Ah, the types of abusive men.
The previous chapters taught me that yes, I wasn't crazy, I really was being verbally abused.
This one taught me that it wasn't just the alcohol, and not because of all the statements that alcohol doesn't cause it, but because I could identify "sober XABF" and "drunk XABF" in the different abusive categories. He was different when he was drinking, but the abusive behavior didn't stop when he stopped drinking, it just changed.
The Demand Man
I put stars around this section, because this one is very much XABF. I made my own notations here - a lot of them.
If your needs ever conflict with his {or his wants}, he is furious. At these times he attacks you as self-centered or inflexible, turning reality on its head with statements such as "All you care about is yourself!" ... At the same time, the Demand Man is likely to be furious if anything is demanded of HIM. Not only are you not supposed to demand any favors, you aren't even supposed to ask him to take care of his own obligations. {Then he explains away why he can't/won't/didn't do it - "You know I have bad lungs, it could kill me!" Doing laundry never killed anyone.} ... He keeps twisting things around backward in these ways, so that any effort you make to discuss your needs or his responsibilities switches abruptly to being about HIS needs and YOUR responsibilities. ... {XABF did not allow me to have other friendships, and blamed me when I didn't have them, although he did claim to support me in furthering my career - but then sabotaged it by demanding I spend all my time working on his projects instead of my own work. He was also always telling me, "You know I can't take care of myself - I'm codependent!" as if it were a terminal disuease that could never be cured.}
This was worse when he was drunk, but it was there when he was sober, too - just more subtle.
Mr. Right
XABF had a lot of this in him, as well, although I did not mark it up as much as the "Demand Man" one.
He did brush aside my opinions on everything that affected the both of us. When it would make his life easier, though, he was always asking how I felt about things, and always telling me that I had a lot of insight into other people - "women's intuition" he called it - and insisted that I use it to help him.
He did feel like I was his student and he was the teacher, then constantly complaining that he wanted to be my partner and not my father. I guess this was so I couldn't tell him that I felt like his mother, not his partner.
We were always getting into money arguments, and he always complained that he wanted it so we had to do it. He'd "compromise" by taking something else expensive out of the budget, then use that "new found money" over and over and over again to justify things. "We canceled our $150 restaurant so we can afford to go to the diner tonight." "I can get this $90 shirt because we canceled the restaurant." "Yes, well, we can buy this $100 membership because we canceled the restaurant." "I used our restaurant money to buy us tickets to the theater this weekend." "It doesn't matter that we skipped our theater show, because we canceled the restaurant so we got that money back." Ad nauseum.
He had a lot of favorite phrases, including "You're a lot smarter than me, you should have known!" Yet when I tried to tell him hours previous to the incident, he'd brush me off at not knowing anything, and tell me that his granddaughter was smarter than me, and what did I know.
When I would protest all his yelling at me, he's informed me "I yelled at my daughter all the time, and look how she turned out! She's a successful lawyer! She makes more in a month than you do in a year!"
Then my favorite, when he feels I'm not backing him up enough... "There are women whose husbands are in prison for murder but they stick by them and visit EVERY DAY. I'm just trying to help you, and you want to leave!"
And of course, whenever I am asked a question by someone and he is around, he has to answer for me. "No, she doesn't want anything to drink." "Yes, she had a great time."
This one was worse when he was sober than when he was drunk.
The Water Torturer
I do not think XABF did this one to me. Either that, or he was so forceful with the other abusive types, that this one was a relief when he used it. I don't know - I didn't identify with much of this section, although years down the line I might.
The Drill Sergeant
Another one with lots of stars. This one got worst when he moved himself in, although it was always there, just hidden since we lived more than an hour away from each other.
He isolated me from my friends, insisted we had to be together 100% of the time, we had to go to bed at the same time, he picked out what clothing I should wear, what sorts of fantasies I should have, how much time at work I had to spend catering to his needs (when I couldn't even get paid for them!), he drove me to work and home again, any suggestion I made to the contrary was a cause for him to blow up at me. He wouldn't even let me go to Al-Anon!
She feels like a little girl living with a tyrannical father, with no more freedom than an eight-year-old would have.
Fortunately for me he did not turn violent when I hit my bottom, although he had starting throwing things, he hadn't come after me - with a few exceptions, which are minor compared to what would have happened.
My biggest note in this chapter:
...I am very fortunate I acted when I did...
This was again worse when he was drunk, although sober he was very controlling, and frequently used any efforts of mine to have a life as a reason to drink.
Mr. Sensitive
This one only popped up when he was sober.
Mr. Sensitive appears to be the diametric opposite of the Drill Sergeant. He is soft-spoken, gentle, and supportive - when he isn't being abusive. I circled "Drill Sergeant" and wrote "How can he be both???" This section juxtaposed with the "Drill Sergeant" one are what started to convince me that alcohol was not the only problem.
Often he has participated extensively in therapy or twelve-step programs, or reads all the big self-help books, so speaks the language of popular psychology and introspection.
This is XABF again, perfectly. He used to go to ACOA meetings due to his father's drinking, he's read many of the books including "Codependent No More," he's got his copy of the Big Book and the Recovery Bible, and he is ready to bend them to his will.
1. You seem to be hurting his feelings constantly, though you aren't sure why, and he expects your attention to be focused endlessly on his emotional injuries. ... He'll go on and on about it, expecting you to grovel as if you had treated him with profound cruelty. (Notice the twist here: This is just what an abuser accuses his partner of doing to HIM, when all she is really looking for is a heartfelt "I'm sorry."
2. When YOUR feelings are hurt, on the other hand, he will insist on brushing over it quickly. He may give you a stream of popular psychology language... to substitute for genuine support for your feelings, especially if you are upset about something HE did. None of these philosophies applies when you upset him, however.
3. With the passing of time, he increasingly casts the blame on you for anything he is dissatisfied with in his own life; your burden of guilt keeps growing.
4. He starts to exhibit a mean side that no one else ever sees and may even become threatening or intimidating.
His favorite phrases also included "Can't you see how much you hurt me?" and "It's all your fault!" He always blamed my co-dependence, my parents, anything related to me he could thing of blaming.
The "gentle man" style of abuser tends to be highly self-centered and demanding of emotional catering. He may not be the man who has a fit because dinner is late but rather erupts because of some way his partner failed to sacrifice her own needs or interests to keep him content. He plays up how fragile he is [and uses his health, too!] to divert attention from the swath of destruction he leaves behind him.
The Player
This isn't really him. He does flirt with waitresses and cashiers, but he's always preaching about how "cheating is the unforgivable sin" (and includes himself in that opinion). I do see how he is incapable of taking women seriously as human beings, and I do see how he could have turned into this at some point if the drinking did not steal his good looks, but he never got the chance. (Am I a bad person for smiling when I wrote that last bit?)
Rambo
Not him, either. He is the "city neighborhood" definition of a tough guy - doesn't not intimidated easily, and not afraid to pick a fight, but much more emphasis on emotional mindgames than muscles. He was always talking about how his father was the golden gloves champion, so he had to learn to fight at an early age because his father frequently got physical in the middle of the night when he was tanked up, but he seemed to take great pride in not following in that path.
The Victim
Ah, Mister Poor Me, here's your chapter! He was like this, drunk or sober. In the beginning he applied it only to other people; later he added my "wrongs against him" to his list.
He was always talking about how evil his ex-wife was, how she ruined his life because she wanted to go out clubbing all night, how many different men she slept with in front of "his" kids after they separated, how she changed the locks when he moved out for a week, etc, etc. I never really hated her, but I will confess I did believe his side of the story. I should have noticed when he started saying things like "But God got back at her - she used to be gorgeous, even prettier than my daughter, but now she's fat and ugly." Come to think of it, I should have noticed when he started talking about how his daughter's legs were the prettiest legs in the world - saying it once or twice might be considered a compliment, but constantly comparing my legs to hers is kinda sick, isn't it? But that's a different story.
The Victim is highly self-centered in relationships. Everything seems to revolve around his wounds, and he keeps himself at the center of attention. ... He seems forever to be telling you: "You don't understand me, you don't appreciate me, you hold my mistakes over my head." Yet you sense that the dynamic is actually the other way around. ... This recurring inversion of reality is similar to what happens with Mr. Sensitive, but without the introspective psychology, gentle man, or recovering alcoholic routine. This was him while drunker.
Everything is someone else's fault. He even blamed his divorce on the women's liberation movement.
This I especially identified with:
If you are involved with the Victim and want to escape his abuse, you may find that you feel guilty toward HIM, despite his treatment of you, and have difficulty ending the relationship as a result. You may feel that because his life has been so hard, you are reluctant to add to his pain by abandoning him. You may worry that he won't take care of himself if you leave, that he will wither away from depression, won't eat or sleep, or might even try to kill himself. The Victim knows how to present himself as helpless and pathetic so that you will find it harder to take your own life back.
There is never a "good time" to leave, is there? But there is a "best time" - as soon as possible! Reading this book again makes me grateful I got out - and grateful he was in rehab, because I wouldn't have been "allowed" to read it otherwise.
The Terrorist
This one really wasn't him either, except for the "both highly controlling and extremely demanding" parts. He may have ended up here, eventually, especially as the alcohol progressed - I don't know. I do know that he wasn't here yet, and that I am grateful for that.
The Mentally Ill or Addicted Abuser
...it can contribute to the severity of his problems and his resistance to change.
I did underline a lot under the narcissistic section, about how he relates everything to himself even if it has nothing to do with him, being outraged with anyone criticizing especially regarding being generous, etc... But while he's drinking, who knows what's going on?
Points to Remember
I drew boxes and stars and tons of other stuff around the last paragraph.
An abuser of any type can have days when he turns loving, attentive, and thoughtful. At these times, you may feel that his problem has finally gone away and that the relationship will return to its rosy beginning. However, abuse always comes back eventually unless the abuser has dealt with his abusiveness.
This is the most important thing I had to remember, or I would have stayed perpetually, always expecting the "good old days".