Isolating the victim

      A typical technique used by violent men in order to control their women is to isolate them. This is a process that usually starts long before the relationship is over. Controlling men typically stress the importance of a very tight relationship, where the woman should be satisfied with his company, his family and his friends. If she has friends of her own, he will convince her that they are below her standards, if she wants to do something on her own, he will flatter her that he loves her so much that he cannot bear not having her around all the time, and then he will typically make her an offer of a competing activity she cannot refuse. If she insists on doing something on her own once in a while, he will become jealous and suspicious and accuse her of not loving him enough: If she loved him the way he loves her, she would prefer to spend the time with him and wouldn’t need to be with anyone but him.

      Sometimes this kind of man will work hard on making sure her family has a favourable impression of him, while at the same time, he will speak ill of them to her behind their backs. He will also typically trick her into joining him in his criticism of them; then he will tell her family members how concerned he is that she doesn’t treat them with proper respect... All this in order to sow seeds of discord between the woman and her family. Sometimes this leads to the woman’s family taking sides with him in case of a break-up.

      The efforts to isolate the victim will typically escalate after a break-up initiated by the woman. In Eric’s case spreading lies about Maria to friends and acquaintances, neighbours, colleagues, family, school personnel the social services..., became one of his favourite methods to make Maria’s life intolerable. His rock-solid negative opinion of her then extended to every single individual who chose to socialize with her, or, even worse, support her. In fact, most often Eric has not been even remotely acquainted with the persons he has attacked after Maria left him! Simply talking to Maria outside school has been enough to ”provoke” a vicious attack from Eric.

      If anyone challenges Eric by ignoring his order to stay away from Maria and the children, he resorts to provoking that person to attack him back and thereby become disqualified as a credible witness in the eyes of the court. For Eric knows full well that when two persons fight each other, the courts tend to jump to the conclusion that both are equally guilty. The arsenal he has most commonly used to make the target attack him back have been verbal assaults, telephone harassment, threats, vicious smear campaigns and, occasionally, physical assault and car vandalism.

      The avenger’s true objective with all this is of course to take yet another step towards the ultimate annihilation of the woman: He wants to make sure that she stands isolated and without support in view of his future attacks, and he wants to prove to the whole world that she is so worthless that no one wants to be with her.

            In my next article, “The best response to psychological abuse”, I will elaborate on the victims’ best approach to incessant harassment.

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