The REASON BEHIND Abusive Men's Regime of Control

Why abuse is functional and practical for the male abuser of women and children

Welcome

At this time of year, it is a season of goodwill.

But, unfortunately, abusive men tend to get society’s goodwill all year round.

People often attempt to “understand” the male abuser by looking for a sympathetic way to explain (or “reveal”) that he is not intentionally abusive.

In such accounts, it is suggested that he:

• may be under the sway of a childhood trauma that haunts him;

• has problems controlling his anger and temper;

• is possibly being provoked by a bad girlfriend or wife into “snapping” or “seeing red”;

• can be a good father despite being an abusive husband.

However, if the abuser is a coercive controller, none of these suggestions stack up.

They all point towards the abusive man having a lack of self-control, a lack of free will and a lack of responsibility as an abuser. They are excuses for coercive control-based domestic violence and abuse.

A regime of coercive coercive control is not caused by a spontaneous or incidental upsurge of inner feelings.

No.

It should be understood as a clear and strategic intention — a tool that is used deviously and deliberately to bring about personal gain.

In this article, I build further upon my earlier works about what motivates violent and abusive coercive controllers that are already published on Substack. Please feel free to explore those pieces as well as this one for a full overview of the issue.

The message is as follows:

• if we want these men to stop abusing, we need to stop abuse being a functional choice;

• abuse needs to turn into a DYSFUNCTIONAL choice;

• abuse needs to be a choice that gets consistently punished, not rewarded.

Please read more on coercive control on this site, and also follow me on my social media channels.

The myth of “opening up”

(Mis)“understandings” about male coercive controllers often start with a premise that they just need to be helped to “open up” about the feelings that are motivating them to act this way.

After all, it is a comforting thought that perhaps abusive men have a problem with communicating — maybe if they learn to express emotions in a healthier way, they will calm down and behave in a less controlling way? Maybe they are just a bit dysfunctional at the moment and can be fixed?

No.

In an earlier post I mentioned an experiment undertaken by the American anti-domestic violence practitioner Chuck Derry.

Derry realized, in leading sessions with abusive men, that the men’s problem was not the lack of an outlet or skills in interpersonal communication. They had plenty of freedoms and abilities to communicate, so that was not the issue. No amount of practical, nuts-and-bolts assistance in helping men communicate better in their “relationships” was ever going to mend the abusive men and make them better.

Rather, the issue was what was in the men’s desires: what they really wanted and were aiming for in their lives.

In fact, what they were targeting was total domination of their partner and family.

That was their life’s mission; their personal life-project.

They were determined to subject their wives and children to very high levels of control, and were willing to beat them and/or to abuse them in other ways to reinforce their control.

The myth of “inner demons”

What motivates abusive men to want this level of control?