Abusive Relationship Quotes

I again invoke my favorite analogy for eating disorders: abusive lovers. And what do you do when someone is in an abusive relationship? You don’t allow visitation rights, weekly dates. You don’t put them in the vicinity of or let the abuser flirt with them. You keep them the fuck away.

Kelsey Osgood

IN ONE IMPORTANT WAY, an abusive man works like a magician: His tricks largely rely on getting you to look off in the wrong direction, distracting your attention so that you won’t notice where the real action is. He draws you into focusing on the turbulent world of his feelings to keep your eyes turned away from the true cause of his abusiveness, which lies in how he thinks. He leads you into a convoluted maze, making your relationship with him a labyrinth of twists and turns. He wants you to puzzle over him, to try to figure him out, as though he were a wonderful but broken machine for which you need only to find and fix the malfunctioning parts to bring it roaring to its full potential. His desire, though he may not admit it even to himself, is that you wrack your brain in this way so that you won’t notice the patterns and logic of his behavior, the consciousness behind the craziness.

Lundy Bancroft

One of the obstacles to recognizing chronic mistreatment in relationships is that most abusive men simply don’t seem like abusers. They have many good qualities, including times of kindness, warmth, and humor, especially in the early period of a relationship. An abuser’s friends may think the world of him. He may have a successful work life and have no problems with drugs or alcohol. He may simply not fit anyone’s image of a cruel or intimidating person. So when a woman feels her relationship spinning out of control, it is unlikely to occur to her that her partner is an abuser.

Lundy Bancroft

THE MYTHS ABOUT ABUSERS1. He was abused as a child.2. His previous partner hurt him.3. He abuses those he loves the most.4. He holds in his feelings too much.5. He has an aggressive personality.6. He loses control.7. He is too angry.8. He is mentally ill.9. He hates women.10. He is afraid of intimacy and abandonment.11. He has low self-esteem.12. His boss mistreats him.13. He has poor skills in communication and conflict resolution.14. There are as many abusive women as abusive men.15. His abusiveness is as bad for him as for his partner.16. He is a victim of racism.17. He abuses alcohol or drugs.

Lundy Bancroft

The central attitudes driving the Water Torturer are:You are crazy. You fly off the handle over nothing.I can easily convince other people that you’re the one who is messed up.As long as I’m calm, you can’t call anything I do abusive, no matter how cruel.I know exactly how to get under your skin.

Lundy Bancroft

The central attitudes driving Mr. Right are:You should be in awe of my intelligence and should look up to me intellectually. I know better than you do, even about what’s good for you.Your opinions aren’t worth listening to carefully or taking seriously.The fact that you sometimes disagree with me shows how sloppy your thinking is.If you would just accept that I know what’s right, our relationship would go much better. Your own life would go better, too.When you disagree with me about something, no matter how respectfully or meekly, that’s mistreatment of me.If I put you down for long enough, some day you’ll see.

Lundy Bancroft

The central attitudes driving Mr. Sensitive are:I’m against the macho men, so I couldn’t be abusive.As long as I use a lot of “psychobabble,” no one is going to believe that I am mistreating you.I can control you by analyzing how your mind and emotions work, and what your issues are from childhood.I can get inside your head whether you want me there or not.Nothing in the world is more important than my feelings.Women should be grateful to me for not being like those other men.

Lundy Bancroft

The central attitudes driving the Demand Man are:It’s your job to do things for me, including taking care of my responsibilities if I drop the ball on them. If I’m unhappy aboutany aspect of my life, whether it has to do with our relationship or not, it’s your fault.You should not place demands on me at all. You should be grateful for whatever I choose to give.I am above criticism.I am a very loving and giving partner. You’re lucky to have me.

Lundy Bancroft

The central attitudes driving the Drill Sergeant are:I need to control your every move or you will do it wrong.I know the exact way that everything should be done.You shouldn’t have anyone else — or any thing else — in your life besides me.I am going to watch you like a hawk to keep you from developing strength or independence.I love you more than anyone in the world, but you disgust me. (!!)

Lundy Bancroft

Have you ever heard a woman claim that the reason why she is chronically mistreating her male partner is because a previous man abused her? I have never run into this excuse in the fifteen years I have worked in the field of abuse. Certainly I have encountered cases where women had trouble trusting another man after leaving an abuser, but there is a critical distinction to be made: Her past experiences may explain how she feels, but they are not an excuse for how she behaves. And the same is true for a man.

Lundy Bancroft

The symptoms of abuse are there, and the woman usually sees them: the escalating frequency of put-downs. Early generosity turning more and more to selfishness. Verbal explosions when he is irritated or when he doesn’t get his way. Her grievances constantly turned around on her, so that everything is her own fault. His growing attitude that he knows what is good for her better than she does. And, in many relationships, a mounting sense of fear or intimidation. But the woman also sees that her partner is a human being who can be caring and affectionate at times, and she loves him. She wants to figure out why he gets so upset, so that she can help him break his pattern of ups and downs. She gets drawn into the complexities of his inner world, trying to uncover clues, moving pieces around in an attempt to solve an elaborate puzzle.

Lundy Bancroft

The volatile, abusive, and sometimes dangerous reactions that abusers can have when relationships draw to a close have often been considered, especially by psychologists, to be evidence of the man’s “fear of abandonment.” But women have fears of abandonment that are just as great as men’s, yet they rarely stalk or kill their partners after a breakup. Not only that, but many abusers are vicious to their ex-partners even when they do not desire a reunion or when they initiated the breakup themselves.

Lundy Bancroft

Physical aggression by a man toward his partner is abuse, even if it happens only once.

Lundy Bancroft

Addiction does not cause partner abuse, and recovery from addiction does not “cure” partner abuse.

Lundy Bancroft

People pleasing does make it easier to ignore the red flags of abusive relationships at the very early stages especially with covert manipulators. We can also become conditioned to continually “please” if we’re used to walking on eggshells around our abuser.

Shahida Arabi

Disrespect also can take the form of idealizing you and putting you on a pedestal as a perfect woman or goddess, perhaps treating you like a piece of fine china. The man who worships you in this way is not seeing you; he is seeing his fantasy, and when you fail to live up to that image he may turn nasty. So there may not be much difference between the man who talks down to you and the one who elevates you; both are displaying a failure to respect you as a real human being and bode ill.

Lundy Bancroft

The scars from mental cruelty can be as deep and long-lasting as wounds from punches or slaps but are often not asobvious. In fact, even among women who have experienced violence from a partner, half or more report that the man’s emotional abuse is what is causing them the greatest harm.

Lundy Bancroft

An abuser can seem emotionally needy. You can get caught in a trap of catering to him, trying to fill a bottomless pit. But he’s not so much needy as entitled, so no matter how much you give him, it will never be enough. He will just keep coming up with more demands because he believes his needs are your responsibility, until you feel drained down to nothing.

Lundy Bancroft

The abusive man’s high entitlement leads him to have unfair and unreasonable expectations, so that the relationship revolves around his demands. His attitude is: “You owe me.” For each ounce he gives, he wants a pound in return. He wants his partner to devote herself fully to catering to him, even if it means that her own needs—or her children’s—get neglected. You can pour all your energy into keeping your partner content, but if he has this mind-set, he’ll never be satisfied for long. And he will keep feeling that you are controlling him, because he doesn’t believe that you should set any limits on his conduct or insist that he meet his responsibilities.

Lundy Bancroft

Learn to say to the abuser in a firm voice, "Stop it." Do not explain yourself, your needs, or what you mean. Simply call a halt to the abuse, and let that be your final word.

Caroline Abbott

As he had kissed her neck, she could not repress the feeling she was a lamb making time with a wolf.

Thomm Quackenbush

Stop falling for those who won't raise you up in the future.

Michael Bassey Johnson

The abuser’s mood changes are especially perplexing. He can be a different person from day to day, or even from hour to hour. At times he is aggressive and intimidating, his tone harsh, insults spewing from his mouth, ridicule dripping from him like oil from a drum. When he’s in this mode, nothing she says seems to have any impact on him, except to make him even angrier. Her side of the argument counts for nothing in his eyes, and everything is her fault. He twists her words around so that she always ends up on the defensive. As so many partners of my clients have said to me, “I just can’t seem to do anything right.”At other moments, he sounds wounded and lost, hungering for love and for someone to take care of him. When this side of him emerges, he appears open and ready to heal. He seems to let down his guard, his hard exterior softens, and he may take on the quality of a hurt child, difficult and frustrating but lovable. Looking at him in this deflated state, his partner has trouble imagining that the abuser inside of him will ever be back. The beast that takes him over at other times looks completely unrelated to the tender person she now sees. Sooner or later, though, the shadow comes back over him, as if it had a life of its own. Weeks of peace may go by, but eventually she finds herself under assault once again. Then her head spins with the arduous effort of untangling the many threads of his character, until she begins to wonder whether she is the one whose head isn’t quite right.

Lundy Bancroft

There's always something in it for the person who is allowing to be taken advantage of. - Psychotherapist David in Type 1 Sociopath

P.A. Speers

The woman knows from living with the abusive man that there are no simple answers. Friends say: “He’s mean.” But she knows many ways in which he has been good to her. Friends say: “He treats you that way because he can get away with it. I would never let someone treat me that way.” But she knows that the times when she puts her foot down the most firmly, he responds by becoming his angriest and most intimidating. When she stands up to him, he makes her pay for it—sooner or later. Friends say: “Leave him.” But she knows it won’t be that easy. He will promise to change. He’ll get friends and relatives to feel sorry for him and pressure her to give him another chance. He’ll get severely depressed, causing her to worry whether he’ll be all right. And, depending on what style of abuser he is, she may know that he will become dangerous when she tries to leave him. She may even be concerned that he will try to take her children away from her, as some abusers do.

Lundy Bancroft

Bullies do not just wake up and decide to be one. They are people who have or are experiencing emotional or verbal abuse. All you can do is not retaliate but show them love. Doing so, allows them see what they are missing and need. You can let them see the other side of life when you show love not hurt. After all, we are all products of love and we must choose to demonstrate that above all else.

Kemi Sogunle

I guess it's the same way trees grow around the very vines that are killing them, so they're strangled and sustained all at once. After a long time, even pain can be a comfort.

Lauren Oliver

i dreamt i crawled on top of you and kissed your hips, one at a time, my lips a smolder. i straddled your waist and pressed both shaking hands against your torso. spongy, like an old tree on the forest floor. i push and your flesh sinks inwardly, collapsing with decay, a soft shushing sound. a yawning hole where your organs should be. maggots used to live here until your own poison killed them off. i laid my cheek into the loam and three little mushrooms brushed over my eyelid. peat, decomposing matter, all of it, whatever you wish to call it, rested in the cavity of your chest. and there i planted seeds in the hopes something good would come out of you.

Taylor Rhodes

Abusive Relationship Quotes

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