Thank you for this article! It would be wonderful if every girl/woman could read this before dating/getting engaged/married or having a child!! (My personal feeling is that it should be mandatory.)
I think it’s interesting (and terrifying) to note a few things:
1. 20 percent of men admit to being physically violent towards their partner. I would guess the actual numbers are much higher then as abusers do not have the reputation of honesty/integrity.
2. There are so many men who don’t typically use physical abuse but often commit emotional abuse, psychological abuse, financial abuse, sexual abuse/coercion, pet abuse, etc. From my personal observations from friends and the countless women I have talked to, and my own experiences, these men are usually college educated, act polite, calm and thoughtful in public and at first in intimate relationships, and then the mask falls off after 1-3 years within the relationship with subtle things used to harm such as gaslighting and the silent treatment. If we add those forms of abuse plus the amount of physical abuse that never gets reported, I believe the numbers of men who abuse their partners is the large majority.
3. bell hooks also believed that “that most men psychologically terrorize their partners” and Zawn Villines says it is the norm in heterosexual relationships. I sadly concur.
Thank you for this! I was just commenting that it would be nice to have data on what percentages are abusive. Honestly I wondered if it’s closer to 50% than 20%| in all the support groups I’m in physical aggression is rare, and coercive control is common, especially with middle and upper class men, where physical violence is frowned upon
A marriage license should be "earned" instead of being a piece of paper that "poses" as a legal contract. In the business world, business contract terms are clearly set and signed off on: everything from goals/expectations to legal and financial boundaries & consequences are set to protect everyone who agrees/signs it. Why not have both engaged partners voluntarily go through an in-depth psychological & psychiatric process that includes everything from screening for abusers to in-depth individual and couple interviews; psychiatric testing for mental illness; functional MRI brain scans that can potentially screen for psychopathy -- like the SPECT Brain Scan -- along with written-by-the-couple-themselves contracts addressing all the marital/family issues (agreed or not agreed upon) BEFORE you marry your partner-for-life? It might also protect children born into these "screened" marriages along with protecting those who seek to leave the marriage or maybe it could even lower the divorce rate? And He (or She) who has nothing to hide... hides nothing... (It wouldn't eliminate 100% of abusers or even toxic people unsuitable for marriage, but it would at least be a "warning sign" if a potential partner refuses the opportunity to "create a better/happier" marriage/partnership...
Binding yourself to another person should come with a lot of safeguards and should involve a lot of steps. Unbinding yourself from another person if things have gone wrong should be very quick and easy. We have it the wrong way round by making marriage easy and divorce difficult.
I have long thought this. It makes no sense that marriage is so easy and divorce so difficult: but this is by design of the patriarchy, since marriage benefits men more than women.
I’ve read somewhere that abuse or coercive control are around 80% under-reported which adds even more weight to these horrific statistics and the endemic sense of entitlement. Thank you for shifting the perspective again Emma. Your google result says it all - how victim led the reporting is rather than how perpetrator led the whole problem is.
We need funded research into the prevalence of coercive control. Are you in a position, Emma, to set up a research project of this sort? From the responses to my personal essays on my own coercive marriage it seems to be alarmingly common; perhaps the dominant form of domestic abuse in the middle and upper classes as another commenter noted. It may even be the norm. We need figures!
Thanks for answering, Emma. I hope in due course this work will be done too. It will be so helpful towards effect change if we can point towards the scope of the problem.
I've given myself an honorary Ph.D in narcissistic abuse and coercive control after surviving many tough situations and studying various sources to understand the dynamics underlying these relationships. So while it's been an invaluable education, it's also meant feeling that pressure that you describe so well. That I'm supposed to be able to discern the red flags - and quickly!
It was actually healing for me to read your article. A release of that pressure I've felt. It doesn't necessarily solve the problem of why there are so many abusers, but it makes a huge difference to feel understood and witnessed through your words and the words of others here.
It certainly is a good moment to raise these issues, given that the country is basically being run by abusers at the moment.
Thank you for this article! It would be wonderful if every girl/woman could read this before dating/getting engaged/married or having a child!! (My personal feeling is that it should be mandatory.)
I think it’s interesting (and terrifying) to note a few things:
1. 20 percent of men admit to being physically violent towards their partner. I would guess the actual numbers are much higher then as abusers do not have the reputation of honesty/integrity.
2. There are so many men who don’t typically use physical abuse but often commit emotional abuse, psychological abuse, financial abuse, sexual abuse/coercion, pet abuse, etc. From my personal observations from friends and the countless women I have talked to, and my own experiences, these men are usually college educated, act polite, calm and thoughtful in public and at first in intimate relationships, and then the mask falls off after 1-3 years within the relationship with subtle things used to harm such as gaslighting and the silent treatment. If we add those forms of abuse plus the amount of physical abuse that never gets reported, I believe the numbers of men who abuse their partners is the large majority.
3. bell hooks also believed that “that most men psychologically terrorize their partners” and Zawn Villines says it is the norm in heterosexual relationships. I sadly concur.
Thank you for this! I was just commenting that it would be nice to have data on what percentages are abusive. Honestly I wondered if it’s closer to 50% than 20%| in all the support groups I’m in physical aggression is rare, and coercive control is common, especially with middle and upper class men, where physical violence is frowned upon
It would be great to have data on the national prevalence of coercive control. We need more data. The data we have is too limited.
A marriage license should be "earned" instead of being a piece of paper that "poses" as a legal contract. In the business world, business contract terms are clearly set and signed off on: everything from goals/expectations to legal and financial boundaries & consequences are set to protect everyone who agrees/signs it. Why not have both engaged partners voluntarily go through an in-depth psychological & psychiatric process that includes everything from screening for abusers to in-depth individual and couple interviews; psychiatric testing for mental illness; functional MRI brain scans that can potentially screen for psychopathy -- like the SPECT Brain Scan -- along with written-by-the-couple-themselves contracts addressing all the marital/family issues (agreed or not agreed upon) BEFORE you marry your partner-for-life? It might also protect children born into these "screened" marriages along with protecting those who seek to leave the marriage or maybe it could even lower the divorce rate? And He (or She) who has nothing to hide... hides nothing... (It wouldn't eliminate 100% of abusers or even toxic people unsuitable for marriage, but it would at least be a "warning sign" if a potential partner refuses the opportunity to "create a better/happier" marriage/partnership...
Binding yourself to another person should come with a lot of safeguards and should involve a lot of steps. Unbinding yourself from another person if things have gone wrong should be very quick and easy. We have it the wrong way round by making marriage easy and divorce difficult.
I have long thought this. It makes no sense that marriage is so easy and divorce so difficult: but this is by design of the patriarchy, since marriage benefits men more than women.
I’ve read somewhere that abuse or coercive control are around 80% under-reported which adds even more weight to these horrific statistics and the endemic sense of entitlement. Thank you for shifting the perspective again Emma. Your google result says it all - how victim led the reporting is rather than how perpetrator led the whole problem is.
We need funded research into the prevalence of coercive control. Are you in a position, Emma, to set up a research project of this sort? From the responses to my personal essays on my own coercive marriage it seems to be alarmingly common; perhaps the dominant form of domestic abuse in the middle and upper classes as another commenter noted. It may even be the norm. We need figures!
Hi Ros, I'm not in a position to lead a project like that at the moment (though I am working on new data on children and coercive control).
Thanks for answering, Emma. I hope in due course this work will be done too. It will be so helpful towards effect change if we can point towards the scope of the problem.
Thank you for this excellent article!
I've given myself an honorary Ph.D in narcissistic abuse and coercive control after surviving many tough situations and studying various sources to understand the dynamics underlying these relationships. So while it's been an invaluable education, it's also meant feeling that pressure that you describe so well. That I'm supposed to be able to discern the red flags - and quickly!
It was actually healing for me to read your article. A release of that pressure I've felt. It doesn't necessarily solve the problem of why there are so many abusers, but it makes a huge difference to feel understood and witnessed through your words and the words of others here.
It certainly is a good moment to raise these issues, given that the country is basically being run by abusers at the moment.
Thank you for writing the things I need to read in order to make sense of my circumstances. Much appreciated as always.
I’m so pleased my writing helps. Thank you.