true.
I've been there and done that.
Three convincing you that whathe wants you to do is what is
best for you.
This way, the abuser can makehis selfishness look like
(18:01):
generosity, which is a neattrick.
A long time may pass before yourealize what his real motives
were.
And then the next one isgetting you to feel sorry for
him, so that you will bereluctant to push forward with
your complaints about what hedoes.
Getting you to blame yourself orblame other people for what he
does, using confusion tacticsand arguments, lying or
(18:22):
misleading you about his actions, his desires or his reasons for
doing certain things, andgetting you and other people you
care about turned against eachother.
He does this by betrayingconfidences, being rude to your
friends, telling people liesabout you, what you supposedly
said about them, charming yourfriends and then telling them
bad things about you and manyother divisive tactics.
(18:43):
In some ways manipulation isworse than overt abuse,
especially when the two aremixed together.
When a woman gets caught abitch or gets shoved or slapped,
she at least knows what herpartner did to her.
But after a manipulativeinteraction she may have little
idea of what went wrong.
She just knows that she feelsterrible or crazy and that
somehow it seems to be her ownfault.
And I'm going back here to whatI was saying at the beginning.
(19:05):
I don't want to turn people offby talking about like the
violent.
You know the violent aspect oflike.
Oh well, my husband doesn'tshove me against the law, so I'm
okay.
But he might be doing thesethings and it's still just as
bad, if not worse.
Hey, yeah, yeah, all right.
(19:25):
Reality number seven is hestrives to have a good public
image.
Oh boy, I've got some storieshere.
There's a question here.
It says how come everyone elsethinks he's wonderful?
So most abusive men put on acharming face for their
communities?
Oh my gosh, my dog's talking.
I ain't in it.
Y'all is beautiful outside andI'm trying to get out there.
(19:48):
So you're going to have tolisten to Bailey give her
opinion on this.
So let's start again.
Most abusive men put on acharming face for their
communities, creating a sharpsplit between their public image
and their private treatment ofwomen and children.
He may be enraged at home, butcalm and smiling outside.
Selfish and self centered withyou, but generous and supportive
with others.
(20:08):
Domineering at home but willingto negotiate and compromise
outside.
Highly negative about femaleswhile on his own turf, but a
vocal supporter of equality whenanyone else is listening.
Ooh, I know a lot of thoseassaults have toward his partner
.
Children, but nonviolent andnon threatening with everyone
else.
Entitled at home, but criticalof other men who disrespect or
assault women.
The pain of this contrast caneat away at women.
(20:29):
In the morning Her partner cutsher to the quick by calling her
brainless fat cow, but a fewhours later she sees him
laughing with the people nextdoor and helping them fix their
car.
Later the neighbor says to heryour partner is so nice, you're
so lucky to be with him.
A lot of men wouldn't do whathe does.
She responds with a mumbledyeah, feeling confused and
tongue tied back at home.
She asked herself over and overagain why, me Boy, did I live
(20:52):
this life?
Yes, I, freaking did.
My ex was Mr Charming toeveryone.
I even had neighbors tell me,just like on here, like, oh,
he's such a good dad, he seemslike such a good husband and I
just want to be like nah bitch,like he fooled you too.
No, and I'm pretty sure after Igot divorced everyone thought
(21:15):
it was because of me.
Like I started dating reallyquick, really quick.
After my divorce.
Y'all know I met the D like thenight that I think it was after
our mediation or negotiation orwhatever and he was supposed to
sign the papers I got on Tinder.
I'm like I'm ready because Ineeded, I needed some Passion.
(21:39):
Let's just put it that way.
I'm at the D in the rest ofhistory.
I love that man.
He totally changed my life.
But going back to after thedivorce, when he moved out and I
started dating pretty quickly,I had another truck parked in my
driveway and I had a neighborto make comments to me and try
(22:02):
to pry, thinking that I, thequestions they were asking were
alluding to the fact that we gotdivorced because I was cheating
, because they see this truck inmy driveway.
So I must have been cheatingand he divorced me and I just
want to give them big.
If you're listening to this,neighbors, fuck you Because,
(22:23):
first of all, none of that, anyof their business.
Second of all, are you kiddingme?
Ah, the shit.
I went through and all myneighbors want to like, kiss my
ex's ass and blame me as likethe bad guy here, when they know
nothing.
They just assumed because, mryou know, ex douchebag charmer
(22:47):
is just, I guess I don't know,he fooled them, he fooled them,
but Naji, no, that ain't evenhow it went down.
And they do that.
These type do that Like, and alot of them are in powerful
positions.
Hello, your elected officials,hello people that are running
(23:11):
this country, and you cantotally freaking tell by their
behavior.
You know mostly like I don'twant to go back to politics, but
the Covena stuff, oh my God,that dude's so fucking guilty
you can tell their demeanor, youcan tell these people, if you
know this, if you've learnedthis and you're enlightened and
(23:31):
you understand how abuse works,you can usually spot the red
flags and you know that this Mrcharmer is just being a Dr
Jekyll, mr Hyde, and we're goingto talk about that right now.
The moving on it says doabusive men have split
personalities?
Oh yeah, everybody's outsideriding bikes.
Oh, I'm going to wrap this up.
(23:52):
So do abusive men have splitpersonalities?
Not really.
They're drawn to power andcontrol, and part of how they
get it is by looking good inpublic.
An abusive man's charm makes hispartner reluctant to reach out
for support or assistancebecause she feels that people
will find her revelations hardto believe or will blame her.
Hmm, if friends overhear him,say something abusive or police
(24:13):
arrest him for an assault, hisprevious people pleasing lays
the groundwork to get him offthe hook.
The observer thinks he's such anice guy.
He's just not the type to beabusive.
She must have really hurt him.
Oh God, this is so true it's.
I laugh because I don't want tocry, because one of the most
important challenges facing acounselor of abusive men is to
(24:35):
resist being drawn in by themen's charming persona.
This is why, if you were goingto therapy and you were married,
do not go with your abuser.
A lot of counselors are nottrained like Matt Lundy's,
trained in understanding howthis manipulation works from an
abuser.
They are very capable oftwisting stuff around and making
(24:57):
you look like the abuser.
If you try marriage counseling,please do not go to marriage
counseling.
It's not going to work in theway you think it's going to work
.
You need to go to counselingalone and for yourself.
Moving on to reality, numbereight is, he feels, justified.
Abusers externalizeresponsibility for their actions
(25:20):
, believing that their partnersmake them behave in abusive ways
.
Each of my clients, predict,predictably, uses some variation
of the following lines sheknows how to push my buttons.
Oh, y'all want me to do theredneck voice again.
She knows how to push mybuttons.
She wanted me to go off and sheknows how to make it happen.
She pushed me too far.
There's only so much a man cantake.
(25:41):
You expect me to just let herwalk all over me?
What would you do?
So?
Those are some of the thingsthat he notices.
They say to justify abusive menor masters of excuse making.
Abusers do have a conscienceabout their behavior outside of
(26:02):
the family.
All right, so if someone'swatching, if the neighbors are
watching, then they can controltheir behavior.
So they can control thenarrative outside of the family.
But behind closed doors has adifferent story.
They may be willing to beanswerable for their actions at
(26:24):
work, at the club or on thestreet.
At home, however, their senseof entitlement takes over.
The abusive man commonlybelieves he can blame his
partner for anything that goeswrong, not just his abusiveness.
Did he just suffer adisappointment?
She calls it.
Is he embarrassed by a mistakehe made?
She should have prevented it.
(26:45):
As one of the children in adifficult period, she's a bad
mother.
Everything is someone else'sfault, and someone else is
usually her man.
That hits hard, because I stillget attacks from ex-Dushidoosh
the stupidest things.
I don't know.
He can have diarrhea andsomehow blame it on me, like I
(27:07):
don't know.
Maybe I did someLoo-Woo-Joo-Joo and sent him to
the toilet.
I don't know, I didn't.
I ain't messing with that stuff.
That's karma.
I don't want that to threefold.
Whatever Bite me in the assliterally and make me send me to
the potty.
But reality number nine abusersdeny and minimize their abuse.
(27:32):
All right, we know this.
So this one says where am Igoing?
If he were ready to acceptresponsibility for his actions
and relationships, he wouldn'tbe abusive.
All right, so they're gonnadeny it.
That's a pretty easy one.
He goes into detail.
But we're not going into detailbecause I mean that's we know.
(27:55):
We know and I'm gonna getoutside Denial and minimization
are part of most destructivebehavior patterns, whether they
be alcohol abuse, gambling orchild abuse.
Partner abuse is no exception.
So that's what I'll say aboutthat.
Reality number 10, abusers arepossessive bitch Y'all.
This is not sexy, this is notromantic.
(28:16):
I'm going back on my soapboxhere about this bullshit romance
spicy book, tiktok, whatever itis, where women are like, ooh,
I wanna be kidnapped.
Yeah, I want him to stuff me inthe back of a truck and force
me blah, blah, blah blah.
And I have a lot of theories onthis and I've looked into it.
(28:37):
There's one place I wanna sayit's probably Sweden or
something, probably one of thoseScandinavian places where those
types of books are not popularat all.
I'll have to find the study.
I don't know where it is, but Iremember reading that's not
popular because women areactually like that's disgusting
and that's abusive behavior overthere, whereas here I'm gonna
(29:00):
say, especially in the South andthis is gonna be like kind of
conspiracy sounding women areshamed for sexuality, especially
if you're religious, shamed forsexuality and we can't like, we
have to be good girls and yada,yada, yada.
So if someone's forcing us tohave pleasure, then we can find
(29:21):
pleasure in it, but only ifwe're being forced.
I don't know, that was sometheory out there.
But I could go on about thatand I'm not going to.
I just wanna say a little bitmore about this from Matt's
words.
The sense of ownership is onereason why abuse tends to get
worse as relationships get moreserious.
The more history and commitmentthat develop in the couple, the
more the abuser comes to thinkof his partner as a prized
(29:44):
object.
Possessiveness is at the coreof the abuser's mindset, the
spring from which all of theirstreams spout.
On some level he feels that heowns you and therefore has the
right to treat you as he seesfit.
Again, I don't know what thefuck happened where along the
line, people women startedthinking this is hot but it's
not.
So why is he insanely jealous?
For many abusers,possessiveness takes the form of
(30:06):
sexual jealousy.
This style of man monitors hispartner's associations carefully
, expects her to account for herwhereabouts at all times and
periodically rips into her withjealous accusations.
It says in chapter one we metMarshall, who did not believe
his hysterical accusations ofinfidelity against his wife.
So what was driving hisbehavior and again, pick up this
(30:29):
book if you want the fulldetails of what this bitch
Marshall was doing.
An abusive man who isolates hispartner does so primarily for
two reasons he wants her life tobe focused entirely on his
needs.
He feels that other socialcontacts will allow her less
time for him and he doesn'taccept that she has the right to
do that.
And he doesn't want her todevelop sources of strength that
(30:52):
could contribute to herindependence.
Although it is often largelyunconscious, abusive men are
aware on some level that awoman's social contacts can
bring her strength and supportthat could ultimately enable her
to escape his control.
An abusive man commonlyattempts to keep his partner
completely dependent on him toincrease his power.
Remember that's why he'sisolating y'all.
Because of this mindset, anabusive man tends to perceive
(31:13):
any relationship that hispartner develops, whether with
females or males, as threats tohim.
You may try to manage thisproblem by giving him lots of
reassurance that you still lovehim and you're not gonna cheat
on him, but you will find thathis efforts to isolate you don't
lessen, because his fears thatyou might sleep with another man
are actually only a small partof why he's trying to isolate
you At the same time.
(31:34):
Jealous accusations andisolations are only one form
that ownership can take.
They're abusive men who do nottry to control their partner's
associations, but theirunderlying attitude of your mind
do with, I see as fit revealsitself in other ways.
If your partner's sistercriticizes him for bullying you,
he may tell her what I'll dowith my girl, there's none of
(31:55):
your business.
If you have children, he maystart to treat all family
members as his belongings.
His anger may escalatedangerously when you attempt to
break away from him.
Keep the word ownership in mindand you may begin to notice
that many of your partner'sbehaviors are rooted in
believing that you belong to him.
Abusive men come in everypersonality type.
(32:17):
Going back to what I said atthe first of this podcast, they
arise from good childhoods andbad ones.
They're macho man or gentleliberated men.
No psychologist tests candistinguish an abusive man from
a respectful one.
Abusiveness is not a product ofa man's emotional injuries or
deficits in his skills.
In reality, abuse springs froma man's early cultural training,
(32:38):
his key male role models andhis peer influences.
In other words, abuse is aproblem of values, not of
psychology.
When someone challenges anabuser's attitudes and beliefs
he tends to reveal thecontemptuous and insulting
personalities that normallystays hidden, reserved for
private attacks on his partner,and abuser tries to keep
(32:59):
everybody his partner, histherapist, his friends and
relatives focused on how hefeels, so that they won't focus
on how he thinks.
Perhaps because on some levelhe is aware that if you grasp
the true nature of his problem,you will begin to escape his
domination.
Ooh, we, max said it y'all.
Please keep that in mind.
(33:22):
It's not he's gonna focus onhow he feels.
You need to focus on how hethinks, but better yet, you need
to focus on your ass and howyou're gonna get out of there.
So key points to remember.
On them, we're done with thischapter.
Abuse grows from attitudes andvalues, not feelings.
The roots are ownership, thetrunk is entitlement and the
branches are control.
Abuse and respect are opposites.
(33:44):
Abusers cannot change unlessthey overcome their core of
disrespect toward their partners.
Abuse, and they ain't gonna dothat.
Abusers are far more consciousof what they are doing than they
appear to be.
However, even their lessconscious behaviors are driven
by their core attitudes.
Abusers are unwilling to be nonabusive, not unable.
They do not want to give uppower and control.
(34:05):
Again, I'm gonna repeat itAbusers are unwilling to be non
abusive, not unable.
You are not crazy.
You are not crazy.
Trust your perceptions of howyour abusive partner treats you
and thinks about you.
And that's where we're going toend it.
And the next chapters we'regonna talk about the types of
abusive men Because, remember,there's a range, there's a scale
(34:29):
here and it all funnels intothe same line of thinking.
They're all using the sameplaybook, but if you know this
playbook, then you can knowwhat's coming and prepare for
what's coming and stay way safer, which is the goal.
And happy Y'all.
I want that for y'all.
(34:49):
I know what it's like.
Been there, done that, livedthis for 15 years.
I'm still living in a littlebit because this motherfuck
keeps texting me, but I'm somuch happier being liberated and
free and actually having apartner in my life who is none
of this shit.
There was a point in my lifewhere I was like all men are
(35:12):
like this and I truly believedit.
But they're not.
Now my experience are most menlike this, maybe, but there's
some good ones out there, butI'm not saying that to say, oh,
go, find you a partner Maybe.
Most of us need time aloneafter we've experienced this
stuff and most of us want toswitch teams because I think
women are just way better, butthat's a whole other
(35:35):
conversation.
So stay safe.
I hope you have got some kind ofenlightenment out of some of
these words so far that we'vebeen learning from Matt.
He lays it all out, he is anexpert in the subject, but
remember again, he said we don'tneed an expert, we need a
support system, and that's whatI'm here for.
(35:57):
So I'm going to go outside andenjoy this beautiful weather.
I hope you have beautifulweather where you're at, and I
hope for you that you get somewoo-woo-joo-joo in your life too
.
That's going to spur you on togreater things.
I am going to light somecandles for you today and do my
(36:18):
peacock fanning for good vibessent your way.
Thank you so much for listening.
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
(36:38):
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.
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'scatatomsadamswitha-double-d'scom
(37:00):
.
Subscribe to my newsletter forthe latest information.
Also, when you subscribe,you're going to get free novella
.
And just be forewarned, myOronti romcom is as dirty as my
mouth.
If that's your thing, go for it.
It's super hilarious.
But thank you again for tuningin.
Until next time, please staysafe and I'll see you on the
(37:23):
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.
And we're back and it is abeautiful sunny day outside and
(00:32):
it's gonna be like 72 degreesand it's already 11 o'clock in
the morning because I've beenlazy, is a lazy Sunday and I'm
like Just enjoying it.
So I'm gonna get started hereand cut out the riffraff,
because nothing new to report,nothing new, just it's a
(00:53):
beautiful day and I am going togo enjoy it and I hope you do
too.
But first you have to Listen inand educate yourself, because
we're continuing on with theseries from it's like a book
study series from Matt Lundy'sbook called why does he do that
(01:16):
inside the minds of angry andcontrolling men and no, I hate
talking about abusive men.
I much prefer talking aboutvictims of abuse and surviving
it and and offering them theknowledge I have and the support
and the empowerment, because Inever want my work to be about
(01:39):
the abusers, because theyalready make everything about
them anyways.
But I do think it's importantto know, if you're in a toxic
relationship, what's going on soyou can realize like, yeah,
there's no hope there.
I just have to move on and getout, which is true and I know a
lot of people are like don'twant to hear that, but it is
(02:03):
what it is.
So, yeah, my podcast and mybooks and my work love to focus
it on Women, empowerment, thewoo-woo juju, the full moon,
living within the seasons, aty'all.
I love that stuff so much.
Actually, yeah, I do havesomething to report.
I went and got a, a.
(02:23):
I got some magic Woo-woo jujustuff yesterday and I don't know
what's going on with me, but Isaw a painting of a peacock a
Few months ago when I wasredoing my office and I was like
this just looks like it belongsin my office and my office is
burgundy, but I just had to haveit and so I got that.
(02:45):
And then I was at home goodsand I saw, oh my gosh, there's
like this peacock table.
It's just like a mini sidetable.
It matches the painting.
I gotta get that.
I Don't know anything aboutpeacocks.
They just been calling to melately and you know, usually I'm
all about like zebra stripesstill am, but the peacocks have
been calling to me.
(03:06):
So we went to a Magic shopyesterday when we had our little
.
It's just like explore Memphisand eat all the foods tour.
And they had like this fan,like one of those like feather
fans that you use to like spreadsage.
Like when you're burning sage,just mud your house and stuff
(03:29):
and just like spread it aroundor whatever.
I don't know, but they havelike a.
They had one is it's like abunch of feathers put together
and it's peacock feathers andit's got like crystals on it and
all within the peacock colorsand I'm like, well, gonna get
that.
So I got that.
And then I got some also.
(03:49):
I got some like chime candlesand Stuff because I'm trying to
get back to the Sorry if thatgot loud I'm moving around here.
I'm trying to get back to a morebalanced Spiritual place
because I've not.
I have not been in that placeand quite some time and I miss
(04:10):
it.
I miss.
I need like a line my chakrasor something, get some Reiki.
I don't know, but I've been Notas in tune with that side of me
as I want to be and I know it'sbecause work, like it's because
I have to wear a Different hatthese days and I have trouble
(04:31):
separating that hat from the hatI want to wear, you know, and
the stuff I want to do, and it'skind of got me upset.
You know, like I was telling myhusband if I could do anything,
anything, anything, anything,anything.
(04:52):
It'd be writing again, and noteven like nonfiction writing,
although I love that.
But I'm kind of like it's whatI'm doing on this podcast, right
, the nonfiction empowermentstuff, but like the writing
where I get to create characters, make them fall in love or, you
know, have them go through sometragedy.
I like it, that's me.
I'm a writer.
I miss it.
(05:12):
I haven't done it in foreverbecause I just got too much shit
going on.
And he's like, why are youstill doing the podcast every
week?
Why can't you just someweekends you spend writing and
blah, blah, blah.
I'm like, yeah, I need to dothat, I need to force myself to
do it.
I really do because I've beenputting it off.
But anyways, all that to say,you know I've said it before,
(05:36):
maybe I'm going to move to anevery two weeks thing.
I just haven't made that leapyet.
Maybe some of this woo jujustuff can give me clarity and I
really want to get back intojust being in my feels and being
more grounded.
I haven't been meditating.
I don't know that sounds likeoh my gosh, so millennial, but
you know what it's freaking lifechanging.
(05:57):
If you can get into ameditation schedule and like do
that every day, oh my gosh, it'slife changing.
But I've been too busy tomeditate and I know that sounds
ridiculous because there's somequote out there who's like I
don't know if it's gone to yoursomeone's like if you're too
busy to do a five minutemeditation, then you need to be
doing like five, five minutemeditation Basically and I feel
(06:18):
it.
But yeah, I guess that was alittle bit of an update, but I'm
not going to bore you anylonger with where I'm at.
I want to talk to you aboutabusive jerks Now.
When I talk about toxic partners, they come in a wide variety of
scales.
They can be like just a jerkwho likes to take jobs at you
(06:42):
every now and then as in kind ofcut you down or make you feel
stupid and make him feel likehe's.
He thinks he's superior.
You know, in your inferior, oryou know we'll just take a shot
at your family, or justsomething to make you feel bad.
To the more dangerous toxicpartners who will literally take
(07:04):
a job at you with like a knife.
So there is a wide, wide, widevariety of abusive behavior and
I don't want people to tune thisout who think, oh my gosh, well
, my man's not hitting me, I'mnot getting black eyes, so I'm
not going to listen.
Look, I know so many marriedcouples who are miserable and
they don't want to admit thatmost of their misery is coming
(07:29):
from their husband being abusivein a way that they don't want
to admit is abusive.
Right, it's more like emotional, it's more quiet, it's more
like those silent or not sosilent.
But the smaller jabs, theeveryday jabs, it's the
controlling things they do thatyou might not think are
(07:50):
controlling, because maybeyou've, you know, lived this way
your whole life, like maybeit's religious abuse and you've
grown up your whole life in thechurch and you know you have no
idea that that's not normal forhim to say, you know you can't
wear a skirt or something.
I know that's an extremeexample, but I'm just trying to
(08:11):
say I know plenty of women whothink they're in, like I'm not
going to say, happy marriage,they're in a miserable marriage,
but they don't understand, like, what their husband's doing is
abusive and some of the stuffthey do is pretty abusive too.
There's a wide range in when wetalk about toxic behavior and
abusiveness, and that's why Itend to say toxicity and toxic
(08:33):
behavior instead of abusiveness.
I don't want to scare peopleoff who are like, yeah, well,
I'm not being hit.
You know, there's no domesticviolence.
Which is because there's notdomestic violence doesn't mean
there's not domestic abuse, andI think that's a lot more
prevalent than domestic violence, because that is a hard number
to measure how many people arebeing emotionally abused and so
(08:54):
we don't have accurate numberson that.
But the statistics I saw lasttime was guessing is like oh, or
50% of relationships, which isscary, and it works both ways.
But yeah, so let's continuewhere we left off last time, and
we were talking about therealities of his controlling
(09:14):
behavior, because remember, whenwe went through the mystery, we
were through the mist and thenthe last one, we're going
through reality since a longchapter.
So I'm having to break it up.
Let's continue on the reality.
Number four in your relationship, if you're with an abuser, is
hard truth.
Here he disrespects his partnerand considers himself superior
(09:37):
to her.
All right, so this is what Mattsays about that.
The abuser tends to see hispartner as less intelligent,
less competent, less logical andeven less sensitive than he is.
He will tell me, for example,that she isn't the compassionate
person he is.
He often has difficultyconceiving her as a human being.
(09:59):
This tendency in abusers isknown as objectification or
depersonalization.
Most abusers verbally attacktheir partners in degrading,
revolting ways.
They reach for the words thatthey know are most disturbing to
women, such as bitch, whore andkind, often preceded by the
word fact.
These words assault herhumanity, reducing her to an
(10:20):
animal, a nonliving object or adegraded sexual body part.
The partners in my clients tellme that these disgusting words
carry a force and an uglinessthat feel like violence, though
that through these carefullychosen epithets I hate that word
, I don't know how to pronounceit and my clients sometimes
admit that their abusers makethem feel both debased and
(10:42):
unsafe.
Abuse is a critical reason whyan abuser tends to get worse
over time.
Listen in here, because this issuper important.
Okay, this is exactly what Iwas talking about there as a
scale.
So he may start with the namecalling, but it gets worse.
It always gets worse.
So I'm going to repeat thatsentence and move on.
(11:05):
Objectification is a criticalreason why an abuser tends to
get worse over time as hisconscious, as his conscience,
adapts to one level of crueltyor violence, he builds to the
next.
By depersonalizing his partner,the abuser protects himself
from the natural human emotionsof guilt and empathy so that he
can sleep at night with a clearconscience.
He distanced himself so farfrom her humanity that her
(11:29):
feelings no longer count orsimply cease to exist.
These walls tend to grow overtime, so that after a few years
in a relationship, my clientscan reach a point where they
feel no more guilt overdegrading or threatening their
partners than you or I wouldfeel after angrily kicking a
stone in the driveway.
And that's how it all starts.
And that's why I don't want toscare anyone away when I'm
(11:51):
talking about domestic abuse andyou're like oh well, he doesn't
abuse me, he doesn't hit me,but he will, or he will build up
.
He will build up in his headthe justification that he can
because he feels superior to you.
And this is like hard truth,right?
This isn't the myth.
(12:12):
We're not talking about thisanymore.
This is reality of how theythink.
Abuse and respect are diametricopposites.
You do not respect someone whomyou abuse and you do not abuse
someone whom you respect.
So if you are experiencing this, he doesn't respect you, and my
(12:37):
job and my hope is for you tolearn how to respect yourself so
you can say bye bitch and livea much happier life on what I
like to call the other side.
Moving on to the next reality isa little bit of a hot topic for
me, coming from the romanceindustry book romance industry,
(13:02):
right.
The author Romcom, writer here.
I have talked about this onBlue in the Face.
One of the reasons why Istepped back from romance was it
was making me feel icky becauseit was glorifying abuse and I
got so much hate for that and Istill do.
But I don't give two shitsbecause it's the truth.
(13:25):
I'm not going to glorify abuseand say, oh well, you know, it's
okay because in the end thedude changes and he loves her or
he's just mean to everybody buther because he's possessive and
that's sexy.
It's not sexy, there's nothingsexy about it.
There's nothing in realityabout it because we know the
(13:47):
majority of these men do notchange.
So I think it's selling women alie and it's really doing a
disservice for women, especiallythe teenage girls who are
picking up these books andlearning from them.
So that's my soapbox.
But let me tell you Matt'ssoapbox on this.
All right Reality, number fivehe confuses love and abuse.
(14:08):
All right here, comments myclients commonly make to me.
The reason I abuse her isbecause I have such strong
feelings for her.
You hurt the ones you love themost.
No one can get me as upset asshe can.
Yeah, I told her she'd be,she'd be, she'd better not ever
try to leave me.
You have no idea how much Ilove this girl.
I was sick of watching herrunning her life.
(14:28):
I care too much to sit back anddo nothing about it.
An abusive man often tries toconvince his partner that his
mistreatment of her is proof ofhow deeply he cares.
But the reality is that abuseis the opposite of love.
Hello Romance writers, the morea man abuses you, the more he
is demonstrating that he caresonly about himself.
(14:50):
He may feel a powerful desireto receive your love and
caretaking, but he only wants togive love when it's convenient.
So is he lying when he says heloves you?
No, usually not.
Most of my clients do feel apowerful sensation inside that
they call love.
For many of them, it's the onlykind of feeling toward a female
partner that they have ever had, so they have no way of knowing
(15:11):
that it isn't love.
When abusive man feels thepowerful stirring inside that
other people call love, he ispossibly largely feeling one,
the desire to have you devoteyour life to keeping him happy,
with no outside interference.
Two, the desire to have sexualaccess.
Three, the desire to impressothers by having you be his
partner.
And four, the desire to possessand control you, and we're
(15:33):
going to talk more about that ina little bit.
These desires are importantaspects of what romantic love
means to him.
He may well be capable offeeling genuine love for you,
but first he will have todramatically reorient his
outlook in order to separateabusiveness and possessive
desires from true caring andbecome able to really see you.
The confusion of love with abuseis what allows abusers who kill
(15:54):
their partners to make theabsurd claim that they were
driven by the depths of theirlove feelings, their loving
feelings and we've heard thatbefore right, an active passion.
Out of an active passion hekilled her.
Bull shit.
The news media regrettablyoften accepts the aggressor's
view of these acts, describingthem as crimes of passion.
I should write a book like this.
(16:16):
But what more could.
But what could more thoroughlyprove that a man did not love
his partner?
If a mother were to kill one ofher children, would we ever
accept the claim that she did itbecause she was overwhelmed by
how much she cared?
Not for an instant bitch.
Nor should we.
Genuine love means respectingthe humanity of the other person
, wanting what is best for himor her and supporting the other
(16:38):
person's self-esteem andindependence.
This kind of love isincompatible with abuse and
coercion.
Moving on to reality, number six, as he is manipulative and Matt
says, few abusive men relyentirely on verbal abuse or
intimidation to control theirpartners.
Being a nonstop bully is toomuch work and it makes the man
look bad.
(16:59):
If he is abusive all the time,his partner starts to recognize
that she's being abused and thatman may feel too guilty about
his behavior.
The abuser therefore tends toswitch frequently to
manipulating his partner to getwhat he wants.
He may also sometimes use thesetactics to just just to get her
upset or confused.
Remember the mystery.
There are some signs ofmanipulation by abusers that you
(17:19):
can watch for, one changing hismoods abruptly and frequently
so that you find it difficult totell who he is or how he feels
keeping you constantly offbalance.
His feelings toward you areespecially changeable.
Two denying the obvious aboutwhat he is doing or feeling.
He'll speak to you with hisvoice trembling with anger, or
he'll blame a difficulty on you,or he'll suck for two hours and
(17:40):
then deny it to your face.
You know what he did, and sodoes he, but he refuses to admit
it, which can drive you crazywith frustration.
Then he may call you irrationalfor getting so upset by his
denial.
Man that sounds so true.
I've been there and done that.
Three convincing you that whathe wants you to do is what is
best for you.
This way, the abuser can makehis selfishness look like
(18:01):
generosity, which is a neattrick.
A long time may pass before yourealize what his real motives
were.
And then the next one isgetting you to feel sorry for
him, so that you will bereluctant to push forward with
your complaints about what hedoes.
Getting you to blame yourself orblame other people for what he
does, using confusion tacticsand arguments, lying or
(18:22):
misleading you about his actions, his desires or his reasons for
doing certain things, andgetting you and other people you
care about turned against eachother.
He does this by betrayingconfidences, being rude to your
friends, telling people liesabout you, what you supposedly
said about them, charming yourfriends and then telling them
bad things about you and manyother divisive tactics.
(18:43):
In some ways manipulation isworse than overt abuse,
especially when the two aremixed together.
When a woman gets caught abitch or gets shoved or slapped,
she at least knows what herpartner did to her.
But after a manipulativeinteraction she may have little
idea of what went wrong.
She just knows that she feelsterrible or crazy and that
somehow it seems to be her ownfault.
And I'm going back here to whatI was saying at the beginning.
(19:05):
I don't want to turn people offby talking about like the
violent.
You know the violent aspect oflike.
Oh well, my husband doesn'tshove me against the law, so I'm
okay.
But he might be doing thesethings and it's still just as
bad, if not worse.
Hey, yeah, yeah, all right.
(19:25):
Reality number seven is hestrives to have a good public
image.
Oh boy, I've got some storieshere.
There's a question here.
It says how come everyone elsethinks he's wonderful?
So most abusive men put on acharming face for their
communities?
Oh my gosh, my dog's talking.
I ain't in it.
Y'all is beautiful outside andI'm trying to get out there.
(19:48):
So you're going to have tolisten to Bailey give her
opinion on this.
So let's start again.
Most abusive men put on acharming face for their
communities, creating a sharpsplit between their public image
and their private treatment ofwomen and children.
He may be enraged at home, butcalm and smiling outside.
Selfish and self centered withyou, but generous and supportive
with others.
(20:08):
Domineering at home but willingto negotiate and compromise
outside.
Highly negative about femaleswhile on his own turf, but a
vocal supporter of equality whenanyone else is listening.
Ooh, I know a lot of thoseassaults have toward his partner
.
Children, but nonviolent andnon threatening with everyone
else.
Entitled at home, but criticalof other men who disrespect or
assault women.
The pain of this contrast caneat away at women.
(20:29):
In the morning Her partner cutsher to the quick by calling her
brainless fat cow, but a fewhours later she sees him
laughing with the people nextdoor and helping them fix their
car.
Later the neighbor says to heryour partner is so nice, you're
so lucky to be with him.
A lot of men wouldn't do whathe does.
She responds with a mumbledyeah, feeling confused and
tongue tied back at home.
She asked herself over and overagain why, me Boy, did I live
(20:52):
this life?
Yes, I, freaking did.
My ex was Mr Charming toeveryone.
I even had neighbors tell me,just like on here, like, oh,
he's such a good dad, he seemslike such a good husband and I
just want to be like nah bitch,like he fooled you too.
No, and I'm pretty sure after Igot divorced everyone thought
(21:15):
it was because of me.
Like I started dating reallyquick, really quick.
After my divorce.
Y'all know I met the D like thenight that I think it was after
our mediation or negotiation orwhatever and he was supposed to
sign the papers I got on Tinder.
I'm like I'm ready because Ineeded, I needed some Passion.
(21:39):
Let's just put it that way.
I'm at the D in the rest ofhistory.
I love that man.
He totally changed my life.
But going back to after thedivorce, when he moved out and I
started dating pretty quickly,I had another truck parked in my
driveway and I had a neighborto make comments to me and try
(22:02):
to pry, thinking that I, thequestions they were asking were
alluding to the fact that we gotdivorced because I was cheating
, because they see this truck inmy driveway.
So I must have been cheatingand he divorced me and I just
want to give them big.
If you're listening to this,neighbors, fuck you Because,
(22:23):
first of all, none of that, anyof their business.
Second of all, are you kiddingme?
Ah, the shit.
I went through and all myneighbors want to like, kiss my
ex's ass and blame me as likethe bad guy here, when they know
nothing.
They just assumed because, mryou know, ex douchebag charmer
(22:47):
is just, I guess I don't know,he fooled them, he fooled them,
but Naji, no, that ain't evenhow it went down.
And they do that.
These type do that Like, and alot of them are in powerful
positions.
Hello, your elected officials,hello people that are running
(23:11):
this country, and you cantotally freaking tell by their
behavior.
You know mostly like I don'twant to go back to politics, but
the Covena stuff, oh my God,that dude's so fucking guilty
you can tell their demeanor, youcan tell these people, if you
know this, if you've learnedthis and you're enlightened and
(23:31):
you understand how abuse works,you can usually spot the red
flags and you know that this Mrcharmer is just being a Dr
Jekyll, mr Hyde, and we're goingto talk about that right now.
The moving on it says doabusive men have split
personalities?
Oh yeah, everybody's outsideriding bikes.
Oh, I'm going to wrap this up.
(23:52):
So do abusive men have splitpersonalities?
Not really.
They're drawn to power andcontrol, and part of how they
get it is by looking good inpublic.
An abusive man's charm makes hispartner reluctant to reach out
for support or assistancebecause she feels that people
will find her revelations hardto believe or will blame her.
Hmm, if friends overhear him,say something abusive or police
(24:13):
arrest him for an assault, hisprevious people pleasing lays
the groundwork to get him offthe hook.
The observer thinks he's such anice guy.
He's just not the type to beabusive.
She must have really hurt him.
Oh God, this is so true it's.
I laugh because I don't want tocry, because one of the most
important challenges facing acounselor of abusive men is to
(24:35):
resist being drawn in by themen's charming persona.
This is why, if you were goingto therapy and you were married,
do not go with your abuser.
A lot of counselors are nottrained like Matt Lundy's,
trained in understanding howthis manipulation works from an
abuser.
They are very capable oftwisting stuff around and making
(24:57):
you look like the abuser.
If you try marriage counseling,please do not go to marriage
counseling.
It's not going to work in theway you think it's going to work
.
You need to go to counselingalone and for yourself.
Moving on to reality, numbereight is, he feels, justified.
Abusers externalizeresponsibility for their actions
(25:20):
, believing that their partnersmake them behave in abusive ways
.
Each of my clients, predict,predictably, uses some variation
of the following lines sheknows how to push my buttons.
Oh, y'all want me to do theredneck voice again.
She knows how to push mybuttons.
She wanted me to go off and sheknows how to make it happen.
She pushed me too far.
There's only so much a man cantake.
(25:41):
You expect me to just let herwalk all over me?
What would you do?
So?
Those are some of the thingsthat he notices.
They say to justify abusive menor masters of excuse making.
Abusers do have a conscienceabout their behavior outside of
(26:02):
the family.
All right, so if someone'swatching, if the neighbors are
watching, then they can controltheir behavior.
So they can control thenarrative outside of the family.
But behind closed doors has adifferent story.
They may be willing to beanswerable for their actions at
(26:24):
work, at the club or on thestreet.
At home, however, their senseof entitlement takes over.
The abusive man commonlybelieves he can blame his
partner for anything that goeswrong, not just his abusiveness.
Did he just suffer adisappointment?
She calls it.
Is he embarrassed by a mistakehe made?
She should have prevented it.
(26:45):
As one of the children in adifficult period, she's a bad
mother.
Everything is someone else'sfault, and someone else is
usually her man.
That hits hard, because I stillget attacks from ex-Dushidoosh
the stupidest things.
I don't know.
He can have diarrhea andsomehow blame it on me, like I
(27:07):
don't know.
Maybe I did someLoo-Woo-Joo-Joo and sent him to
the toilet.
I don't know, I didn't.
I ain't messing with that stuff.
That's karma.
I don't want that to threefold.
Whatever Bite me in the assliterally and make me send me to
the potty.
But reality number nine abusersdeny and minimize their abuse.
(27:32):
All right, we know this.
So this one says where am Igoing?
If he were ready to acceptresponsibility for his actions
and relationships, he wouldn'tbe abusive.
All right, so they're gonnadeny it.
That's a pretty easy one.
He goes into detail.
But we're not going into detailbecause I mean that's we know.
(27:55):
We know and I'm gonna getoutside Denial and minimization
are part of most destructivebehavior patterns, whether they
be alcohol abuse, gambling orchild abuse.
Partner abuse is no exception.
So that's what I'll say aboutthat.
Reality number 10, abusers arepossessive bitch Y'all.
This is not sexy, this is notromantic.
(28:16):
I'm going back on my soapboxhere about this bullshit romance
spicy book, tiktok, whatever itis, where women are like, ooh,
I wanna be kidnapped.
Yeah, I want him to stuff me inthe back of a truck and force
me blah, blah, blah blah.
And I have a lot of theories onthis and I've looked into it.
(28:37):
There's one place I wanna sayit's probably Sweden or
something, probably one of thoseScandinavian places where those
types of books are not popularat all.
I'll have to find the study.
I don't know where it is, but Iremember reading that's not
popular because women areactually like that's disgusting
and that's abusive behavior overthere, whereas here I'm gonna
(29:00):
say, especially in the South andthis is gonna be like kind of
conspiracy sounding women areshamed for sexuality, especially
if you're religious, shamed forsexuality and we can't like, we
have to be good girls and yada,yada, yada.
So if someone's forcing us tohave pleasure, then we can find
(29:21):
pleasure in it, but only ifwe're being forced.
I don't know, that was sometheory out there.
But I could go on about thatand I'm not going to.
I just wanna say a little bitmore about this from Matt's
words.
The sense of ownership is onereason why abuse tends to get
worse as relationships get moreserious.
The more history and commitmentthat develop in the couple, the
more the abuser comes to thinkof his partner as a prized
(29:44):
object.
Possessiveness is at the coreof the abuser's mindset, the
spring from which all of theirstreams spout.
On some level he feels that heowns you and therefore has the
right to treat you as he seesfit.
Again, I don't know what thefuck happened where along the
line, people women startedthinking this is hot but it's
not.
So why is he insanely jealous?
For many abusers,possessiveness takes the form of
(30:06):
sexual jealousy.
This style of man monitors hispartner's associations carefully
, expects her to account for herwhereabouts at all times and
periodically rips into her withjealous accusations.
It says in chapter one we metMarshall, who did not believe
his hysterical accusations ofinfidelity against his wife.
So what was driving hisbehavior and again, pick up this
(30:29):
book if you want the fulldetails of what this bitch
Marshall was doing.
An abusive man who isolates hispartner does so primarily for
two reasons he wants her life tobe focused entirely on his
needs.
He feels that other socialcontacts will allow her less
time for him and he doesn'taccept that she has the right to
do that.
And he doesn't want her todevelop sources of strength that
(30:52):
could contribute to herindependence.
Although it is often largelyunconscious, abusive men are
aware on some level that awoman's social contacts can
bring her strength and supportthat could ultimately enable her
to escape his control.
An abusive man commonlyattempts to keep his partner
completely dependent on him toincrease his power.
Remember that's why he'sisolating y'all.
Because of this mindset, anabusive man tends to perceive
(31:13):
any relationship that hispartner develops, whether with
females or males, as threats tohim.
You may try to manage thisproblem by giving him lots of
reassurance that you still lovehim and you're not gonna cheat
on him, but you will find thathis efforts to isolate you don't
lessen, because his fears thatyou might sleep with another man
are actually only a small partof why he's trying to isolate
you At the same time.
(31:34):
Jealous accusations andisolations are only one form
that ownership can take.
They're abusive men who do nottry to control their partner's
associations, but theirunderlying attitude of your mind
do with, I see as fit revealsitself in other ways.
If your partner's sistercriticizes him for bullying you,
he may tell her what I'll dowith my girl, there's none of
(31:55):
your business.
If you have children, he maystart to treat all family
members as his belongings.
His anger may escalatedangerously when you attempt to
break away from him.
Keep the word ownership in mindand you may begin to notice
that many of your partner'sbehaviors are rooted in
believing that you belong to him.
Abusive men come in everypersonality type.
(32:17):
Going back to what I said atthe first of this podcast, they
arise from good childhoods andbad ones.
They're macho man or gentleliberated men.
No psychologist tests candistinguish an abusive man from
a respectful one.
Abusiveness is not a product ofa man's emotional injuries or
deficits in his skills.
In reality, abuse springs froma man's early cultural training,
(32:38):
his key male role models andhis peer influences.
In other words, abuse is aproblem of values, not of
psychology.
When someone challenges anabuser's attitudes and beliefs
he tends to reveal thecontemptuous and insulting
personalities that normallystays hidden, reserved for
private attacks on his partner,and abuser tries to keep
(32:59):
everybody his partner, histherapist, his friends and
relatives focused on how hefeels, so that they won't focus
on how he thinks.
Perhaps because on some levelhe is aware that if you grasp
the true nature of his problem,you will begin to escape his
domination.
Ooh, we, max said it y'all.
Please keep that in mind.
(33:22):
It's not he's gonna focus onhow he feels.
You need to focus on how hethinks, but better yet, you need
to focus on your ass and howyou're gonna get out of there.
So key points to remember.
On them, we're done with thischapter.
Abuse grows from attitudes andvalues, not feelings.
The roots are ownership, thetrunk is entitlement and the
branches are control.
Abuse and respect are opposites.
(33:44):
Abusers cannot change unlessthey overcome their core of
disrespect toward their partners.
Abuse, and they ain't gonna dothat.
Abusers are far more consciousof what they are doing than they
appear to be.
However, even their lessconscious behaviors are driven
by their core attitudes.
Abusers are unwilling to be nonabusive, not unable.
They do not want to give uppower and control.
(34:05):
Again, I'm gonna repeat itAbusers are unwilling to be non
abusive, not unable.
You are not crazy.
You are not crazy.
Trust your perceptions of howyour abusive partner treats you
and thinks about you.
And that's where we're going toend it.
And the next chapters we'regonna talk about the types of
abusive men Because, remember,there's a range, there's a scale
(34:29):
here and it all funnels intothe same line of thinking.
They're all using the sameplaybook, but if you know this
playbook, then you can knowwhat's coming and prepare for
what's coming and stay way safer, which is the goal.
And happy Y'all.
I want that for y'all.
(34:49):
I know what it's like.
Been there, done that, livedthis for 15 years.
I'm still living in a littlebit because this motherfuck
keeps texting me, but I'm somuch happier being liberated and
free and actually having apartner in my life who is none
of this shit.
There was a point in my lifewhere I was like all men are
(35:12):
like this and I truly believedit.
But they're not.
Now my experience are most menlike this, maybe, but there's
some good ones out there, butI'm not saying that to say, oh,
go, find you a partner Maybe.
Most of us need time aloneafter we've experienced this
stuff and most of us want toswitch teams because I think
women are just way better, butthat's a whole other
(35:35):
conversation.
So stay safe.
I hope you have got some kind ofenlightenment out of some of
these words so far that we'vebeen learning from Matt.
He lays it all out, he is anexpert in the subject, but
remember again, he said we don'tneed an expert, we need a
support system, and that's whatI'm here for.
(35:57):
So I'm going to go outside andenjoy this beautiful weather.
I hope you have beautifulweather where you're at, and I
hope for you that you get somewoo-woo-joo-joo in your life too
.
That's going to spur you on togreater things.
I am going to light somecandles for you today and do my
(36:18):
peacock fanning for good vibessent your way.
Thank you so much for listening.
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
(36:38):
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.
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'scatatomsadamswitha-double-d'scom
(37:00):
.
Subscribe to my newsletter forthe latest information.
Also, when you subscribe,you're going to get free novella
.
And just be forewarned, myOronti romcom is as dirty as my
mouth.
If that's your thing, go for it.
It's super hilarious.
But thank you again for tuningin.
Until next time, please staysafe and I'll see you on the
(37:23):
other side.
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