Mental rigidity, inflated ego, self-righteousness

      Three of the most important defining characteristics of most psychologically violent men are mental rigidity, inflated ego and self-righteousness.

      When a woman challenges such a man by leaving him, he typically decides – once and for all (mental rigidity) – that she must be a “whore” – the only reason he can think of that any woman could ever want to end a relationship with him (inflated ego). He then sets out to prove that his opinion of her is right. When he cannot find anything real to accuse her of, he typically tries to provoke her into making mistakes that he can use against her; failing that he makes false allegations against her, going to great lengths in order to make the allegations stick, for example by doing everything imaginable to ruin her reputation. And all the time he sees it as his right (or even his obligation!) to chastise the woman who dared challenge what he thinks is his undisputed superiority and unquestionable right to control her – a right that he believes was given to him once and for all as of the day when she gave him her heart, and even more so when she became the mother of his children.

      The violent man’s self-righteous persecution of a woman who has dared leave him takes many shapes. The techniques used are uncountable. In future articles I will discuss those that I am the most familiar with: They include for example: creating all kinds of problems in the woman’s daily life ("spokes in the wheel"), various tricks that aim at isolating her ("Isolating the victim"), unwelcome visits with verbal and/physical attacks, threats, telephone harassment, slander, false allegations. Frequently this kind of man will even resort to hurting his own children in order to get back at their mother, while all the time blaming her for forcing him to hurt them. He will also typically carry on an endless fight for custody based on various vague and uncorroborated allegations ("Fighting for custody as harassment method").  

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Violence against women - who does the law protect?

      When Sara, the woman at the centre of this blog, after years of escalating psychological and physical abuse, finally packed the children into the car and sought shelter at the nearest police station, she had only one thought in her head: to protect her children and make sure they would never again have to witness violent incidents between their parents. She was determined to show her children that she was prepared to stand up for herself, and that that she would never allow herself to let a man demean her, degrade her, use violence against her. She swore that she would never again give Paul a chance to be alone with her, and most definitely not with her and the children. But Paul was just as determined not to let Sara and the children off the hook. If Sara didn’t want to live with him, she wasn’t to have any life at all – especially not with the children, and most certainly not with another man!       
      During the first chaotic time after Sara’s flight from her husband, when incessant malicious harassment continued to be part of hers and the children’s daily life, Sara was convinced that their nightmare would soon be over. Up until then she had lived under the delusion that democratic societies protect upright, honest people against those that are out to harm them. When it then slowly dawned on her that the judiciary system had very limited, not to say inexistent possibilities to intervene against Paul, she, as well as all those that happened to be present at one or other of Paul’s attacks, were deeply shocked!
        The major problem, when it comes to individual acts of harassment by men against former wives/partners, is not only that it is difficult to make law enforcers see them as something worth while spending energy on, but also that it is difficult to prove even that they actually happened. If the victim cannot show visible (i.e. physical) injuries that would result in a jail sentence for the offender in case of a conviction, the police do not normally even bother to start a proper investigation. The perpetrators know this, of course. In fact, every time that the police send a perpetrator off with a non-committal reprimand after yet another vicious attack, the man’s sense of superiority and “righteousness” is strengthened! Instead of hampering the abuser’s urge to “punish” the “whore” that slighted him, the police thus manage to spur him on to commit even harsher attacks!

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Psychological violence - Spokes in the wheel

    Those that have been lucky enough never to have had to live with constant persecution by a vengeful, rejected former husband/boyfriend/partner usually find it hard to imagine all that it entails.

     Try imagining what it would be like to live with the knowledge that someone hates you and sees it as his goal to destroy you mentally or physically! Try to imagine what it would be like to have to live, day and night, with constant threats and incessant telephone harassment, to have someone constantly trying to peep through the windows of your home, someone who is waiting for you when you open the front door to go out, someone who intercepts you and the children when you arrive with them at the school in the morning, or when you pick them up in the afternoon, someone who turns up as soon as you park your car outside the shopping centre, when you take the children to the playground or on a Sunday walk, when you get out of the car outside your home – all with the sole intent to harass you: to put himself in your way, taunt you, threaten you, spit in your face, pull your hair, threaten your friends, tell the children he is sorry for them that they have to be with their mother, but that he intends to rescue them soon...

     In the following I will call the man that most of my blog will focus on “Eric”, and his ex-wife “Maria”.

     From the day that his wife left him, the guiding principle that Eric has consistently followed has been to sabotage every single decision that Maria has ever taken in her daily life with or without the children. What I refer to is simple, daily little decisions of the kind that every person makes every day without even thinking about it - like who she chooses to have coffee with, who she talks to in the school yard, what other children she lets her kids play with, who she invites into her home, who she visits with the children, who she sees without the children, who she hires as baby-sitter, what paediatrician she consults for some commonplace ailment, what ordinary after school activities she lets the children participate in, what she writes in their school contact books, how she helps them with their home work, who she asks to collect them from school when she is otherwise engaged, who she allows to be present in her home when her ex (or his replacement) collects or drops off the children, how she dresses them, where or with whom they spend their holidays etc.

     Eric has not only consistently opposed every single decision that he has known of, but he has also done everything he can to prevent Maria from carrying them out. His imagination, when it comes to inventing new methods to put spanners in Maria’s wheels, has been all but inexhaustible.

     And how has Eric been able to keep himself informed about all these, most often completely commonplace little decisions?

     In short: he has supervised Maria with all available means. He has kept her home under surveillance day and night, he has kept track of all her comings and goings, followed her when she has left her home, hacked into her email, surpassed the security settings of her Facebook account, contacted her landlord, her neighbours, her friends and acquaintances to question them and denigrate Maria, he has interrogated the children as well as various employees at their school, and he has demanded of teachers, headmistresses, as well as the daughter's childminder, that they must keep him informed of absolutely everything that concerns his children.

     For a long time, before Maria managed to understand how he could get access to her new password as soon as she changed it, he could also enter her internet bank account, and in this way he could check her income and expenses as well as her geographic movements. He also searched for information on the internet, e.g. checked up on every new person who appeared anywhere near her, and if he found contact information, he contacted them to threaten them with ”serious consequences” if they did not stay away from Maria and the kids. Every time that Maria managed to put a stop to any of the ways Eric made use of to check up on her, he always invented new ones.

     In the beginning, when Eric still talked to his children on the phone every day while they were with their mother, he always made sure to squeeze Maria’s plans for the near future out of them. As soon as he got wind of anything at all (e.g. a shopping trip, a visit to the playground, a walk in the sunshine, participation in a village fair, a visit to someone’s house, friends coming over, plans for a children’s party, a trip out of town…), he made sure to either put a stop to the plans or to ruin the events. He turned up in the grocery store or in the playground, he intercepted the family in the street and put himself in their way and harassed Maria until she took the children home with her again. When he knew that she had guests, he came to her home, threw pebbles on the windows and yelled that the guests must leave and never again get anywhere near his children, or else there would be ”serious consequences” for them.

     And last, but not least: Without any kind of proof or even a hint of circumstantial evidence, Eric has conducted a massive denigration campaign against Maria at all conceivable levels. In a long succession of pleas to the court he has put forward shameless, invented, completely uncorroborated allegations against Maria as well as everyone near to her, and he has also repeated the same slander high and wide among a large number of people: his own as well as Maria’s friends and acquaintances, his family, work colleagues, school personnel, social workers, welfare officers, psyhologists, openly on Facebook etc. etc.  
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