He doesn’t object to her sexualization, he just wants to be in control of it, and he wants it oriented towards his gratification. His demand that she not show off her body is not based on the viewpoint of a responsible parent but rather is more like the attitude of a jealous boyfriend.

When an abusive man feels the powerful stirring inside that other people call love, he is probably largely feeling: The desire to have you devote your life to keeping him happy with no outside interference The desire to have sexual access The desire to impress others by having you be his partner The desire to possess and control you.

He often has difficulty conceiving of her as a human being. This tendency in abusers is known as objectification or depersonalization.

I wish I could somehow recover all those years I wasted waiting around for him to deal with his issues.” Save yourself that sadness if you can, by insisting on nothing less than complete respect.

The vast majority of women who say that they are being abused are telling the truth. I know this to be true because the abusers let their guard down with me, belying their denial.

In reality, to remain neutral is to collude with the abusive man, whether or not that is your goal. If you are aware of chronic or severe mistreatment and do not speak out against it, your silence communicates implicitly that you see nothing unacceptable taking place.

A woman can feel that she is losing her mind – or develop actual psychiatric symptoms – if the obvious realities of her life, including abuse, are denied repeatedly by her partner.

Some people feel threatened by the concept that abuse is a solvable problem, because if it is, there’s no excuse for not solving it.

For many abusive men, pornography has shaped their sexuality since they were teenagers or even younger. It has helped to form their view of what women are like and what they ought to be. When a graduate of what I call “The Pornography School of Sexuality” discovers, for example, that his partner does not find a slap in the face arousing, he thinks that’s evidence of something sexually wrong with her.

Abuse is not his goal, but control is, and he finds himself using abuse to gain the control he feels he has a right to.