Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men (13 page)

T
HE
W
ATER
T
ORTURER

The Water Torturer’s style proves that anger doesn’t cause abuse. He can assault his partner psychologically without even raising his voice. He tends to stay calm in arguments, using his own evenness as a weapon to push her over the edge. He often has a superior or contemptuous grin on his face, smug and self-assured. He uses a repertoire of aggressive conversational tactics at low volume, including sarcasm, derision—such as openly laughing at her—mimicking her voice, and cruel, cutting remarks. Like Mr. Right, he tends to take things she has said and twist them beyond recognition to make her appear absurd, perhaps especially in front of other people. He gets to his partner through a slow but steady stream of low-level emotional assaults, and perhaps occasional shoves or other “minor” acts of violence that don’t generally cause visible injury but may do great psychological harm. He is relentless in his quiet derision and meanness.

The impact on a woman of all these subtle tactics is that either her blood temperature rises to a boil or she feels stupid and inferior, or some combination of the two. In an argument, she may end up yelling in frustration, leaving the room crying, or sinking into silence. The Water Torturer then says, “See, you’re the abusive one, not me. You’re the one who’s yelling and refusing to talk things out rationally. I wasn’t even raising my voice. It’s impossible to reason with you.”

The psychological effects of living with the Water Torturer can be severe. His tactics can be difficult to identify, so they sink in deeply. Women can find it difficult not to blame themselves for their reactions to what their partner does if they don’t even know what to call it. When someone slaps you in the face, you know you’ve been slapped. But when a woman feels psychologically assaulted, with little idea why, after an argument with The Water Torturer, she may turn her frustration inward. How do you seek support from a friend, for example, when you don’t know how to describe what is going wrong?

The Water Torturer tends to genuinely believe that there is nothing unusual about his behavior. When his partner starts to confront him with his abusiveness—which she usually does sooner or later—he looks at her as if she were crazy and says, “What the hell are you talking about? I’ve never done anything to you.” Friends and relatives who have witnessed the couple’s interactions may back him up. They shake their heads and say to each other, “I don’t know what goes on with her. She just explodes at him sometimes, and he’s so low-key.” Their children can develop the impression that Mom “blows up over nothing.” She herself may start to wonder if there is something psychologically wrong with her.

The Water Torturer is payback-oriented like most abusive men, but he may hide it better. If he is physically abusive, his violence may take the form of cold-hearted slaps “for your own good” or “to get you to wake up” rather than explosive rage. His moves appear carefully thought out, and he rarely makes obvious mistakes—such as letting his abusiveness show in public—that could turn other people against him or get him in legal trouble.

If you are involved with a Water Torturer, you may struggle for years trying to figure out what is happening. You may feel that you overreact to his behavior and that he isn’t really so bad. But the effects of his control and contempt have crept up on you over the years. If you finally leave him, you may experience intense periods of delayed rage, as you become conscious of how quietly but deathly oppressive he was.

This style of man rarely lasts long in an abuser program unless he has a court order. He is so accustomed to having complete success with his tactics that he can’t tolerate an environment where the counselors recognize and name his maneuvers and don’t let him get away with them. He tends to rapidly decide that his group leaders are as crazy as his partner and heads for the door.

T
HE
D
RILL
S
ERGEANT

The Drill Sergeant takes controlling behavior to its extreme, running his partner’s life in every way that he can. He criticizes her clothing, tells her whether she can go out or not, interferes with her work. He wants her to have no one close to her, so he ruins her relationships with friends and relatives or simply forbids her to see them. He may listen to her phone calls or read her mail, or require the children to report on her activities any time he is away. If she isn’t home by his appointed curfew at night, she is at risk for abuse. She feels like a little girl living with a tyrannical father, with no more freedom than an eight-year-old would have.

The Drill Sergeant is often fanatically jealous. He verbally assaults his partner with accusations that she is cheating on him or checking out other men and tosses crass and disturbing sexual terms into his tirades. He may augment his hateful remarks about his partner with hideous comments about females in general, such as, “All women are whores.” The emotional experience of these verbal attacks can be similar to that of a sexual assault: The woman is left feeling violated, debased, and traumatized. At the same time, this style of abuser more often than not is out having affairs himself. It isn’t fidelity he cares about; it’s possession.

The Drill Sergeant is, unfortunately, almost sure to be physically violent sooner or later, probably beginning with threats and then eventually escalating to assault. If his partner stands up to him, such as by attempting to preserve any of her rights to freedom, his violence and threats are likely to escalate until she is hurt or terrified enough that she submits to his control. He is a risk to beat his partner up to the point of severe injury.

Getting away from the Drill Sergeant can be difficult. Since he monitors the woman’s movements so closely, it is a challenge for her to get to a support group for abused women or to seek other kinds of support. Since he isolates her from people, she has to draw entirely on her own strength, and many days she may feel like she doesn’t have much strength left. And since from time to time he is probably openly violent, she is forced to consider what the consequences of attempting to leave him could be, including whether he might try to kill her.

If your partner is a Drill Sergeant, your situation is a dangerous one. You may have to use some courage—as well as careful vigilance—to even get the opportunity to read this book. Perhaps you are hiding it under a mattress or reading it at someone else’s house in quick bits. Don’t give up. Many women have gone through this kind of captivity and have found a way to escape, even if it takes some time. The single most important thing to do is to seek opportunities to phone a hotline for abused women (see “Resources” in the back of this book). Call them to speak for five minutes if that’s all you can safely do for now. Call every day if you can. The hot line is the beginning of the path to freedom.

You may be sorely tempted to have a secret affair, since your partner shows you so little kindness or tenderness. A positive sexual connection may be especially affirming for you, because of how sexually degrading the Drill Sergeant tends to be. But cheating on him can be deadly if he catches you. Consider holding off on seeing other men until you have gotten yourself safe.

The Drill Sergeant often has some psychological problems. Although mental health issues do not cause abusiveness, they can intensify a man’s violent tendencies. If he sometimes seems to become convinced of things that are obviously not true, has trouble getting along with people in general, was severely abused or neglected as a child, or has other indications of mental illness, you need to take even greater caution.

To read more about dealing with dangerous abusers, see “The Terrorist” later in this chapter (p. 99) and “Leaving an Abuser Safely” in Chapter 9 (p. 225).

M
R.
S
ENSITIVE

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. He loves the language of feelings, openly sharing his insecurities, his fears, and his emotional injuries. He hugs other men. He may speak out about the absurdity of war or the need for men to “get in touch with their feminine side.” Perhaps he attends a men’s group or goes on men’s retreats. Often he has participated extensively in therapy or twelve-step programs, or reads all the big self-help books, so he speaks the language of popular psychology and introspection. His vocabulary is sprinkled with jargon like
developing closeness, working out our issues,
and
facing up to hard things about myself.
He presents himself to women as an ally in the struggle against sex-role limitations. To some women, he seems like a dream come true.

So what’s wrong with this picture? Nothing obvious yet. But this is exactly the problem: Mr. Sensitive wraps himself in one of the most persuasive covers a man can have. If you start to feel chronically mistreated by him, you are likely to assume that something is wrong with you, and if you complain about him to other people, they may think you must be spoiled: “You have the New Age man, what more do you want?”

The following dynamics are typical of a relationship with Mr. Sensitive and may help explain your feeling that something has gone awry:

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. If you are in a bad mood one day and say something unfair or insensitive, it won’t be enough for you to give him a sincere apology and accept responsibility. 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 pop-psychology language (“Just let the feelings go through you, don’t hold on to them so much,” or “It’s all in the attitude you take toward life,” or “No one can hurt you unless you let them”) 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 to 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.
   

Mr. Sensitive has the potential to turn physically frightening, as any style of abuser can, no matter how much he may preach nonviolence. After an aggressive incident, he will speak of his actions as “anger” rather than as “abuse,” as though there were no difference between the two. He blames his assaultive behavior on you or on his emotional “issues,” saying that his feelings were so deeply wounded that he had no other choice.

Many people reject the possibility that Mr. Sensitive could be an abuser. I ran into this disbelief one weekend when I was leading a training course on emotional recovery, as I periodically do. My workshops focus partly on the healing effects of crying and so tend to be attended by more women than men. The males who do come have included many of the most wonderful men it has been my good fortune to know, as well as a handful of the biggest manipulators. A few years ago, a participant named Deanna approached me anxiously before a workshop. She explained that an ex-partner of hers named Brad had called her a few days ahead of the workshop to tell her he was attending the same weekend. She was uncomfortable and told him that if he showed up she would leave. He promised not to bother her, though, and said he would not bring up their relationship in any way. He was coming with his new girlfriend, which eased Deanna’s worries.

I spent some time talking with Brad as the workshop was starting, without mentioning Deanna, and he seemed likeable, kind, and—what can I say?—sensitive. However, I observed within a few hours that he was in fact speaking to other people about his past with Deanna and getting them riled up about her “running away from” their unresolved issues. On Sunday morning, he finally provoked a scene about their relationship in front of the full workshop, which was humiliating to Deanna.

The story does not end there. I called a break, and took Brad aside. I told him that it was my understanding that he had agreed not to raise these issues and that it had become obvious to me that he had come for the weekend with the intention of doing precisely what he had promised not to. I went on to point out that he had taken Deanna’s weekend away from her and that I considered this kind of power move to be abuse, especially since it was directed at an ex-partner.

Saying the word
abuse
to an abusive person can be like lighting a tinderbox: When you name the unmentionable secret, he goes wild. Brad got loud, rolled his eyes at what a hysterical exaggerator he considered me to be, and adopted a victim stance, saying, “I
beg
you to stop this.” Then came the most important part: He said in a screeching whine, “I have only put a hand on a partner once in my life, many years ago, and I just barely pushed her away from me like
this
”—and he shoved me hard by the shoulder—“after she called my mother a sick woman.”