37 Quotes About Abusers

For those who misused others for their business gains: you can never pluck the real essence of a beautiful heart and a beautiful mind.You may all have the clinging sound of "business impressions to suppress" but you cannot grab the essence of an honest spirit who only wants to be free from insincere, ungrateful users of other people's time and generosity." ~ Angelica Hopes, an excerpt from If I Could Tell You

(Schaffa saw her hand on the child's face, covering mouth and nose, pressing. Incomprehensible. Did she not know that Schaffa would love her son as he loved her? He would lay the boy down gently, so gently, in the wire chair.)

It is his actions that are causing me to consider leaving him. He is responsible for the hurt he feels as a result of his behavior. It is not selfish to protect myself from harm.

Violet remembered that slap; later her mother had called it a "love tap," as if to further confuse love with pain.

He dictates and enforces the rules, rules that only he fully knows and understands. He sees us as subjects, to reward or to punish. He complements you when he wants to control you. He doesn't see you. It doesn't mean he's not a person. It doesn't mean he's not vulnerable. In certain moments, he's just vulnerable enough that you feel sympathy for him. You make excuses for him, often to yourself. You think that if you just work with him a little, that eventually things will get better.

I have seen his face in its many variations. I have seen it when he's angry, when he's satisfied, when he tries to project control. I have been on his good side and his bad side. It is a face I have spent a lot of time trying to read, trying to appeal to, trying to capitulate to, trying to pretend for. I have always positioned myself in relation to him, thinking I could toe the line, thinking it would be fine if I just cooperated, thinking if only I compressed myself a little more.

Abusers are notorious for rushing the first stage of intimacy, something that's often described by survivors as a kind of 'love-bombing'. This phase is electric and full of promise. Survivors commonly recall being swept off their feet by a man more passionately interested in them than anyone had ever been before.

Thomas was the most loving, wonderful, and attentive husband that I could ever imagine on some days, and on others it was as if I married Lucifer himself.

The abuser knows where you work. Even if a woman goes underground at night, the abuser knows where to find her during the day.