Break It Down

If you read books or go online to research information about abusers, you can find a laundry list of traits and characteristics. It really all distills down to 2 traits.

1. Manipulation
Every abuser, no matter what walk of life, will manipulate their partner, children, friends, family, coworkers - anyone in their path. If it will help them get what they want or to get away with abuse, they'll use manipulation.

The ultimate manipulation is the manipulation of the truth. Abusers lie about where they've been, what they've been doing, where they are going, and on and on. They lie about why they act the way they do. Abusers lie to get away with the abusive acts they commit. You know the phrase, "if their lips are moving a lie is coming out"? Well, that's a bit extreme. They are probably telling the truth some of the time. Abusers lie to get what they want, to get away with abuse and to get sympathy for themselves. It's difficult to trust what they are saying because they distort the truth to get their way. Abusers are also amazingly good at sounding believable.

2. Punish and Retaliate
Abusers want to get their way. They want their way all the time and they will go to great lengths to get it, including physical violence, sexual abuse, threats, distortions, coercion, playing the victim, emotional abuse, psychological abuse, withholding money, withholding attention, withholding affection, sulking, mind games, etc. etc. etc.

When a person stands up to an abuser, the abuser will punish that person to dare challenge their authority. The abuser will take it one step further and retaliate. The retaliation might be immediate or it might come later as part of their sadistic punishment system. Sometimes the abuser will punish other people that are near and dear to their partner as a way to combine punishment and retaliation. The most common example is when abusers make attacks - physical or otherwise - on children. Abusers sometimes will make attempts to take children away from their partners as a way to punish and retaliate. They may have no real interest in the children, except to use them as a weapon against their partner. An example is when an abuser keeps a mother from a crying baby - it's the abuser's way of "teaching a lesson" that if she won't pay attention to him, then she won't pay attention to anyone else in the home.