Ditch That Jerk: Dealing with Men Who Control and Hurt Women

Introduction

Any names and events mentioned in this book have been changed to protect both the innocent and the guilty. Any resemblance to actual persons or events will be coincidental.

I want to clear up one thing, though. The subtitle of this book says it’s about men who control and hurt women. I use the word hurt because I want women to be able to pick up this book and read it or buy it at a bookstore without being ashamed. What it’s really about, though, is men who abuse women, and in the rest of the book, that’s the word I’m going to be using most of the time.

I wrote this book to provide an insider’s look at men who control and hurt women. Those who read it will have a chance to listen in as these men reveal what they think, how they feel, and what they want. This is not a research study; it is a straightforward account of what actually goes on in the minds of many controlling, hurtful men. I believe it is important because many abusive men become experts at hiding who they really are. Their ability to conceal their true natures gives them an unfair advantage, since many women with whom they become involved don’t know what they’ve gotten themselves into until it’s too late. And, once involved, many women become convinced that their partners can and will change if just given the opportunity. The fact is that some men do change, but many don’t.

There are many ways in which an abusive man may try to control his partner. One way is to use physical harm or the threat of it, but that is not the only way. An abusive man can exert control in hundreds of other ways that do not involve physical violence at all. In this book, you’ll hear more about those methods of control and what to do if you find yourself on the receiving end of any of them.

You may notice that I use the words control and abuse interchangeably in this book as if they mean the same thing. In a way, they do. If any one word could characterize the man who abuses women, controlling would be it. But it also describes a lot of us. We all have a desire to control people and events to get things to work out for us the way we want them to.

Control can also be thought of as a tool that people use to fix whatever they think needs repair. Often, the object in need of some fixing up is another person who isn’t being the way we think they ought to be. We reckon that if another person is the problem, then the way to solve the problem is to get that person to be different, even if we have to control what they do to do it. Oddly enough, people resist being controlled. They generally want to do what they want to do and not what we want them to do. When people refuse to be controlled, and yet we’re still pretty sure that they need to be fixed or whipped into shape, we may step up our efforts to control them. For example, we may put them down, manipulate them, threaten them, humiliate them, or even strike them. Whatever the tactic used, the purpose is still the same: it is to get people to do what we want them to do. Control and abuse, then, are not that different, except in degree. Both are a means to the same end.

For some men, then, controlling a woman or abusing her is a way to solve a problem—that she isn’t the way they want her to be. For other men, controlling and abusing a woman allows them to feel powerful and superior. Whatever the purpose, people get hurt, wrongly and unnecessarily.

Essentially, there are really three kinds of abusive men: those who can change, those who might change, and those who never will. What’s important is to know the difference. I wrote this book to help readers discover how to do just that. It will help a woman to spot a man who won’t change early on. If it’s too late, and she has already gotten fairly involved with an abusive man, this book will help her to determine whether or not he will eventually change. Some controlling, abusive men do want better, nonviolent relationships and are willing to change to have them. But sadly, others don’t want to change. They don’t see the problem and will never be any different no matter what anybody says or does.

For the last seven years, I have spent every Friday and Saturday evening, as well as many weekend days, leading a group of men who abuse women in the effort to help them change. That is thousands of hours spent listening to abusive men talk about their lives and their relationships. In this book I’ll bring all that experience to you. You’ll hear what I’ve heard and learn what I’ve learned. But I won’t be the only voice in the room; much of what you’ll hear will come straight from the men themselves.

Even though I wrote this book primarily for women, it isn’t a book about women: it’s about men. And even though the men who are the subjects of this book have in one way or another been identified as abusive, there are still plenty of men who escape that label but are abusive nonetheless.

Many of the men you will meet in this book have been physically abusive, but not all. Some of them have discovered ways to control people without using physical violence. Because all forms of abuse are devastating, even those that leave no visible scars, you will meet men here who have done both. Some of these men have been caught committing an act of violence, others have gotten away with it, but don’t be fooled into thinking that they are any different. You can rest assured that whether the man you have in mind has or has not been caught being abusive, we’ll be talking about him in this book.

Over the last few years, programs for abusive men have exploded. Almost every county in the United States has one, and those that don’t are trying to get one. It makes sense that we are becoming increasingly interested in the abusive man. After all, when people ask what causes domestic violence—what really causes it—the answer is obvious. The abuser causes it. And because the one doing the abusing is by and large the only one who can stop it, it’s a tough problem to fix. And we haven’t fixed it yet. Not by a long shot. There are still too many questions to be answered.

Not all the answers will be found here. Even though there are lots of theories floating around, the truth is that we don’t even know why some men are abusive in the first place. We could say that it’s because the abuser grew up in a violent family. Maybe he was a victim of the violence. We could say that it’s because we live in a world in which men have more power and privilege than women. We could say that it’s genetic, that men are born that way. Or maybe the abuser hit his head one too many times as a child, has a chemical imbalance in his brain, a mental illness, a personality problem, or for some reason or another just reacts more strongly to stressful situations than the average person. We could argue that we live in a world where violence has become not only acceptable but also glorified, and he’s just doing what our culture has taught him to do. We could say any of these things, and maybe some of the time we’d be right. On the other hand, it’s just as likely that we’d be wrong. The question why somebody is abusive may not be answered anytime soon, if ever. So instead of asking a man, Why are you that way? we should be asking, Do you want to change? The answer to that question—yes, no, or maybe—is what we’re really after.

The problem of domestic violence is not going away any time soon; it’s too widespread. Some people claim that 25 percent of all adult women will be physically abused at least once. Others claim that the figure is closer to 75 percent. Other estimates say that from two million to over four million women are abused each year. All we really know is that domestic violence is hugely underreported. Regardless of the exact number, we know that it’s all too common. If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, it may be some consolation to know that millions of other women are also suffering. But you need more than just consolation.

You may have struggled to understand why your mate (partner, boyfriend, lover, date) sometimes acts toward you the way he does. And you may have come up with any number of explanations. Maybe you’ve said, It’s just when he drinks or He’s under a lot of pressure at work or He has a really bad temper. Maybe you believe that you sometimes go too far and provoke him yourself. You might feel sorry for him because he’s so insecure. Maybe you’ve wondered if counseling, AA, or some other kind of therapy for either you or him would help. Maybe you’ve asked yourself, Is there something wrong with me? You have probably spent an enormous amount of time trying to figure out all this. If so, it’s time for some answers.

Finally, I’d like to add that even though I have worked with abusive men, I’ve also worked to help their victims. For the last ten years, I have directed a domestic violence agency that offers help to both the victims of the abuser, often including the children, and to the abuser himself. Before becoming the director of that program, I spent seven years as a crisis counselor in a shelter for battered women. Because I have seen abuse from both sides, in this book I hope to provide a real insider’s look as well as some balanced information that may help to change your life.

Can Abusers Really Change?

Some people claim that most men who are violent don’t ever change, and that even if they do, the change doesn’t last. Others believe that even if some men do change, it doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things because the violence is not going to stop. It is certainly true that domestic violence is about more than one abusive man. It is a huge problem pretty much the world over, and this fact is not likely to change until our beliefs, values, and social norms do. But people involved in relationships with abusive men aren’t waiting for the world to change. They’re waiting for one man to change. Every day women are making the monumental lifeand-death decision of whether to stay or to go. Those who stay do so for many different reasons, but one very important reason is that many women believe that their men will someday change. They believe in the possibility of change, because in many cases the abuser has either led them to believe that he will change or he has told them so outright. Many abusers promise to change over and over again. Fairness dictates that women get a chance to learn how to tell who means it and who doesn’t.

By now you may have guessed that the jerk referred to in the title of this book is, plain and simple, an abusive guy who doesn’t mean to change. Despite what he may say about changing, he isn’t planning to do it anytime soon. He’ll become a former jerk if and only if he actually changes.

What, exactly, do we mean here by change? Well, at a minimum, change means that a man will no longer be violent. In some cases, that is all that can be expected. In other words, although he may no longer be physically violent, he’ll still be controlling and abusive in many other ways. That represents a little change. A lot of change, and therefore the best scenario, is when a man changes more than his violent behavior: he also changes what he thinks, how he feels, and what he wants. Such change is also harder to achieve. It pretty much separates the men from the boys, because it takes a strong man to really change his life.

You may be wondering now if a little change is enough. Well, the man who changes a little, who is still a jerk at heart even if he ends his violence, will eventually get tired of having to rein himself in all the time. Sooner or later, he’ll get fed up, blame someone else for his fed-upness, and feel perfectly entitled to use violence again. Long term, he’s a very bad risk. But short term, his moratorium on his violent behavior might at least give you the room you need to decide if, how, and when to finally get rid of him.

The fact is that men who don’t change often get ditched. In fact, 70 percent of women involved with a nonchanging, abusive man (a jerk) will eventually ditch him, a fact little known to the abusive man, who wrongly thinks that he can keep treating his partner badly and not suffer the consequences.

So how many men actually do make significant changes? The answer is that it depends, because every person and every situation is different. But the safe answer is that an abusive man who gets no help probably stands only a small chance of ever changing, although as he gets older he may get a little more sedate. After all, there aren’t too many exceedingly violent, dangerous eighty-fiveyear-old men. But of the men who do get help—the right kind of help (more on this in Chapter Eight)—maybe a third to even twothirds (depending upon whom you ask) will stop their abuse. Some research suggests that only 25 percent of the men who get help end their violence, which is about the same percentage of all people with all kinds of problems who get help and change. But I didn’t write this book to provide confusing and often meaningless statistics. I didn’t write it to provide you with odds you could use to place a bet on someone, because when you gamble on a man who is abusive, there is a lot at stake. In the end, change, how much and for how long, will be determined solely by him and accepted or not solely by you.

You should know that abusive men who really want to change and are willing to seek help to do so are extremely rare. Those who have help forced upon them by a judge who will otherwise throw them in jail are also rare, only a small percentage of all men who are abusive. Most abusive men are never caught, and most of those who are need a little (or a sometimes a big) push in the right direction.

It may be hard for you to consider the possibility that the man you love is a jerk. Even if you’ve heard it from your family and friends, even if you’ve thought it yourself, you might be afraid to discover that it’s probably true. You may fear that if the verdict is that your man is abusive and isn’t ever going to change that you’ll have to do something about it. But you don’t. This is your life, and there are no rules other than your own. This book isn’t a directive—it’s information. And information is power when you discover it at the right time. I wish such a book had been available years ago. Who knows how many people’s lives might have turned out differently?

A Little Personal Background

People often ask me how I got started in this work. For years my answer was, I just drifted into it after college. It took me nearly five years of working in the field of domestic violence to recognize that while I was in college, I had gotten involved with an abusive guy. Let me share one experience with you. One night my boyfriend, Shaun, and I were at a restaurant. He thought that I was looking at another guy. I told him that I wasn’t, but he didn’t believe me. So he yanked me out of my chair and led me by the arm out to his car. He had one of those souped-up cars that were made to go fast, and he proceeded to drive like a maniac while I crouched down in my seat figuring we were both going to be killed. When he stopped, he was crying, and so I apologized for whatever I had done to get him so upset.

Afterward, when I spoke to Shaun’s mother about what had happened, she said to me, It’s a woman’s job to help make her man feel secure and to build up his ego. If you don’t, this is what happens. Translation? She was telling me that I’d asked for it. But had I? Was it really my job to keep my boyfriend from feeling insecure? I suppose Shaun believed, like his mother, that it was. Your mate might believe it too. But it isn’t possible. Don’t try to do a job that can’t be done.

Years ago, dating Shaun as a college sophomore, I just didn’t know any better. I knew even less when I was in high school, which is hard to imagine, since I understood so little to begin with. I didn’t know how to handle abusive behavior. I didn’t even know what it was. When I was a teenager, it was easy to believe that that kind of violence happened somewhere else and to other people. When it did happen at my high school (and it did), I didn’t recognize it. It didn’t seem important. Perhaps it seemed natural. This ignorance, shared by several of my high school friends eventually proved to be lethal. But I’ll tell you the rest of that at the end of the next chapter.

My first real job came years after my relationship with Shaun had ended. I was working as a counselor at a domestic violence agency. Before starting that job, I thought that I hadn’t ever known anyone who was a victim of domestic violence. But there were some people and events that I was forgetting. I learned a lot, and in a hurry, about how prevalent domestic violence really is—how it can just sneak up on a woman and how, without realizing it, she can find herself in a harmful relationship. I met so many women who had had these experiences that I was shocked. How could this be so common, I wondered, and yet so little talked about? Then I started remembering Shaun.

I had heard that young men who see their fathers beating up their mothers might be more likely to beat up women themselves. And then I remembered that I had known someone who was abused, Shaun’s mother. Needless to say, Shaun wasn’t too happy about his mother’s abuse. Shaun would say of his abusive stepfather, If he touches my mother, I’ll kill him. One time his stepdad had his mother on the ground. Shaun grabbed a rifle and pointed it at him. The stepdad got up and left the house, and his mother went to her room. Shaun and I didn’t talk much about the incident afterward. In fact, we avoided the subject. But the truth is that Shaun’s stepdad wasn’t the first to abuse his mother. His father had done exactly the same thing.

I started putting together many other pieces as well. Shaun worked on a dairy farm, and I remembered how he used to hit the cows on the top of their heads with a shovel just to watch their tongues hang out. I’d yell at him about it, and he’d stop. I thought he was just being a guy. I didn’t realize at the time that what he did to those animals was actually a huge warning sign. Shaun also drank. Because of that, when he’d drop me off at night I’d worry that he was going to get into an accident. After getting home, I’d usually call him to make sure he was OK. Because he seemed so vulnerable, I felt that I had to take care of him.

We fought a lot, but I don’t remember why. One time he pushed me down onto a couch, and my dad yelled at him and made him leave. My dad said once, When you talk to Shaun on the phone, you cry. When you talk to your other friends, you laugh. But I didn’t get the connection. I figured you were supposed to be miserable in a relationship. That’s the way the women were in all of the romance novels I read every summer.

One day I was standing behind a store where I was working at the time. We had drifted apart but still dated some. I guess I had drifted further than he had, and had been dating another employee who came out back and kissed me. Shaun was there and saw us. (As I write this, it occurs to me that he must have been following me, but at the time it didn’t cross my mind.) When I left work, Shaun was waiting, parked by the side of the road. He told me that he had bought me some flowers, which he had in his car. I followed him back to his house. When we got there, he threw the flowers into a barrel and set them on fire. Again, this behavior didn’t seem strange or set off any warning bells for me—it seemed like ordinary behavior between boyfriend and girlfriend. He was just being a little jealous.

I heard many years later that Shaun spent several years in and out of jail for domestic violence. Maybe he’s there to this day. Sadly, despite his plan to never be like his father, he became a lot like him. I wonder what his father thinks today and if he has any regrets about what he taught his son.

Is This Book Fair to Men?

I suppose that a book entitled Ditch That Jerk is automatically suspect. Who wrote it, and why? Is it one of those feminist books written for or by women who don’t like men and who believe that all men ought to be ditched on principle. The answer is no. This book is not about all men. Rather, it is expressly about men who have committed acts of abuse or who some day might. It is about men who are controlling, dominating, and violent—men who wreak havoc on their families and incite terror in their mates—or who someday might.

Some may wonder why this book isn’t also about abusive women. They might see that omission as biased, one-sided, or unfair. "But what about women who are violent? they will ask. Why aren’t they in the book?" First, few of us have much, if any, experience with abusive women and have even fewer examples of them to write about. Second, whether or not women can be violent, whether or not women can be like men, has nothing to do with the reality that some men batter their mates. Claiming that women are violent too doesn’t make men’s abuse less true or less severe. Saying that some women, or even a lot of women, are violent doesn’t provide an abusive man with an acceptable reason for being the way he is. One man’s decision to end his violent and controlling behavior is not influenced by what percentage of which kinds of people commit what kind of violence. Although we can say that we live in a violent society in which many people, both men and women are violent, that still does not excuse the actions of one man, who alone is responsible for them.

In sum, this book is only about abusive men—about people who commit acts of violence and who are controlling and abusive or who one day might be. I mean—and I will say it more than once—that people who commit violence are solely responsible for that violence, and that the reasons they give for doing it don’t make them any less responsible. It doesn’t make the violence less destructive. Finally, I am not trying to suggest that most men are hopeless cases. I want to respect the potential of some men to change, because they can. Their lives can improve—if they want them to.

A friend of mine, the former prosecutor for our county and a politician running for reelection, said of domestic violence, Nobody is for it. He had a flair for stating the obvious. In the end, that is what this book is really about—being against domestic abuse and violence. You don’t have to be a politician to know that this is a just, worthy, and much-shared goal.

A Note to Men

It doesn’t have to be this way. It is possible to live a life that is not focused on controlling other people. Besides the fact that trying to be in control of everything is futile, it is also exhausting. Feeling mad and frustrated and mistreated is not fun; it is agonizing. Even worse, if you have children, they are affected by your behavior—a