By J. Bailey Molineux

For a man to batter his wife is a reprehensible thing for him to do. But if he is to be treated successfully in therapy, his deep emotional pain and terrible interpersonal dilemma must be heard and worked through.

Donald Dutton is a psychologist in Vancouver, B.C. who has studied and treated male batterers for the past twenty years. He has just reported his findings in his book, The Batterer: A Psychological Profile.

The batterer, Dutton found, was raised by a rejecting and abusive father and by a mother who was inconsistent in her care of him. As a result, he grew up with low self-esteem and a sense he is not lovable. Rather than face his painful feelings about himself, however, he avoids them through anger or blaming others, especially his wife.

Based on his experience with his mother, the batterer has a negative view of women. Just as he could not depend upon his mother to be there for him on a consistent basis, he believes he cannot depend on his wife. He is afraid she will leave him for someone else, someone whom he fears will be a better lover or husband than he. Regretably for him, his violence can cause his wife to stop loving him, thereby confirming his worst fear.

The batterer carries what Dutton calls "masked dependency" and it constitutes his central, painful dilemma. He is very dependent upon his wife but afraid to admit it. He doesn't know if he can fully trust her and to admit to his dependency is to appear weak. Terrified she will leave him, he uses violence to keep her tied to him.

The purpose of the batterer's physical and emotional abuse of his wife is control. By tearing down her self-esteem, he hopes to keep her dependent upon him.

Two primitive defense mechanisms the batterer uses to deal with his emotions are projection and splitting. In projection, he sees his wife as angry or wanting to act out sexually rather than himself. In splitting, he sees her as either a good wife or a bad wife just as he saw his mother the same way. Splitting explains why a batterer can treat his wife like a whore one day and a madonna the next, why he goes from being at her throat in rage to being at her feet in remorse.

About 40 percent of batterers are so psychopathic that they cannot be treated successfully in psychotherapy, but the remainder can. What a batterer in therapy has to do is admit to his abusive behavior and take full responsibility for it. He must quit blaming his wife and realize he can control his anger no matter what his wife does to make him angry.

Anger management, communication and negotiation skills, healthy assertiveness, awareness of emotions, better self-esteem, what constitutes abuse - these are all issues the batterer must work on in therapy. But perhaps the most difficult task for the batterer in treatment is to contact and grieve his deep childhood wounds. This can be especially difficult because most batterers, like many psychotherapy patients, either don't remember much about their childhood or deny its impact on them. But this deeper, painful work must be done.

Often the batterer will seek therapy only when he realizes his wife will leave him if he doesn't. Some have to be court ordered to get and keep them in treatment. Group, individual and couples therapy can be used, but couples counseling is possible only if the wife wants to save the marriage and her safety can be assured.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

J. Bailey Molineux, Ph.D. is a licensed Clinical Psychologist and author of the book Loving Isn't Easy
Copyright 2002 J. Bailey Molineux and Selfhelpbooks.com, all rights reserved. This article maybe reprinted but must include author's copyright and website hyperlinks to SelfHelpBooks.com.

The Cycle of Domestic Abuse

By J. Bailey Molineux

What causes a man to batter his wife whom he supposedly loves? A father who rejected and shamed him, a mother who was inconsistent in her care of him and violence in his family are the childhood roots of battering. Then as an adult when he is afraid his wife will leave him, the batterer lashes out in rage.

These are the conclusions of Donald Dutton, a psychologist in Vancouver, B.C., who has been studying and treating male batterers for the past twenty years. In his latest book, The Batter: A Psychological Profile , Dr. Dutton argues that the most important factor in the history of a batterer was that his father was rejecting and physically and emotionally abusive. As a result, the boy who becomes a batterer grew up with low self-esteem and a weak sense of his masculinity and lovability.

The mother of a batterer, Dutton found, was inconsistent in her parenting in that she was both loving and rejecting with her son. She was often so distressed by her husband's abuse of her that she couldn't be fully available to her son. He then developed a realistic belief that he could not rely upon a woman to meet his emotional needs. Add the violence the boy saw his father inflict on his mother and he also learned by example that the way to deal with women when angry was to become abusive.

Dutton sees the batterer as both a victim and an offender. He makes it quite clear, however, that the fact the batterer was once a victim does not excuse his abusive behavior. To change his behavior permanently, the batterer must take full responsibility for it no matter what happened to him in childhood or what his wife does to anger him.

Dutton found that battering follows a cycle first outlined by Lenore Walker in 1979 in her pioneering book, The Battered Woman. In the first stage, tension builds up in the batterer. Like many men, he is unable to focus on himself and his emotions to determine what is going on with him, so he blames his wife for his discomfort.

The second stage occurs when the batterer erupts in violence against his wife. The most dangerous times for her are when she threatens or prepares to leave him or when she becomes pregnant. Sadly, although he would never admit this, the batterer is so insecure he can see his own baby as a threat to his relationship with his wife.

All humans have a strong need to attach to others and any threat to attachment results in anger. In the batterer, the anger becomes extreme, however. The goal of his violence is to keep his wife from leaving him but ironically it may only serve to drive her away.

The third stage is the honeymoon stage when the batterer is genuinely sorry for his behavior and promises to never let it happen again. He showers his wife with love, which is what we all want, but this only keeps her trapped in an abusive relationship if only for a little while longer.

A horrifying fact that Dutton found in his research is that once the battering begins, the woman can do nothing to stop it. Only he can. Many women attempt desperately to placate their husbands to avoid the abuse but some may even provoke his anger just to get it over with. They know it is coming and are powerless to prevent it.

Some batterers cannot be successfully treated in therapy but many can.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

J. Bailey Molineux, Ph.D. is a licensed Clinical Psychologist and author of the book Loving Isn't Easy
Copyright 2002 J. Bailey Molineux and Selfhelpbooks.com, all rights reserved. This article maybe reprinted but must include author's copyright and website hyperlinks to SelfHelpBooks.com.

Two Types of Physically Abusive Husbands

By J. Bailey Molineux

Men who physically abuse their wives are not alike, according to Neil Jacobson, Ph.D. and John Gottman, Ph.D., authors of the book, When Men Batter Women(Simon and Schuster, 1998). In their research, Drs. Gottman and Jacobson found there were two types of batterers which they called Cobras and Pit Bulls.

These psychologists examined sixty three battering couples and compared them with other couples who were unhappily married but not violent. After their initial study, they interviewed the same couples two years later.

Two factors which made a batterer especially dangerous were spousal rape and alcohol or drug addiction. Surprisingly, only 6 percent of batterers faced legal consequences for their behavior because many of their wives were afraid to report abuse, often for good reason, or didn't realize what their husbands were doing was a crime.

Twenty percent of the batterers Jacobson and Gottman studied were Cobras. Although the smaller group, they were the most dangerous. Thirty eight percent of them had threatened their wives with guns or knives compared to only 4 percent of Pit Bulls.

Most Cobras - about 90% - were anti-social personality disorders, the type of men who are selfish, without guilt or empathy and often criminals. They were usually aggressive outside the home also, in contrast to Pit Bulls who were violent only with their wives.

Cobras were not strongly attached to their wives. They preferred to be left alone most of the time, occasionally wanting their wives for sex, money or someone to get high with.

Pit Bulls, by contrast, were insecure and excessively dependent upon their wives. They were needy, empty people who desired love but feared abandonment. Unfortunately, they acted in ways which prevented them from getting their needs met.

Physical abuse was designed to control batters' wives but for different reasons for the two types. Cobras controlled their wives so as not to be controlled themselves; Pit Bulls controlled their wives so as not to be abandoned.

In their two year follow-up, Jacobson and Gottman found that half of the wives of Pit Bulls had divorced their husbands but none of the Cobras' wives had left for two reasons. It was initially more dangerous to leave a Cobra because he was more violent. Also, Pit Bulls were harder to live with because their insecurity and dependency made them constantly controlling and checking on their wives.

If it was more difficult to leave a Cobra at first, it became easier with the passage of time. Not being strongly bonded to their wives, Cobras soon detached from them and usually found another partner.

By contrast, it was easier to leave a Pitt Bull in the short run but more difficult in the long run. Because of his excessive dependency on his wife, the Pit Bull was less willing to let go. As a result, he was more likely to stalk his wife after the divorce.

The wives finally left their Pit Bull husbands when they realized the abuse was not going to stop without the involvement of the criminal justice system and mandatory counseling which is not effective with Cobras. Whenever a wife finally does leave her physically abusive husband, Drs. Jacobson and Gottman advise that it is imperative she gets professional help to develop a plan to leave as safely as possible and to recover from the trauma she has suffered.

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About the Author: J. Bailey Molineux, a psychologist with Adult and Child Counseling, has incorporated many of his articles in a book, Loving Isn't Easy, Isbn 1587410419, sold through bookstores everywhere or available directly from Selfhelpbooks.com. Copyright 2002, J. Bailey Molineux and Selfhelpbooks.com, all rights reserved. This article may be reprinted but must include authors copyright and website hyperlinks.