SOURCE MATERIAL: Possession series, volume I

HAUNT editor's note: Authored by Socrates & Glaucon, "Confronting Abuse in Polyamorous Relationships" was published Oct. 28, 2016 by the blog P.S. I Love You on Medium. P.S. I Love You was discontinued in 2021, and shortly after HAUNT's author embarked on the POSSESSION series in 2023, this key source was deleted from Medium. HAUNT has republished most of Socrates & Glaucon's "Confronting Abuse in Polyamorous Relationships" here, without the author's firsthand examples to better respect their privacy.

"Confronting Abuse in Polyamorous Relationships"

The underlying cause of abuse is an attitude of superiority, entitlement, and control rooted in cultural and social messaging. Within the poly community, our own values and best practices can make us more vulnerable to certain abusive dynamics and less able to confront them.

Contents

Introduction
How to Read This Piece | A Note on Gendered Language

Part I: Defining Abuse
Misconceptions about the Causes of Abuse | The Scope of Abuse | Realities of the Abusive Mindset | Sources of Abusive Attitudes

Part II: Identifying Abuse
Disambiguating Roles: Abusive Partners, Abusive Metamours, and Partners as Abusers’ Allies | Abusive Behaviors | Drawing the Line on Abuse | Spotting an Abuser Seeking Victim-Status | Personality Disorders

Part III: Halting Abuse
Halting Metamour Abuse While Staying with a Shared Partner | Continued Abuse from Former Metamours | Withdrawal, Boundary Setting, and Vetoes in Abusive Relationships

Part IV: Preventing Abuse
Spotting Partner Abuse Early | Spotting Metamour Abuse Early | The (Poly) Community Response to Abuse

Author’s Note
Epilogue | What’s in a Name?

Resources

Introduction

Relationships can be confusing. In polyamorous relationships, where we often explore romantic territory without a map of cultural reference points, it can be especially difficult to discern all the nuances.

The subtle, shifting dynamics and complex problems of multiple partners can be part of the thrill of nonmonogamy, but it can also lead us to overlook the particularly challenging and painful presence of abusive behavior.

The intention of this piece is to provide a framework for people practicing polyamory to identify and confront abusive behavior in their own relationships and those of people close to them. It is by no means a comprehensive resource on abuse, but rather a discussion of abusive dynamics that are specific to polyamory.

If you believe you are being abused by your partner or your metamour, I encourage you first and foremost to trust your own intuition. In the context of this piece, the Resources section is full of material written by experts that can help you articulate what is happening to you and decide how to move forward.

It is important to note that I am not a professional abuse counselor, and I do not have any experience that qualifies me to write this piece outside of my own, nor do I have education outside of what I have learned from the resources I reference here.

This is also by no means a comprehensive resource on abusive dynamics that can occur in polyamory. I am writing from the limited perspective of my own experience, and while I hope to update this piece as time progresses with other narratives, do not invalidate your own experience just because you do not find a carbon copy of it here.

Instead, take the time to learn more about the fundamental attitudes and tactics of abusive behavior and seek support from people you trust. Ultimately, however, remember that there is always someone that you can trust on this: yourself.

How to Read This Piece

As someone who has searched for answers about their own relationships in literature about abuse, the most helpful content for me personally has been the first-person narratives of people in abusive relationships. Hearing my own feelings, opinions, and questions in the voices of other people was critical to affirming that the experiences I was having did in fact constitute abuse.

Because of this, I have included a large number of these examples here, though they are only a handful of my own experiences and a bare skeleton of the arcs of my own relationships. If these stories are not useful to you personally, don’t read them. Similarly, if there are portions of this piece that do not apply to your situation, skip them. This is not a testimonial, it’s a tool. Use it how you see fit.

A Note on Gendered Language

Books about abuse are extremely heteronormative. As a queer person who dates men and women, cis and trans, I reject any discourse stating that women do not abuse men. While I understand that most reported abuse is male-to-female, and gender stereotypes can heavily influence abusive attitudes, a person of any gender can abuse a person of any other gender.

Since first publishing this article, I have witnessed more than one woman engage in unconscionable cruelty toward her male partner. In writing this article, I have chosen to remove gendered language from the discussion, with the exception of recounting first-person narratives.

Instead, I use the terms “abused” or “abusive,” “abuser,” “partner,” and “metamour.” I have not, however, edited the gendered language in direct quotations from other sources, and I hope that this allowance does not alienate people who are seeking support.

PART I: Defining Abuse

In his canonical book on the abusive mentality Why Does He Do That?, counselor Lundy Bancroft describes one of the central experiences of a person who is being abused.

“Every time [they think they've got their] partner figured out, that [they] finally understand what is bothering [them], something new happens, something changes. The pieces refuse to fit together.” — Bancroft, Why Does He Do That?

In polyamory, an abused person is sometimes presented with the additional challenge of having more than one puzzle jumbled up in the same box. The hurtful behavior of one person might manifest in the actions of another, and other partners and metamours might present more sympathetic views of an abuser or act as allies to them in ways that obscure the source of the problem.

In learning the underlying attitudes and complex tactics that constitute abuse, however, you may be better equipped to discern the patterns and differentiate this particularly pernicious issue from the more common challenges that polyamory presents.

Misconceptions about the Causes of Abuse

If you ask someone on the street what makes someone abusive, they may give you a variety of responses.

• They were abused themselves as a child.
• They have anger issues.
• They’re oppressed because of their race, gender, or sexuality.
• They’ve been mistreated by past lovers.
• They have psychological issues.
• They drink or use drugs.
• They’re afraid of intimacy or abandonment.

These widely-held explanations are all enforced by our media culture and the echo chamber of our own ignorance. They are certainly the things that I believed. They are also all wrong.

If you would like to read a full summary and debunking of the 17 most common myths about why someone is abusive, Why Does He Do That? spends an entire chapter on the subject. For brevity’s sake, assume here that if you accept any explanation that attributes abusive behavior to a person’s unfortunate circumstances or sympathetic personality flaws, you are buying into the myths.

What’s worse, you’re buying into the myths that abusers want you to believe, because these pitiable circumstances are powerful tools for abusive people seeking victim status, one of the most useful shields against challenges to their behavior.

The Scope of Abuse

Another common and counterproductive myth about abuse is that it is predominantly a physical act, such as violent aggression or sexual assault. The reality is that these are just two of the most extreme tactics in a playbook of harmful behavior that is all informed by the same attitudes, and different abusers employ different tactics.

The Power and Control Wheel, created in 1984 by Duluth, Minnesota’s Domestic Abuse Intervention Project, is a standard depiction of these tactics. Abuse counseling organizations nationwide use the Duluth Model, including The National Domestic Violence Hotline. According to TheDuluthModel.org:

“A batterer systematically uses threats, intimidation, and coercion to instill fear in [their] partner. These behaviors are the spokes of the wheel. Physical and sexual violence holds it all together—this violence is the rim of the wheel.” — TheDuluthModel.org, "Understanding the Power and Control Wheel"

Physical and sexual violence, however, are not necessary to keep the spokes turning in an abusive relationship. If you doubt that you or someone close to you is being seriously abused because there has been no physical or sexual violence, please remember this:

"Most women indicate that emotional abuse effects them as much, if not more than, physical violence. They report that emotional abuse is responsible for long-term problems with health, self-esteem, depression, and anxiety. In one study 72% of women reported that being ridiculed by their abusive partners had the greatest impact on them, followed by threats of abuse, jealousy, and restriction [or isolation]. It was also found that the impact increased with the frequency of the emotional abuse." — Springtide Resources, "Emotional Abuse of Women by Male Partners: The Facts"

If you yourself are experiencing the preoccupation, fear, depression, sloth, confusion or self-reproach that abuse produces, or if you find yourself wishing your partner would hit you so that you can finally get some closure, remember that experts on abuse are in agreement that your own feelings and intuition are just as telling as any bodily injury.

Realities of the Abusive Mindset

“An abuser is a human being, not an evil monster, but [they have] a profoundly complex and destructive problem that should not be underestimated.” — Bancroft, Why Does He Do That?

The last damaging myth about abusive behavior is that “abusers do not know that they are being abusive.” This is a statement that abuse experts may make, but its context is often misinterpreted. When an expert says that an abuser does not know they are being abusive, what they mean is that the abuser would not acknowledge or label their behavior as abuse. Or, as Bancroft puts it:

“An abuser’s behavior is primarily conscious—[they act] deliberately rather than by accident or by losing control of [themself]—but the underlying thinking that drives [their] behavior is largely not conscious." — Bancroft, Why Does He Do That?

In other words, an abuser understands that their behavior is hurtful, but they believe it's justified. It's unlikely that they keep a spreadsheet of ways to be cruel to their partner or chart their success based on standardized units of control. When the moment comes, however, they make intentional choices about how to mistreat a person in order to take power in the situation at hand.

This myth about the ignorance of injury can also be the last line of defense by allies of abusive people, once they have been forced to recognize that the person is indeed behaving abusively. If you yourself are being abused, pay those people no mind. People may have difficulty adjusting to the darker parts of human interaction. But if you are willing to look into the gloom directly, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Here, then, is where things get dark. Abuse is not an accident or a condition. It’s a set of deep-seated attitudes about ownership, entitlement, and control. An abuser is manipulative, possessive, and controlling, and considers themselves superior to an abused person for whom they have little respect.

They feel that their mistreatment is justified and deny, minimize, or distort the implications of actions they take to seize power to which they feel entitled, often because of their confused understanding of love.

Still with me? That’s a lot to swallow, particularly because abusers are often our friends and relatives or, if we are in an abusive relationship, someone we are in love with. It’s worth noting to community members and allies of abusers that abusive behavior is typically directed only towards a particular person in the abuser’s life, and that most abuse is committed in secret.

An abusive person might be a wonderful friend or colleague or a respected member of the community. Moreover, for those of you who are struggling to believe an abused person’s claims that someone in your own life has been abusive to them, it’s very, very important to note that the last defining characteristic of an abuser is that they strive to have a good public image in order to shield themselves from culpability and, sometimes, to leverage their social network as a further tool of manipulation and control.

Sources of Abusive Attitudes

Abuse is not biological or psychological, but rather cultural and social. From an early age, we learn about values and morals, roles, and rules. Bancroft explains these points of impression more specifically as:

“The family in which children grow up is usually the strongest influence, at least for their first few years, but it is only one among many. Children’s sense of proper and improper ways to behave, their moral perceptions of right and wrong, and their beliefs about sex roles are brought to them by television and videos, popular songs, children’s books, and jokes.” — Bancroft, Why Does He Do That?

By the time we become adolescents, our attitudes on partnership roles are deeply ingrained to the point that we may have feelings or opinions that run counter to values we consciously choose to uphold.

The poly community is still populated largely by people who grew up with monogamous parents and were taught that love was between two people. Despite that poly people have chosen to live differently, the underlying attitudes of ownership and possession that our culture instills are still in there somewhere. Indeed, most of the rules commonly seen in poly relationships are based on a pair’s belief that they are entitled to protect their own relationship in the face of a third person’s desires and needs.

This does not mean that rules are inherently a tool of abuse. Yes, limiting arrangements do exert control on third parties, and mistreatment of “secondaries” in hierarchical relationships is a continued source of controversy in poly communities. However, to assume that all partners who enact primacy harbor an abusive mentality confuses cause and effect.

Many people who make rules do so because of a preference for simplicity and a desire for focus on their commitment. Even the less functional instances of rule-making are often a response to feelings of insecurity or informed by well-intentioned advice from the community. In these more common situations, partners who maintain their decision to enforce primacy will still listen to a third party’s concerns and respond compassionately.

If you are having problems dealing with limitation-based conflict in your relationship, I encourage all parties involved to read More Than Two, one of the most popular and respected books on polyamory in theory and practice. These resources address a number of common issues like communication, jealousy, and resource allocation. One of the authors also maintains a related website. If, however, your concerns are repeatedly ignored outright, denied, or turned back on you by your partner or metamour, keep reading.

PART II: Identifying Abuse

Different resources map the territory of abusive behavior with slightly different borders and divides, but there is relative consensus on the behavior explored and the effects it has on an abused person.

Physical abuse includes acts and threats of bodily harm or sexual violence. While acts of physical abuse are the most legible forms of abuse, they are just one of the many tactics that abusers use to maintain control, and it is important to remember that a large number of abusive people never or rarely employ physical abuse.

While many of the deleterious effects of physical and emotional abuse are the same, there are specific concerns for people who are being physically abused that warrant greater attention, especially if they experience grievous injury at the hands of their abuser. I strongly encourage anyone who is aware of physical abuse in a relationship to consult experts and specialized research for guidance on how to confront these particular behaviors.

Emotional abuse is less concrete but generally refers to non-physical behaviors that undermine a person’s sense of self or well-being. In Abusive Behaviors, I will focus on a few tactics of emotional abuse that take a novel shape in poly relationships, but the subjects I explore in depth are limited to the scope of my own personal experience, and the architecture of polyamory does not insulate poly people from any particular abusive behavior.

I encourage you to refer to the Power and Control Wheel for an overview of common abusive tactics and to seek further advice on newer or niche abusive behaviors such as digital abuse or abuse based on race, gender, or sexuality.

In the meantime, I have compiled a list of descriptions of emotionally abusive behavior from several abuse counseling resources. It is by no means complete.

Isolation. Telling you what to do and wear. Starting rumors about you. Verbal assault. Threats and intimidation. Making you feel guilty or immature when you don’t consent to sexual activity. Lying. Unreasonably ordering an individual around; treating an individual like a servant or child. Intentionally frightening. Making an individual fear that they will not receive the food or care they need. Demeaning an individual because of the language they speak. Threats of violence or abandonment. Confinement. Yelling or swearing. Making derogative or slanderous statements about an individual to others. Intentionally misinterpreting traditional practices. Socially isolating an individual, failing to let them have visitors. Intentionally embarrassing you in public. Ignoring or excessively criticizing.Yelling and screaming at you. Infantilization. Threatening to have your children taken away. Using online communities or cell phones to control, intimidate or humiliate you. Telling an individual that they are too much trouble. Name calling or insults; mocking. Threatening to harm you, your pet or people you care about. Withholding important information. Withholding money from you. Using gaslighting techniques to confuse or manipulate you. Accusing you of cheating and often being jealous of your outside relationships. Stalking. Damaging your property when they’re angry (throwing objects, punching walls, kicking doors, etc.) Ignoring or excluding. Being over-familiar and disrespectful. Threatening to commit suicide to keep you from breaking up with them. Threatening to expose your secrets such as your sexual orientation or immigration status. Humiliation. Denial of the abuse and blaming of the victim. Calling you names and putting you down. Failing to check allegations of abuse against them. Spending your money without consent. Repeatedly raising the issue of death. Blaming your actions for their abusive or unhealthy behavior. — Quoted from HealthyPlace.com, LoveIsRespect.org, and The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans

Regardless of the particular tactic, all abusive behavior serves to accomplish the same goal — power and control over another person. Because of this, all tactics also contribute to the same set of destructive effects on the abused person. These effects are described in Common Effects of Abuse.

While every abuser and abused person is different, and not all tactics or effects will appear in every relationship, if you recognize more than a handful of these features in your own relationship, especially as a persistent pattern, there is a good chance that your partner is abusive.

Disambiguating Roles: Abusive Partners, Abusive Metamours, and Partners as Abusers’ Allies

In monogamous relationships, abusive people direct abuse at their partner. There is a caveat for partners who care for children together, but these dynamics are complex, and I suggest consulting specialized resources.

In polyamory, abuse can be directed at a partner or a metamour, and a shared partner can be either an abuser or an abuser’s ally, who acts as an enabler for their partner’s abusive behavior.

Abusive Partners:
Abusive partners in poly relationships behave much like abusers in monogamous relationships, but they may have to adapt their rhetoric and behavior to maintain the pretext that they act based on shared values surrounding open relationships.

Because of this, an abusive partner may contextualize much of their controlling, isolating, or criticizing behavior as a reaction to a problematic metamour. In this way, the abuser diverts attention from the true source of the issue and makes it less likely that the abused partner will go to the metamour for help.

Abusive Metamours:
At first glance, abusive metamours defy the definition of abuse as a manifestation of possessiveness. However, metamour abuse is more accurately described as an extension of abusive attitudes toward a partner, and so abusers often see their metamour as a threat to possession instead of an object of it.

Because of this, an abuser may initially try subjugating their metamour, but can at some point shift to severing their metamour’s relationship with the shared partner in order to maintain control. They may enact this by convincing the shared partner to leave the abused metamour or by making the metamour’s relationship with the partner so difficult that the abused person decides to leave.

Unfortunately, the architecture of a poly relationship gives an abusive metamour some tactical advantages, especially if the abuser is part of a more established couple.

• A deeper connection with the shared partner may make them more likely to be believed.
• In a longer or more intense relationship, the accrued number of positive experiences may make a shared partner more patient or forgiving of an abuser’s behavior.
• Habits or agreements that privilege couple primacy and privacy allow evidence of abuse to be concealed.
• The sunk-cost fallacy or the entanglement of mature relationships can create a perverse incentive for a shared partner to tolerate acts of abuse.
• Gaslighting, the intentional misrepresentation of circumstances, can be far more effective if an abuser and ally collude on enforcing the same worldview.
• Traumatic bonding, the process through which the damage done to an abused person’s sense of self makes them more dependent and attached to their abuser, can keep an abused shared partner firmly under an abuser’s control.

The Partner As Abuser’s Ally:
Some partners may not harbor an abusive mentality but nevertheless engage in or enable their partner’s abusive behavior towards a metamour. It is important to note that these allies are no less damaging to an abused person’s well-being. In these situations, it may be hard for an abused person to determine if mistreatment by a partner is an independent instance of abuse or the result of abusive behavior by their metamour for several reasons.

• The ally may act as an apologist for the abuser and blame the abused person for problems in the relationship.
• The ally may serve as a vector for their partner’s abusive behavior, such as by agreeing to an abusive partner’s limiting demands, withholding information from the abused person, or retaliating when the abused person confronts the abuser.
• The ally may engage in abusive behavior towards the abused person independently.

Sorting out the motivation for their partner’s enabling or abusive behavior may bring the abused person to draw one or more of several conclusions.

• The ally genuinely believes the stories of the abuser and is doing what they think is right.
• The ally is ignorant of the situation or attempts a neutral perspective in order to avoid taking sides.
• The ally recognizes the mistreatment but continues to enable the abuse out of their own desire to keep both relationships.
• The ally recognizes the mistreatment but continues to enable the abuse out of fear of the abuser’s retaliation.
• The ally is also a victim of their partner’s abuse, and their own harmful behavior is motivated by the chronic fear, anger, and anxiety that results from it.
• The ally is also a victim of abuse and has learned the habits of mistreatment.

If a partner who has allied with an abuser is able to confront the abuse, they may be able to stop engaging in abusive behavior. This may be easier said than done, however, given the complexities that can be involved in leaving an abusive relationship. These issues are discussed in detail in Part III: Halting Abuse.

The Abused Person:
When someone is being abused, they may react with anger. They may withdraw from the situation or speak in harsh terms about the abuser and their allies. In cases of physical violence, they may even hit back. For the abuser, these actions can justify continued or escalated abuse and be twisted to place responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the abused person.

In polyamorous relationships, an abused person may find themselves acting in anger toward a shared partner because of the behavior of an abusive metamour, which may then be used as proof by both the abuser and their allied partner that it is actually the abused person who is responsible for issues in the relationship.

The Metamour as the Abused Person:
In some situations, mistreatment from one person is the result of chronic abuse from another. In polyamory in particular, a new person entering a relationship may encounter hostility or negativity from a metamour as the result of an existing dynamic of abuse from the shared partner. In these situations, hostile, abusive or negative behavior may not be rooted in someone’s desire to control the other people in the situation, but rather part of a fight for control of themselves.

People in abusive partnerships are often locked in a struggle to maintain their own autonomy and stability, have high levels of fear and mistrust in their relationship, and are keeping secrets about the way they are being treated in private. In turn, an abusive partner may be feeding a new lover false narratives or incomplete information about the reason for a metamour’s behavior and even lead the new partner to believe that this behavior is evidence that it is the shared partner who is being abused. They may also be subtly encouraging the hostility from one partner as a tool to dominate a new one or create a pretext for ending the longer relationship.

If you are encountering abuse, mistreatment or negativity from a metamour, there are a few telling signs that they may actually be experiencing abuse from your shared partner:

1. They are avoidant rather than confrontational. Being tightlipped, emotionally distant, withdrawn or unwilling to share space can all be signs of someone attempting to maintain their own boundaries or protect themselves. In some cases, a metamours resentment or hostility can be the result of a boundary being violated between them and the shared partner, rather than jealousy or territoriality.
2. Triangulation is common. Abusers are often willing to smear or slander someone they are in conflict with, while victims of abuse tend to keep their mistreatment a secret. If a shared partner frequently tells stories of their other partner’s hurtful behavior but does not appear to be afraid of the consequences of doing so or making moves to leave the relationship, it is possible that they are the ones who are driving the drama. In these cases, these narratives may even serve to drive the two metamours away from one another, create mistrust, and make the abused partner less likely to be believed. When this occurs, it is helpful to pay attention less to the roles people play within the narrative and more to the roles people play in shaping them.

These complexities present new challenges in identifying and confronting abuse. As you read the examples below, it is important to keep these roles in mind.

Abusive Behaviors

Criticism:
For those of us who consult our partners in making decisions about other relationships, an earnest discussion can be useful if it is empathetic and respectful to all parties. In an abusive relationship, these well-intentioned opinions give way to unbridled criticism and undesirable character flaws.

In The Verbally Abusive Relationship, an in-depth exploration of the tactics of verbal abuse, Patricia Evans describes these scenarios as follows:

“The verbal abuser may judge [their] partner and then express [their] judgment in a critical way. If [the partner objects], [the abuser] may tell [them] that [they're] just pointing something out to be helpful, but in reality [they] may be expressing [their] lack of acceptance of [their partner]. Most verbal abuse carries a judgmental tone. For example, comments which negate the partner’s feelings, such as ‘You’re too sensitive,’ are judgmental, as are abusive ‘jokes.’” — Evans, The Verbally Abusive Relationship

These criticisms serve to replace the perspective of the abused person with a viewpoint that serves the abuser’s desire for superiority and control. In poly relationships, criticism can be used specifically to undermine a partner’s opinion of a metamour’s suitability, motivations, and behavior.

Ignoring Boundaries and Invading Space:
Individual boundaries are the thing that separates one person from another. Personal space, privacy, and independence are all critical to our sense of self. They are all also important features of successful polyamory. In any poly relationship, especially established ones and those between couples that live together, the etiquette of shared space is a point of negotiation.

In healthy relationships, all parties feel empowered to communicate directly about sharing space and can negotiate the desire for privacy in specific contexts, such as attending the same party or using the kitchen during dinnertime in a shared home.

In abusive relationships, these boundaries are continuously curtailed by an abuser who feels that any desire for privacy by their partner is an affront to the abusive person’s own rights. An abuser may make a point of inhabiting common space when their partner and metamour are around, insist on attending the same events, and even go so far as to expand their interests to those shared by their partner and metamour in order to maintain influence in all aspects of the abused person’s life.

These tactics can serve many functions, including undermining the intimacy between a shared partner and a metamour and maintaining the primacy of the abuser’s own needs and desires on a broader scale.

Digital abuse is an ever-evolving practice that pertains to conduct online and in other digital mediums. It includes anything from using someone else’s passwords to read their conversations, demanding to see someone else’s conversations, and releasing private information online. Instant communication has given abusers a new tool to invade space without physically being there.

Abusers may send frequent text messages, demand that their partner enable read receipts or respond within a given timeframe, up the volume or intensity of communication if they do not receive a response, start serious conversations, or repeatedly ask for help when they know their partner is engaged elsewhere, and otherwise seek to maintain focus on themselves even when their partners are away.

Many people cope with attention and intimacy issues regarding screen-addiction and the use of their smartphones. A partner who frequently checks their phone is by no means demonstrating signs of abuse. If they are unable to separate themselves from their phone because of their partner’s demands, however, or resist requests to change their phone etiquette with another lover, it may be a sign that the person on the other side of the screen is controlling them. If these barrages of digital communication happen more frequently when a metamour knows that you and your shared partner are together, the target of their abusive behavior may also be you.

Lying and Withholding:
Some people believe that withholding information is not as problematic as fabricating it. Those people are wrong. More Than Two provides a great response to this misconception.

“An omission is a lie when it is calculated to conceal information that, were it known to the other party, would be materially relevant to her. Failing to tell your partner how long it took to brush your teeth isn’t a lie of omission. Failing to tell your partner you’re having sex with the pool man is.” — Rickert & Veaux, More Than Two

An assumption of privacy is often necessary to create a safe space for genuine communication. In abusive relationships, this intention is turned on its head by abusers hoping to conceal their behavior. Under the veil of “privacy,” an abuser may commit all sorts of verbal abuse against their partner or their metamour, either by speaking to the abused person directly or making critical remarks about an abused person to a shared partner. If an abuser believes that their actions will remain secret, they may take actions or force agreements and concessions from their partner that violate the values that they publicly maintain.

Withholding can be one of the most difficult tactics to pin down for someone trying to identify abuse in their relationship, because all parties may enact it.

• The abuser withholds information about their behavior to reap its rewards and escape consequences.
• An ally may withhold information to protect the abuser from judgment, avoid the realities of the situation, or because they believe an abuser’s misrepresentations of a situation and think the abusive behavior is just.
• An abused person may in turn withhold information because they believe they are doing the right thing by protecting someone’s privacy or because they are afraid of the consequences of their honesty. If you are being abused, remember this: When a victim withholds information about abusive behavior, they deprive themselves of avenues to access the support and the strength necessary to end an abusive relationship.

Unfortunately, the tendency for all parties involved to withhold information is one of the biggest boons to an abusive person. Without evidence to contradict them, an abuser may willingly deceive and manipulate their peers in order to create allies in a campaign of harassment or seek justification for their behavior.

Abusers seeking victim status may solicit a promise of secrecy from someone in order to “protect” themselves, then fill the safe space that their ally has unwittingly created with lies and misrepresentations. I will discuss how to catch on to these abusers in Spotting an Abuser Seeking Victim Status, but it is important to note that public reports of abuse are very, very rarely falsified, and most abusers only engage in behaviors that seek victim status if they believe that their audience will be sympathetic to and credulous of their lies.

Outright fabrications can play a more nuanced role in abusive behavior. Withholding information maintains a false ignorance in the face of truth. Lying maintains a false truth in the face of ignorance. Because outright lies claim a truth that can be fact-checked, abusers may be more likely to lie only about subtler details like the tone of someone’s voice, or they may favor vague descriptions that lead the object of their manipulation to draw incorrect conclusions.

In poly relationships, where the increased intimacy and trust between an abused person and a nonabusive partner might eventually produce revelations that unravel outright lies, more understated lies might be the norm.

If an abuser believes their story will not be fact-checked, however, they may lie outright. A popular set of lies peddled by abusers are ones about their previous relationships. Knowing their current partner is unlikely to contact a past one, an abuser may fabricate all sorts of information about the actions of past lovers in an attempt at victim status or to preemptively discredit someone claiming abuse.

If you are unsure whether or not your partner’s claims of past abuse are genuine, or if genuine claims of past abuse are nevertheless being deployed in abusive behavior, take Lundy Bancroft’s advice:

“All I can say is: ‘I always recommend, whenever there are claims of emotional or physical abuse, that women talk to each other directly and not just accept the man’s denial.’” — Bancroft, Why Does He Do That?

A full explanation of ways to help determine if reports of past abuse are genuine can be found in Chapter 4 of Why Does He Do That?

Isolation:
A critical way that abusers maintain possession of their partners is by controlling access to them. The ability to determine who the abused person sees ensures that the abuser will remain at the center of their partner’s world. In the poly community, rules about the degree of intimacy, frequency, or context in which a partner can see other lovers are still culturally acceptable.

While many people who create these rules still act with compassion, abusive partners may make use of rules selfishly. They may have a double standard for the rules they follow versus what they demand of their partner, impose new rules as acts of retaliation, interpret current rules in ways that place their partner or their metamour in the wrong, or target rules at a particular metamour. In all cases, the result is a weakened connection in an abused partner’s external relationship.

Not every abuser is willing or able to make new rules for their partner. For some, operating under the conceit that they behave in accordance with their values may be critical to maintaining their moral superiority. Others may have genuine beliefs that they are unwilling to compromise outright, and instead turn to less direct tactics or find justifications to make exceptions. An abused person may also be able to resist compromising on their own values regarding other partners, which are frequently deal breakers in poly relationships.

In these cases, an abuser has other, subtler options for isolating their partner. Disrupting time spent with other lovers can create obstacles to building intimacy, and some lovers might take an abused person’s distracted state as a sign of disinterest or withdrawal. Provoking conflict and distress before or after dates can also create a disincentive for an abused person to go out, either through an abuser’s acknowledged connection between their behavior and their partner’s date or a conditioned association in the abused person’s head.

This is not to say that difficult emotions and behavior do not arise in compassionate poly relationships. There are plenty of nonabusive people who experience jealousy and insecurity and behave poorly in response to it. In general, however, nonabusive partners are receptive to feedback and work to remedy their negative behavior, even if it proves easier said than done.

Even chronic issues relating to isolating or limiting behavior may not be motivated by an abusive mentality, but instead by more common fears and insecurities. The negative impacts of chronic isolating behavior are nevertheless serious and deserve to be addressed, but the approach to confronting these behaviors differs depending on the mindset of the person enacting them. I’ll be discussing how to tell if problematic behavior is abusive or not in Drawing the Line on Abuse.

Gaslighting:
“Gaslighting” is a term coined from a 1944 film starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer in which a man slowly convinces his wife that she is going insane through a variety of tactics that include dimming the light in a room repeatedly and insisting to her that nothing has changed.

In its most legible form, gaslighting is a set of fabrications aimed at replacing an abused person’s sense of reality with that of their abuser. Dr. Robin Stern writes in The Gaslight Effect that:

“The Gaslight Effect results from a relationship between two people: a gaslighter, who needs to be right in order to preserve [their] own sense of self and [their] sense of having power in the world; and a gaslightee, who allows the gaslighter to define [their] sense of reality because [they idealize the gaslighter] and [seek their] approval.” — Stern, The Gaslight Effect

Abusers may use gaslighting to serve an explicit objective or contribute to the general ethos of control.

Unlike some other abusive tactics, effective gaslighting requires a degree of cooperation, subconscious or otherwise, from the person being abused. Stern expresses this caveat succinctly, “Gaslighting works only when you believe what the gaslighter says and need him to think well of you.” In the narrative above, the abused person was confronted with such an overt lie that the gaslighting failed. In these situations, abusers who are confronted with their lies do not generally become apologetic, but instead move on to a different tactic to get what they want.

In researching this piece, I found that most descriptions of gaslighting in popular psychology focus exclusively on the conscious fabrication of false information devised for a specific purpose. These explanations describe only the glaring tip of the iceberg. Gaslighting is the use of any abusive tactic that intends to undermine an abused person’s perceptions and replace their viewpoint with that of their abuser.

These tactics include assigning the abused person inaccurate intentions or personality characteristics, denying the validity of someone’s experiences and opinions, and using an abused person’s own ideals against them. In the context of polyamory, abusers may assert the importance of getting along with metamours, owning your feelings, and refraining from zero-sum games in order to convince an abused person that their resistance to abusive behavior is actually a manifestation of jealousy or selfishness.

A common behavior of someone being gaslighted is internal preoccupation with their own motivations as they try to find evidence that validates their abuser’s perspective. As the stages of gaslighting progress, this preoccupation can turn from disbelief to self-defense to self-loathing. If you find yourself constantly searching for examples of wrongdoing in your own behavior or discounting feelings that conflict with your partner’s perception of you, you may be being gaslighted.

Denying, Minimizing, and Blaming:
Abusers do not act based on hurt feelings. They act based on a desire for control. Finding justifications for their behavior is a critical part of that process, and so an abuser is unlikely to take steps to relieve themselves of any tool that aids them in enacting mistreatment.

This does not mean that an abuser will not seek out an apology, however. One of the critical functions of keeping someone in an abusive dynamic is making them believe that their abuser’s behavior is justified, and many abusers seek victim status directly from the people they are abusing. Be wary, then, of people who ask for apologies and behave as though they have been hurt but do not take steps toward forgiveness.

This is not to say that just because someone has been abused, they are infallible, or that abused people are incapable of genuinely hurting their abuser’s feelings. Many people who are being abused become angry sometimes and may mistreat their abusers in return. While it is important to remember that mistreatment is never justified, in the context of abuse it is more important to remember that two wrongs do not make a right, and poor behavior does not warrant cruelty.

Refusing to accept an apology or using an abused person’s actions as an excuse to abuse them more is not acceptable behavior, and an abused person is far better served to focus on what an abuser is doing to them than the wrongs an abuser claims have been perpetrated.

Similarly, abusers may seem to accept apologies genuinely and appear contrite and empathetic about accusations of wrongdoing if they are confronted in a public arena or over email, which has the possibility of being distributed to a wider audience.

Don’t be fooled if a person is willing to apologize and accept apologies in public but does not change their behavior or forgive you for yours in private interactions. There are many lengths an abuser will go to in order to maintain a good public face and close relationships with their allies, but it is unlikely to have any effect on how they behave toward you behind closed doors.

One of the surest signs of abuse is if someone retaliates when confronted about problematic behavior. This is explored in detail in Drawing the Line on Abuse. Abusive people do not generally apologize meaningfully or take lasting steps to address their behavior. Doing so means admitting that their behavior wasn’t acceptable and depriving themselves of some of the tools they use to seek control.

Even if an abuser does not directly retaliate, they are likely to minimize the extent of their behavior, deny their involvement or intention, or find a way to blame the abused person for accusing them. In the case of abusive metamours, a shared partner may also act as an ally to the abuser by denying, minimizing, or blaming the abused person on their abusive partner’s behalf.

A common myth is that abusers never say they’re sorry. To the contrary, many abusers apologize readily and frequently. Part of the pattern of behavior known as “The Cycle of Abuse” is a reconciliation period in which an abuser expresses concern for the victim and remorse about the damage they have inflicted.

This period may include grandiose romantic gestures, intense guilt, and doting kindness. Importantly, however, the reconciliation includes excuses, deflection, and minimization regarding the abusive incident. Often, the deflective behavior includes an element of scapegoating or blaming the person being abused.

If exposed publicly, some abusers will express extreme remorse for their actions. They may go from denying the abuse to accepting full responsibility and taking steps to modify their behavior, like entering counseling or making public apologies. Some abusers may express a desire to reconcile with their victims.

These actions are not a breakthrough, but instead an abuser’s attempt to salvage their tarnished reputation and escape further consequences for their abuse. In some cases, an abuser will use the situation to garner sympathy and turn public opinion against a victim who refuses counseling or further contact by portraying them as unreasonable, vindictive, or bitter.

Threats:
Threats are considered physical abuse if they involve bodily harm, but introducing the possibility of doing damage without using violence [is] considered [making] threats as well. Threats to leave or create distance are common tactics among abusers, and some abusive people will leave their partners in order to punish them, especially if they are confident that their partner will try to get them to come back.

Discussions of self-harm are also seen as threats when used to influence the actions of others, and some abusers may expose themselves to dangerous situations or intentionally damage their own well-being if they believe the person they are abusing will feel responsible. Regardless of their content, threats are often just as emotionally damaging to an abused person as if the abuser went through with whatever they threatened, and their impact can be magnified if the threat becomes persistent.

Drawing the Line on Abuse

Everyone makes mistakes. Many if not all of us do things we regret, sometimes chronically, sometimes ignorant of the ways in which we are hurting people. In poly relationships, our frequent encounters with novel and complicated situations may lead us to make more or worse mistakes than usual.

Furthermore, the direct negotiations in poly relationships around possession, entitlement, and priority might lead some readers of this piece to believe that everyone they have ever dated has capital-A Abused them. As someone who has moved from one abusive relationship to another before, I do not categorically reject that possibility, but I also want to draw a line between mistreating one another in ways that we come to regret and the well-defined mentality of a chronic abuser.

In other words, mistreatment is never ok, but all mistreatment is not abuse.

Common Indicators of Abuse:
There are several specific experiences that can confirm if someone is abusive, and they fall into three categories.

1. Responsibility is denied. If a person refuses to admit what they did, blames some else for their behavior, tells the wronged person that it’s their problem to deal with, or retaliates against them for confronting their behavior, those are sure signs of abuse. These denials may be direct refusals to acknowledge the issue, or an abuser may use diversionary tactics like criticizing the manner in which the issue was raised. They can also seek to undermine attempts at genuine resolution by issuing insincere-sounding apologies that they will then demand the abused person accept.
2. Egregious damage is done. Physical violence, sexual coercion or assault, and other tactics of outright fear are behaviors that abusers typically only engage in when they are confident that their partner is sufficiently under their control to neither leave nor report the abuse. If a partner is engaging in any of this behavior, they are abusive. Similarly, if a person’s own career goals, relationships, and other hopes and dreams have been abandoned or put on indefinite hold, and they instead find themselves focused on the desires and goals of their partner, it’s likely that they are being abused.
3. The behavior is chronic. If a person finds themselves using the word pattern to describe their partner’s behavior, or are able to predict the ways in which the partner will mistreat them, or are unable to make certain behavior stop no matter what they try, then they are experiencing abuse. Similarly, if they have begun to exhibit the Common Effects of Abuse, it’s an obvious sign that the ways they are being mistreated are a serious problem.

Common Effects of Abuse:
Experts on abuse are in agreement that perhaps the greatest single indicator that someone is being abused is their own intuition. If your own intuition is telling you this, trust it. While an abuser may be able to subvert and manipulate many levels of your conscious processes, there are still parts of you deep down that know something isn’t right. Below are two checklists from different resources on abuse that discuss signs that someone is in an abusive relationship. They include both high-level generalizations and granular behaviors specific to common types of abuse. Signs of being abused from Why Does He Do That?:

"Are you afraid of [your partner]?
Are you getting distant from friends or family because [your partner] makes those relationships difficult?
Is your level of energy and motivation declining, or do you feel depressed?
Is your self-opinion declining, so that you are always fighting to be good enough and to prove yourself?
Do you find yourself constantly preoccupied with the relationship and how to fix it?
Do you feel like you can’t do anything right?
Do you feel like the problems in your relationship are all your fault?
Do you repeatedly leave arguments feeling like you’ve been messed with but can’t figure out exactly why?" — Bundy, Why Does He Do That?

Effect of gaslighting from the section titled “Are You Being Gaslighted?” in Dr. Robin Stern’s The Gaslight Effect:

"Gaslighting may not involve all of these experiences or feelings, but if you recognize yourself in any of them, give it extra attention.

1. You are constantly second-guessing yourself.
2. You ask yourself, “Am I too sensitive?” a dozen times a day.
3. You often feel confused and even crazy at work.
4. You’re always apologizing to your mother, father, boyfriend, boss.
5. You wonder frequently if you are a “good enough” [partner/spouse]/ employee/friend/[child].
6. You can’t understand why, with so many apparently good things in your life, you aren’t happier.
7. You buy clothes for yourself, furnishings for your apartment, or other personal purchases with your partner in mind, thinking about what [they] would like instead of what would make you feel great.
8. You frequently make excuses for your partner’s behavior to friends and family.
9. You find yourself withholding information from friends and family so you don’t have to explain or make excuses.
10. You know something is terribly wrong, but you can never quite express what it is, even to yourself.
11. You start lying to avoid the put-downs and reality twists.
12. You have trouble making simple decisions.
13. You think twice before bringing up certain seemingly innocent topics of conversation.
14. Before your partner comes home, you run through a checklist in your head to anticipate anything you might have done wrong that day.
15. You have the sense that you used to be a very different person—more confident, more fun-loving, more relaxed.
16. You start speaking to your [partner] through [other family or friends] so you don’t have to tell [them] things you’re afraid might upset [them].
17. You feel as though you can’t do anything right.
18. Your kids begin trying to protect you from your partner.
19. You find yourself furious with people you’ve always gotten along with before.
20. You feel hopeless and joyless."

— Stern, The Gaslight Effect

Spotting an Abuser Seeking Victim Status

“Life has been hard and unfair for the victim. To hear [them] tell it, [their] intelligence has been chronically underestimated; [they have] been burned by people [they] trusted; and [their] good intentions have been misunderstood. The victim appeals to a [person's] compassion and desire to feel that [they] can make a difference in [the victim's] life. [They] often tell persuasive and heart-rending stories about how [they were] abused by [their] former partner, sometimes adding the tragic element that [the former partner] is now restricting or preventing [their] contact with [their] children. [The victim maneuvers allies] into hating [their] ex-partner and may succeed in enlisting [allies] in a campaign of harassment, rumor spreading, or battling for custody.” — Bundy, Why Does He Do That?

While some abusers seek victim status as a central component of their abusive behavior, many abusers play to their allies’ sympathies and accuse the people they have abused of mistreatment. If you are unsure whether you are hearing genuine claims of abuse or attempts at victim status from an abuser, there are several indicators to help discern the difference.

Anger vs. Contempt:
Plenty of compassionate relationships end with a degree of bitterness. It is common to be angry at a partner at the end of a relationship, sometimes even for a long time. Furthermore, people who recognize that they have been abused often feel considerable amounts of anger towards their abuser. However, Bancroft explains that “If you listen carefully, you often can hear the difference between anger toward an ex-partner, which would not be worrisome in itself, and disrespect or contempt, which should raise warning flags.” Even in the most brutal break-ups, former partners are able to recognize the humanity of their ex-lover or metamour, speak with a degree of compassion, and discuss their own role in the situation. On the flip side, name-calling or other degrading language, condescending tones, and a superior attitude toward a former partner or metamour are all likely signs that the person talking is abusive.

Control vs. Resistance:
Most abusers claim mistreatment by their past partners. Some are even fluent in the parlance of emotional abuse and personality disorders. Claims about not feeling safe with a person are frequent. Often, abusers will describe situations using vague terms with an implicit interpretation of behavior, trusting the emotional sensitivity of the topic to prevent their listener from asking questions. Statements like, “they [gaslit] me,” “they abandoned me,” and “they made me feel like I was a terrible person,” are all frequent refrains of abusers playing the victim.

Under stricter scrutiny, however, the descriptions of mistreatment from an abuser will often reveal their attitudes of entitlement and superiority. While people who have been abused will tell stories of being victimized by someone’s actions to control them, an abuser’s narrative often focuses on their victimization by someone who resists their control. Neglect, abandonment, and ambivalence often play heavily into an abuser’s narrative. They may describe core parts of their partner’s identity, like their friends, their hobbies, their habits, or even their opinions as problematic or destructive. What these statements demonstrate is not often proof of true mistreatment, but evidence that the speaker feels affronted when someone does something they don’t like.

Descriptions of conflict situations can be more difficult to discern, as victims are unlikely to behave faultlessly under duress. Abusers may tell stories of their past partners criticizing them, abandoning them, yelling, or otherwise behaving in dramatic and unkind ways. Because abusers rarely take responsibility for their behavior, it is also likely to be the former partner who allegedly started things. However, if questioned about the details of a conflict, the core narrative may reveal that a former partner’s actions can be reinterpreted as the behavior of someone who is trying to escape.

Unfortunately, this narrative dichotomy is not a reliable litmus test due to an abuser’s tendency to lie outright. While some misinformation is created by twisting a narrative that starts with an element of truth, if an abuser believes that the person they are talking to won’t check up on what they’re saying, they may begin to create fabricated stories of abuse, instability, and manipulation on the part of their partner to shore up their claims. Many abusers also engage in projection—attributing their own thoughts and behaviors to someone else—and so may accuse the other person of attitudes and actions that they themselves are responsible for.

Appeals to Pity, Superiority, and Saviors:

“The most reliable sign, the most universal behavior of unscrupulous people is not directed, as one might imagine, at our fearfulness. It is, perversely, an appeal to our sympathy.” — Martha Stout, P.h.D., The Sociopath Next Door

The entitlement and superiority an abuser harbors can also manifest in the more positive attitudes they adopt towards their partners, friends and colleagues. Abusers often cast themselves in the roles of misunderstood, unlucky, special people with gifts that are either unappreciated or lost due to some injustice. They cultivate an aura of tragedy and exceptionality and convince their target that it is because the target is also a special, misunderstood person that they can appreciate the abuser’s exceptional qualities.

This message can be seductive, particularly for those who struggle with their own sense of identity or self-worth. To those ensnared by the narrative, an abuser may suggest or imply that the target’s love or friendship is the key to the abuser’s healing or redemption. The target may find themselves offering emotional support or tangible resources, and they may begin acting as an apologist for the abuser’s problematic behavior toward others.

As the relationship evolves, a “you and me against the world” mentality sometimes manifests. The target may begin viewing those who take issue with an abuser in a hostile or negative light. They may begin engaging in abusive behavior themselves, rationalizing an abuser’s mistreatment, or accepting and parroting the abuser’s account of a situation without question.

Blame and Denial of Responsibility:
Blame becomes a good indicator of abuse when the scope of what someone is blamed for far exceeds the actions they have taken. While someone might experience a handful of the following moments with someone in the initial throes of a tough break-up, the presence of several of these behaviors over longer periods of time are telling signs of an abusive mentality.

• They have a hard time talking about events in their relationship without assigning blame to the other party.
• They use more recent actions of the other party to justify instances of their own problematic behavior that occurred further in the past.
• The same few stories of a former partner’s wrongdoing are returned to again and again, but their perspective on them remains much unchanged.
• They omit key details of situations that would shift a part of the blame to themselves.

Lying and Withholding:
This one can be tricky, because often an abused person will not speak about certain situations involving their abuser, even for long periods of time after the end of the relationship. An abuser is unlikely to discuss any incident of their own wrongdoing unless they are certain that the person they are talking to will forgive them. If you’re looking for a litmus test that might reveal an answer, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Is this person withholding information because their past behavior is shameful, or because they are ashamed that they tolerated the behavior of someone else?

2. Does the information this person is withholding cast a negative light on themselves, or on another person?

If the answer to these questions is often the former, you are likely dealing with an abuser. If the answer is more often the latter, you are more likely dealing with someone who has been abused.

Overt fabrications can be more complicated to unravel, since most abuse happens in private and can only be corroborated by the other person. In cases of polyamory, however, other partners and metamours might be able to weigh in on past experiences. No matter what the situation, open communication is key. If you are involved with someone who has been accused of abuse, the best advice is direct communication rather than accepting someone’s denial.

A Pattern of Victimization:
For abusers who fully embrace victim status, their accuser’s remarks will be just another bump in a long, cruel road. Bancroft explains:

“Often the victim claims to be victimized not only by you but also by [their] boss, [their] parents, the neighbors, [their] friends, and strangers on the street. Everyone is always wronging [them], and [they are] always blameless.” — Bancroft, Why Does He Do That?

Being an abuser does not invalidate a person’s past experiences of abuse. However, if someone accused of abuse is prone to describing instances of their own victimization in justifying their bad behavior as a replacement for expressing remorse, they are likely well-versed in seeking victim status.

Recruitment Techniques:
Often, abusive dynamics are perpetuated not by a single abuser, but by a community of people who actively or passively enable the abuse by turning a blind eye, expressing sympathy for the abuser, or actively colluding in the mistreatment of the person being abused.

Frequently, an abuser will manipulate a third party into intimidating, shunning, or otherwise dehumanizing the abused person by instilling a belief that it is the abuser who needs protection or that the abused person must be shown that their behavior is wrong. This is done both to continue to exert control over the abused person in a larger social context and to ensure that no one will believe that person’s claims of abuse.

While both an abuser and an abused person may solicit others for assistance that involves boundary-setting and social exclusion, and both will claim that the other one is lying, abusers often reveal themselves in their ability to convince other people to engage in the same types of cruel behavior outlined by The Power and Control Wheel and in Abusive Behaviors.

Sometimes this is achieved through the recruitment of unsuspecting peers. In some instances, abusers maintain relationships with other people who engage in abusive behavior, as those people are willing to validate an abuser’s worldview and actively participate in the abuse of others.

The spreading of damaging information is known as a “smear campaign.” Within the recovery community, the people who take part in these campaigns on behalf of the abuser are referred to as “flying monkeys." A large amount of literature exists on the motives, tactics, and effects of smear campaigns, and there is a general consensus in recovery and clinical communities that persistently spreading negative misinformation in order to affect the social isolation of another individual is a significant indicator of abuse and, often, a personality disorder.

Black vs. White Thinking:
A large part of the difficulty in extricating oneself from an abusive relationship is its complexity. Many abusers are themselves victims of past trauma. Many of them experience real difficulties as a result of their attitudes and behaviors that have an extremely negative effect on their emotional state and their ability to lead functional lives. Many of them express remorse for their actions and devote occasional effort or at least pay lip service to modifying their behavior.

Many people who are abused fight back or act out under the intense emotional distress caused by abuse and do real harm to the abuser in return. Many of those people feel anger and bitterness. Some express and even act on a desire for sort of revenge.

Most abused people, however, also initially express guilt about their own behavior, a sadness for the loss of their relationship, and empathy for their abuser’s struggle. During the relationship and in the early stages of recovery, they often express confusion, fear, and concern not just for their own well-being, but also for the person who has abused them.

This stands in stark contrast to an abuser, who tends to craft a narrative that reduces the abused to some form of monster, master manipulator, or hysteric who is wholly responsible for the conflict and, above all, not to be believed. Some abusers may feign sympathy to garner moral superiority or suggest a character flaw, e.g:

• “Poor thing. They clearly have mental issues,”
• “Their drinking does such terrible things to them,” or
• “They’re obviously still bitter,”

but the focus of the conversation tends to return again and again to the injustice of the other person’s behavior and the abuser’s suffering.

Personality Disorders

While many abusive attitudes are the result of cultural messaging surrounding a certain role or aspect of an abusive individual’s life (love, career, parenthood, etc.), some individuals may harbor an attitude conducive to abusive behavior at a more generalized or deeply internalized level. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (a.k.a. the DSM-5) lists ten separate personality disorders falling into three distinct categories.

• Cluster A (odd and eccentric): Paranoid, Schizoid, and Schizotypal
• Cluster B (dramatic, emotional, and erratic): Antisocial, Borderline, Histrionic, and Narcissistic
• Cluster C (anxious or fearful): Avoidant, Dependent, and Obsessive-Compulsive

While all personality disorders are characterized by maladaptive patterns of behavior, emotion, and thought, Cluster B disorders are the ones most closely associated with abusive behavior. Indeed, rather than being defined by a genetic idiosyncrasy or quantifiable chemical imbalance, personality disorders are defined by maladaptive behaviors and thought patterns that also appear in the general population. These characteristics exist on a spectrum of frequency, intensity, and injury, and a PD diagnosis is related to the level of dysfunction an individual experiences as a result of their behavior.

This spectral component of personality disorders can make their diagnosis difficult, and a survivor of abuse who finds similarities between their own experience of an abuser and the criteria of a disorder may have difficulty arriving at a definitive conclusion. The tendency for survivors to remain silent or communities to reject narratives of abuse may make identifying patterns of behavior all the more difficult. The lack of awareness around the relative ubiquity of personality disorders and their features may also make a survivor less likely to be believed or supported.

Closure is also unlikely to come from an abuser themselves as disordered individuals, especially those in Cluster B, often suffer from anosognosia, a lack of self-awareness that impairs their ability to recognize the severity or source of their issues. If someone in Cluster B does seek therapy, it will likely be for aid in managing their own difficulties as opposed to out of concern for others, and Cluster B individuals are often willing to lie or conceal the destructive elements of their behavior from their therapist or themselves.

To compound the problem, the internet may sometimes serve as more of a hindrance than a help to those seeking understanding. Because search engine results are driven by popularity, the most easily available information about PD characteristics appears in popular psychology articles, which often present a single profile of a particular disorder as its defining features or litmus test. In these situations, an abused person may discount their own experience due to their abuser’s lack of described traits or the presence of traits that may be considered contradictory.

Even within the clinical community, debate around the delineation and description of personality disorders continually shifts. In every publication of the DSM, some disorders are renamed, reclassified, removed, or newly included. The DSM-5 includes the term “Personality disorder not otherwise specified” to refer to cases that meet the underlying criteria for a personality disorder but do not fit one of the ten current models.

Similarly, the DSM-5 contains the criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder with a grandiose expression, but clinical research since the 1980’s has identified a subtler and more secretive expression, often referred to as “covert” or “compensatory” narcissism that often expresses as a shy, vulnerable and self-conscious demeanor and is the more common presentation in women.

While both subtypes share attitudes of superiority, intense self-involvement, entitlement, and a lack of empathy, the DSM’s current criteria of a grandiose, exuberant, and attention-seeking demeanor creates false negatives in diagnosing certain individuals.

These circumstances coalesce to muddy the waters for survivors of abuse, who may become bogged down in their search for clarity. Many survivors report a sort of epiphanic ecstasy paired with existential horror or despair when they first read descriptions of disordered individuals that bear an uncanny resemblance to their abuser.

It is common for survivors to read copious amounts of literature related to different disorders in Cluster B, and some survivors vacillate between disorders when determining which one to apply to their abuser. Others may recognize the behaviors but lack a clear benchmark for determining the relative level of dysfunction present in their own experience, and question whether or not the abuser has a disorder at all.

If you believe that you have been abused by someone with a personality disorder or have been struggling to understand the rationale behind your abuser’s bizarre behavior, there are a few things that may be helpful to consider.

It doesn’t matter what they are. It matters what they do. A personality disorder does not make someone’s abusive behavior innately worse. It is not a necessary component of abusive behavior and does not somehow legitimize the behavior as abusive. Rather, an individual’s proclivity to engage in abusive behavior may contribute to legitimizing a PD diagnosis, but someone will receive that diagnosis in part because they are abusive, not the other way around. It is important to remember, then, that regardless of whether or not you can define your abuser as PD, you can describe their behavior and its effect on you, and a stamp of validation from a psychologist will not make your own experiences any more or less real.

A name is a tool that has different uses in different contexts. Giving something a name allows you to get and impart information about it to other people. Depending on whether you are seeking information or giving it, labeling your abuser as PD will have different costs and benefits.

If you are researching abusive behavior, referring to a specific disorder and using its associated terminology, such as sociopathy vs. psychopathy for Antisocial or grandiose vs. vulnerable expressions for Narcissistic, may yield more relevant results, and understanding their specific patterns of cognition will allow you to more accurately predict or contextualize your abuser’s behavior.

It is important to remember, however, that other people in your life may not have similar experiences or the information that you do, and applying such a loaded term as “personality disorder,” “borderline,” “sociopath,” etc. may alienate someone who has not experienced your abuser’s behavior or educated themselves about Cluster B disorders. In these situations, using the terminology of personality disorders may be less effective or even counterproductive, but that does nothing to make the reality of your circumstances any less true.

Time is on your side. One of the defining criteria for diagnosing an individual with PD is that their maladaptive patterns are persistent and intractable. Not only may a PD individual repeat the same behaviors within a given relationship, but certain behaviors may also play out again in other contextually similar relationships.

Because of this, it is likely that an abuser’s past partners will have parallel experiences to share that may validate your perspective, and their own path toward healing might grant you insight into your own processes. Similarly, the dramatic nature of Cluster B individuals means that they frequently exhaust goodwill within a given circle, and your abuser is likely to reveal themselves to their current allies sooner rather than later. In these cases, you may find that people you once considered participants in your abuse become part of your support structure in healing and give you further insight into your abuser’s behavior/disorder.

If you would like to seek information or support related to personality disorders, Out of the Fog is an excellent place to start. They provide resources relating to all aspects of coping with or moving on from someone with a personality disorder, and their list of traits related to personality disorders is particularly informative.

PART III: Halting Abuse

The first and most important step toward halting abuse is recognizing that it is happening. If you identify with the examples and feelings described in this piece, you are already on the path to recovery. I am not a professional abuse counselor, however, and any direct advice I have about the process of halting abuse would merely be parroting the research of experts. Instead, I can refer you to those experts for advice that is more specific to your own situation.

If you want to leave, Why Does He Do That? provides concrete advice on how to leave your relationship, including steps to take if your abuser is dangerous to you or your loved ones' physical well-being. It also includes comprehensive information about abuser programs and the steps necessary for abusive people to correct their behavior.

If you are considering staying, both The Verbally Abusive Relationship and The Gaslight Effect provide advice on how to decrease the amount of abuse you experience. I am disappointed to say that there is a relative consensus that removing abuse entirely is unlikely, but some progress may be made to reduce the level of abuse and its effects on you.

If you would like to educate those close to you about how to best support you, To Be an Anchor in the Storm is written for the friends and loved ones of people in abusive relationships.

Halting Metamour Abuse While Staying with a Shared Partner:
One scenario that you may not find advice on is how to halt abuse you experience from a metamour. You may not have the same emotional attachments to your metamour that bond people to abusive partners, and it can be far easier for you to resolve to keep them out of your life.

Unfortunately, the continued connection through your shared partner may make this easier said than done, and it is unlikely that you will be able to fully escape their abuse unless your or your metamour’s relationship with a shared partner ends.

If you are resolved to leave your partner in order to escape an abusive metamour, I will again refer you to the resources above. If, however, your partner is considering leaving your metamour, you may decide to stay. As any person supporting you in confronting abuse should, I will not push you toward one decision over another. I will, however, discuss some issues you may encounter if you decide to remain in the relationship.

If you are staying in the relationship because of beliefs related to principles, self-worth, and fear instead of genuine joy, consider the following:

Framing this as a war of values wins nothing and leaves you with battle scars. Integrity and corruption have one important thing in common: They are both self- reinforcing. If you are staying in a relationship because you cannot allow yourself to be driven off by cruelty, consider that your abuser has an equally powerful ideological framework backing them, and fighting a war of attrition often leads to a Pyrrhic victory. In these situations, the person who loses most is likely your shared partner, and you can do far more to help them confront the abuse they are experiencing if you yourself are free from your metamour’s influence.

The process of recovering from abuse may last far longer than the relationship. Moving on from abuse takes time, and many people bear the marks or memories of their abusers for years. No matter how intense the connection between you and your partner, it is important to remember that abuse has long-term effects on your emotional and physical well-being whether you stay with your partner or not. The choices you make now will determine how much damage you are willing to sustain and how complicated your recovery process will be.

Leaving now doesn’t necessarily mean goodbye forever. The nice thing about polyamory: Everyone’s always available. Even if your partner is not yet willing to confront their own abuse, they may be later on. If you speak to them clearly about why you are ending the relationship, your honesty may create the possibility of a future connection, no matter how difficult their feelings might be in the present.

The opportunities for love are many. If you have experienced abuse, the feelings of isolation, depression, and dependence formed from traumatic bonds may cause you to believe that your current partner is a once-in-a-lifetime chance at love. They aren’t. Your unique dynamic may be a precious experience, but they do not hold a monopoly on attraction, romance, and compassion. Moreover, once you have taken time to reclaim some of the strength and independence that abuse has eroded, you will be more likely to find a meaningful relationship with someone who does not expose you to mistreatment.

If your partner decides to cut ties with your abusive metamour, staying with your partner may still create obstacles to your recovery.

The negative effects of abuse may make it difficult for your partner to support you and vice-versa. In an [LA Times] article titled “How to Not Say the Wrong Thing,” psychologist Susan Silk and mediator Barry Goldman describe a model they call the Ring Theory for how a given community supports someone experiencing trauma. Silk and Goldwater explain that people in inner rings of the community seek comfort and support from those in outer rings. If two people are both recovering from abuse, especially abuse caused by the same person, they may both be in the center circle but view one another as in the next ring out. In this situation, both parties might say and be told the wrong things and help no one.

They may resist labels of abuse and steps to recovery. It is not necessary to educate yourself about chronic abuse to know that someone is mistreating you. An abused person may end their relationship because of their partner’s behavior without ever considering the word abuse. If your partner does not understand the mindset and tactics behind chronic abuse, they may be less willing or able to confront what has happened to them and take the appropriate steps to recovery. An uneducated partner may even take actions informed by myths or misconceptions about abuse, which may slow down or directly contravene your own progress.

Your partner may trigger memories of abuse. Whether your partner was an ally to your abuser or not, you may have shared traumatic experiences with them or possess shared habits that you have negative associations with. These situations may make the psychological distance necessary for recovery more difficult.

In turn, your past experiences of abuse might create obstacles to the progress and intimacy of you and your partner’s romantic relationship.

You may have trouble trusting them. The experience of abuse can seriously damage a person’s trust in other people, especially in romantic contexts. Regardless of whether or not your partner mistreated you, you may feel a severe lack of trust for them that undermines the security of the relationship. Especially in poly relationships, which require a trust in your partner’s ability to make romantic choices that are safe for both of you, the concern about their judgment may make forming a secure attachment difficult.

It may be harder to manage your emotions around banal issues. A common condition of abuse is a state of confusion regarding the circumstances of events and who bears responsibility. Even after the abusive relationship is over, you may find yourselves reacting strongly to mundane situations involving miscommunications or boundaries, or you may lack the emotional resilience to constructively address minor conflicts when they emerge.

The lasting effects of abuse may make creating a healthy relationship more difficult. Dr. John Gottman, a renowned relationship researcher and therapist, found that a key predictor for the future success of relationships was the ratio of positive to negative moments that a couple has together. That “Magic Ratio” is 5:1 in long-term studies about lasting marriages. If you and your partner are both coping with the effects of abuse, you may not be able to create positive experiences for one another reliably enough to maintain the relationship, and you might find yourself moving from an abusive relationship to an unhappy one.'

This may sound discouraging, but each of these challenges is surmountable, and it is indeed possible to transition from an abusive poly dynamic to a healthy partnership. I cannot tell you the ways in which your own relationship is precious and fulfilling, or whether it will be worth the struggle, but I do encourage you to decide that for yourself.

Continued Abuse from Former Metamours:
If a partner is committed to maintaining a friendship with an abuser after their romantic relationship ends, the abuser may continue to mistreat both their former lover and their former metamour. While this abuse may include some of the same tactics that existed when they were connected romantically, the change in status can cause the abuser to adapt their tactics to new circumstances.

Evolving Abusive Tactics toward the Former Metamour:
Whether or not a partner leaves an abusive lover because they are mistreating a metamour, the abuser may shift their tactics toward the former metamour to employ victim status more directly. These may include but are not limited to:

• Blaming the abused person for the end of their relationship.
• Using boundaries to avoid accountability for their actions or isolate the abused person(s).
• Lying to people about the abused person(s) to recruit allies in mistreating them.
• Withholding recognition or using “the silent treatment” to demonstrate their lack of respect.
• Remaining possessive of certain objects, time, or activities in their former partner’s life in order to invade space and ignore boundaries.
• Provoking conflict in public to humiliate their former partner or metamour and create a pretext for verbally abusing them to people trying to help resolve the disagreement.

Evolving Abusive Tactics toward the Former Partner:
Abusers of former partners who want a platonic relationship may shift to tactics that deprive them of that desire, such as withholding and avoidance. They may understand that overt abuse like name-calling, intimidation, yelling, and physical violence will not be tolerated as easily anymore, and the diminished amount of access an abuser has to the former partner will make longer-term strategies like isolation and conditioning negative responses difficult. An abuser may also see their former partner in private much less frequently and will need to employ subtler tactics that can evade detection in public or seek justifications for their more blatant abusive behaviors.

If an abuser retaliates against a former partner when presented with evidence of their continued relationship with the abuser’s former metamour, the former partner may continue to act as an ally of the abuser. They may discourage their current partner from confronting abuse directed towards them out of fear or retaliation, either by pointing out the potential consequences or acting as the abuser’s apologist. Alternatively, they may continue to isolate their current partner from parts of their lives in order to keep peace with the abuser, or become angry and mistreat their current partner themselves when their abuser is cruel to them.

Continued Forms of Abuse toward the Partner:
Even if an abused person is able to maintain their own boundaries and confront the abuse their former metamour directs toward them, they may find themselves providing emotional support to a partner who is not. This problem can be a particular challenge to partners who have experienced abuse by the same person.

In To Be an Anchor in the Storm, social worker, and clinical psychotherapist Susan Brewster describes the role someone supporting an abused person can play based on a spectrum of involvement. As Brewster describes it:

“Distancers tend to remove themselves emotionally from their abused loved ones. Rescuers tend to become too involved in relationships. Anchors, on the other hand, strive to maintain an objective distance from those they care about, while remaining involved with them in a respectful, supportive way.” — Brewster, To Be an Anchor in the Storm

Acting appropriately when supporting someone being abused is difficult enough for friends and family. For someone supporting a partner who is being abused by the supporter’s past abuser, maintaining objectivity or distance may be a tall order.

Not only might an abused person be a poor anchor for their partner, but in attempting to support them, they might be acting against their own best interests on the path toward recovery. Maintaining distance from an abuser, even in thought, is critical for an abused person to move on with their life.

If they choose to shoulder the responsibility of comforting their partner in the face of their abuser’s continued mistreatment, they may be making themselves vulnerable to continued control and destructive thought patterns. On the flip side, actively standing up and speaking out against their own experience of abuse may be interpreted as rescuing behavior by an abuser, and may make things worse for their partner.

This tension poses challenges that I do not currently have solutions to, but just because my own research and experience has not yet produced a solution does not mean that one does not exist, or that the occasion cannot be risen to.

Withdrawal, Boundary Setting, and Vetoes in Abusive Relationships:
At the far end of the freedom spectrum in relationships, there is a single golden rule: No rules. Explicit attempts to limit a partner’s relationship with another person are categorically rejected, and implicit attempts are denounced. In these relationships, “veto” is a four-letter word, and while picking compatible partners and discussing the potential impact of new relationships are desirable behaviors, the onus often ultimately falls to the metamours to figure things out.

In the case of abuse, adhering to this golden rule can work in favor of abusers and keep people in abusive relationships. People can use the rule to justify staying with partners who abuse their metamours or deflect complaints from an abused partner about an abusive metamour’s behavior. Attempts by an abused metamour to set boundaries or withdraw from situations may be labeled as limiting behavior, zero-sum games, or the same tactics of withholding used by abusers. If an abused person sets boundaries around interacting with the abuser, these boundaries can be construed as proof of selfish or jealous behavior and used by the abuser to justify their past and present behavior indefinitely.

The difference between limiting agreements and valid boundary setting is a crucial one, and it comes down to motivation and agency. Limiting agreements are motivated by a desire to control other people, boundary setting is motivated by a desire to maintain control over oneself. There is a difference between wanting control over unknown futures in order to protect the current privileges of a relationship and acknowledging that a relationship cannot continue if certain conditions persist.

Recognizing that you may need to withdraw from a situation is not a threat or an attempt at veto status, but a valid form of communication necessary to help your partner make informed decisions.

PART IV: Preventing Abuse

After decades of experience working with thousands of abusive people and refining program guidelines for abusers, Bancroft cites that only about 1 in every 10 people who enter abuser programs successfully change their abusive attitudes enough to stop committing abuse. Even if these statistics refer to more extreme cases of abuse, or if the tendency for abuse to be underreported may influence results, there is a relative consensus among experts that getting someone to change their abusive attitudes and behaviors is a long and often fraught process. There is, however, much we can do both as individuals and as a community to prevent abuse before it happens and respond to claims about abuse when they are made.

Spotting Partner Abuse Early

If you are concerned that someone you are involved with may become abusive, here are a few warning signs that are explored in detail in Why Does He Do That? These quotes have been edited to be gender-neutral.

• They speak disrespectfully of their former partners.
• They are disrespectful toward you.
• They do favors for you that you don’t want or put on such a show of generosity that it makes you uncomfortable.
• They are controlling.
• They are possessive.
• Nothing is ever their fault.
• They are self-centered.
• They abuse drugs and alcohol.
• They pressure you for sex.

Spotting Metamour Abuse Early

Many of the early signs of abuse are directed specifically towards a partner, and usually in private. This can make spotting abusive metamours more difficult, especially if a new partner sees the metamour infrequently, but there are still a few obvious signs that should be paid attention to.

Disrespecting Other Metamours:
Some metamours don’t get along. They may not have much in common, or they may have incompatible desires or personalities that can cause conflict. Having some negative feelings or even opinions about a metamour, however, is different from overt demonstrations of disrespect. If your metamour is comfortable disrespecting their partner’s other lovers, it is likely that they will be comfortable disrespecting you.

Disrespecting You:
Speaking disrespectfully is an obvious demonstration of contempt, but a propensity to disregard someone’s time, boundaries, or feelings is a good indicator of a superior and entitled attitude as well. Negotiation around resources and boundaries is a healthy part of relationships, even when not everyone gets what they want. However, a demonstrated lack of consideration or communication around a metamour’s needs and feelings can be a clear demonstration of a disrespectful attitude that can manifest in many aspect of the relationship.

Maintaining Double Standards:
If you have not read More Than Two, you may be unfamiliar with niche rhetoric around rules vs. agreements. In short, agreements are made by all parties involved and usually include taking some sort of action, rules are made by some parties to limit the actions or access of someone else. Relationships in which rules are created or enforced unequally are a good sign that a partner or metamour will remain attached to the privileges that inequality yields in the future, and has no problem behaving unfairly towards you.

Controlling Their Partner:
In Controlling People, Patricia Evans discusses the why’s and how’s of exerting influence on someone. It’s important to note that not all people who are controlling are abusive, and some forms of overt control are even consensual. If, however, controlling dynamics are one of several problematic behaviors, it is likely that abuse is indeed occurring.

The (Poly) Community Response to Abuse

“Nothing would work faster to end the abuse of [romantic partners] than having the friends and family of [abusers] stop enabling them. And that begins, in turn, with making sure that you listen carefully and respectfully to [the abused partner's] side of the story—something the [abuser] never does.” — Bancroft, Why Does He Do That?

No matter the type of community or organization, claims of abuse are a serious concern. If you would like to take proactive steps in your own community to educate and prevent abuse, Transform Communities is an excellent place to start. I also encourage you to avail yourself of local organizations and those specific to the race, gender, orientation or age of your community.

Response of Individuals and Allies of Abusers:
Regardless of your own level of engagement in confronting and preventing abuse, there are a few important myths to dispel and guidelines you can keep in mind to become an effective ally of people who have been abused, especially if you discover that you are behaving as an ally to an abuser.

Ask questions. A dismissive or hostile attitude toward people who claim abuse is a deeply problematic obstacle the abused people face when asking for help. “When someone you care about is accused of abuse, don’t tell yourself that it can’t possibly be true. Unfortunately, when an abuser complains to his relatives in an outraged voice, ‘My partner accuses me of being abusive’ they generally jump blindly to his side. They shake their head in disgust and outrage, and respond: ‘How could she say that about you? What a bitch!’ Nobody asks any questions.”

If instead of blindly believing the defense of an accused abuser, you can ask about the exact circumstances of the accusations and demonstrate that you are withholding judgment until you have more information. In turn, you should follow up on getting more information from the person claiming abuse. If they don’t appear to be the spiteful person that the accused person says they are, it’s probably because they aren’t, and instead have valid issues with the way they have been treated.

Don’t repeat information to the accused without the accuser’s permission. Retaliation is a real and serious concern for most people deciding to confront their abuser. Even if you have no evidence that someone accused of abuse would behave poorly, the person claiming abuse likely knows better. Ask specific questions about what information they can take to an accused abuser, and use only that information to start asking an accused person for more information or to change their behavior.

Don’t believe the Myth of Neutrality. “Don’t take sides” is a common practice in mediating disagreements. Like many practices that assume mutual respect, it becomes problematic in cases of abuse. Bancroft explains:

“In reality, to remain neutral is to collude with the [abuser], 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. Abusers interpret silence as approval, or at least as forgiveness. To [the abused], meanwhile, the silence means that no one will help — just what [the abuser] wants [them] to believe. Anyone who chooses to quietly look the other way therefore unwittingly becomes the abuser’s ally.” — Bancroft, Why Does He Do That?

While outright criticism and confrontation of an abuser are not the alternative to neutrality, you have many options for supporting someone who has been abused. Most importantly, you can tell them directly that you do not think that the way their abuser is treating them is appropriate, no matter what has happened. For those of you who find that you are acting as the ally of an abuser, you can change your behavior to stop tolerating and easily forgiving the abuse and instead help hold the abuser accountable for their behavior.

Accept consequences. Many friends and families of abusers may find themselves reacting with antipathy to claims of abuse out of a desire to protect an abuser. If you understand someone’s claims of abuse to be valid and feel the desire to protect an abuser from confronting their behavior, remember this:

"It is impossible for a community to stop abuse while continuing to assist or ignore abusers at the same time. Protecting or enabling an abuser is as morally repugnant as the abuse itself. This critical concept needs to become firmly embedded in our culture. Colluding with abuse abandons the abused [partner and any] children, and ultimately abandons the abuser as well, since it keeps [them] from ever dealing with [their] problem.” — Bancroft, Why Does He Do That?

In other words, failing to help an abuser confront their attitudes will make it likely that their behavior will continue indefinitely. If you truly care about someone who engages in abuse, helping them to confront their behavior and change the ways they treat people is the best way to help them have healthy, fulfilling relationships in the future.

Response of the Poly Community:
Like any community, the poly one has unique features and challenges. In poly culture, the unique challenges to abuse are two-fold:

1. The lack of cultural reference points for appropriate vs. inappropriate behavior in poly relationships makes identifying abuse more difficult.
2. Poly culture’s core values and best practices directly contradict those necessary to confront abuse.

In both individual relationships and the broader poly community, the relatively small amount of theory, examples, and discourse on ethical practices of nonmonogamy creates an acute vulnerability born out of our own ignorance. Absent iconic figures and role models, we leave it to our partners and metamours to teach us how to behave in poly relationships.

Unfortunately, this makes people in relationships that are abusive more susceptible to the influence of abusers and less able to find support. If we want to create a healthy community, it is imperative that we are vocal in sharing stories of admirable and reprehensible behavior in ways that seek to better our understanding of our own practices while still avoiding content created purely for personal vindication.

Moreover, if we want to uphold our principles of empathy, respect and empowerment, we must accept that these principles are not universally shared. Refusing to acknowledge that abusive people do not act with compassion and must be responded to differently denies abused people the support they desperately need.

Paula Evans describes this conflict of viewpoints in detail, positing that the Personal Empowerment model that people in compassionate relationships embrace is in direct conflict with the Power Over model that abusers adopt:

“As I researched verbally abusive relationships, the most significant and surprising discovery I made was that the verbal abuser and the partner seemed to be living in two different realities. The abuser’s orientation was toward control and dominance. The partner’s orientation was toward mutuality and co-creation. In many respects they were in two different realities.” — Evans, The Verbally Abusive Relationship

The reality of conflicting realities is a bitter pill to swallow if we want to keep our community healthy. A culture that is truly safe can respond to all types of harmful behavior. If we discount instead of rejecting the mindset and manipulative tactics of abusive people, or if we refuse to act effectively when confronted by them, we will ultimately help no one but the abuser.

How Poly Values Can Enable Abuse
In Abusive Behaviors, I mention that an abusive person, especially one who engages in gaslighting, may use a victim’s own values against them. While this is by no means a complete list, the following are some examples of how a value regarding ethical nonmonogamy can be manipulated in abusive relationships.

• “You should get along with your metamour.” This imperative comes with the belief that partners who avoid their metamours or are uninterested in communicating with them are acting out of jealousy or insecurity. In abusive relationships, abused people who try to avoid mistreatment are labeled uncooperative or jealous, and their withdrawal can be used to justify further cruelty. Furthermore, for victims of verbally abusive metamours, conversations held under the pretext of resolving issues often solve nothing and provide new opportunities for abuse.
• “You are responsible for your own feelings.” Recognizing that the way we feel is something we produce internally, not a default reaction to external circumstances, is a useful tool in resolving emotionally difficult situations. When someone is repeatedly and intentionally trying to hurt someone’s feelings, however, ownership of feelings can focus responsibility for resolving a situation on the shoulders of the abused person and allow the abuser to escape accountability. Unfortunately, an abused person might hear this line not only internally, but also from the friends they ask for advice and from their abuser. The result is not only the continuation of abuse, but also an increasing sense of isolation and internal blame on the part of the abused person.
• “Respect my relationship.” Especially in relationships where the primacy of one partner is explicit, this line can be used to justify all sorts of abuse, either by labeling the abused person as a potential future threat or punishing them for transgressions. While most limiting arrangements are not enacted by abusers, the preponderance of these arrangements in our culture can contribute to abuse. As adults “people continue to read the social messages that surround them in the culture and to adjust their values and beliefs in response to what is socially acceptable”, says Bancroft. In this instance, our community’s rhetoric around the necessity of hierarchy and rules can validate an abuser’s feelings of entitlement and possession, and they do not have to look far to find literature advocating for limitations, hierarchy, and veto agreements that subtly reinforces their preexisting attitudes and sets up their metamours as objects of control.
• “Don’t limit my relationship with other people.” One of the common features of twisted and abusive logic is that what an abuser accuses a victim of doing is exactly what the abuser is doing themselves. This line can be deployed by an abusive metamour or their ally to invade space and ignore privacy. If an abused person seeks to withdraw from their partner in situations where an abusive metamour is present, the abuser(s) may tell the victim that they are withholding in an attempt to limit the other relationship. Either way, the result is the slow erosion of boundaries and rights for the abused.
• “Don’t take sides.” As I discuss in Response of Individuals and Allies of Abusers, the Myth of Neutrality for those who hear claims of abuse actually enables the abuser’s behavior. Especially if that person is a shared partner, they may find themselves continually permitting and enabling abuse in an attempt to remain objective.

How Literature on Poly Best Practices Can Deter Confronting Abuse:
Many people in abusive relationships will turn to the internet before they turn to their friends. Often these searches don’t start with the word “abuse”, but as attempts to find guidance on conflict resolution, anger management, and depression. For poly people, our admittedly limited canon has great advice for partners in difficult but mutually compassionate relationships.

Unfortunately, this advice usually does not mention or take into account abusive attitudes and behaviors, and much of it contradicts best practices for abused people. For an abused person searching for advice on mistreatment in poly relationships, following the best practices outlined by many poly resources can lead them to stay in abusive relationships far longer or behave in ways that increase the efficacy of abuse.

Below are several pieces of advice from the pamphlet “How to Screw Up Your Relationship” written by More Than Two co-author Franklin Veaux and available on the More Than Two polyamory resource site, juxtaposed with advice for people in abusive relationships from Why Does He Do That? and The Verbally Abusive Relationship.

Veaux: "Keep lists. The past is fertile ground to mine for nuggets of pure relationship suck. Make sure that every little fault, flaw, or shortcoming goes on a list somewhere. Refer to it often. Don’t simply argue about things happening right now; use every argument as an excuse to dredge up past wrongs from the master list." — "How to Screw Up Your Relationship”

Bundy: "Keep a journal to document your experience, so that when your partner is making you crazy with mind games or with sudden “good” behavior, you can look back through your writings and remember who you really are and what [they] really [do]." — Why Does He Do That?

Veaux: "Post everything on the Web. The Internet opens up whole new opportunities for screwing up a relationship. Every disagreement, every bad choice your partner makes, everything you don’t like...put it all out there. Talk about it on Facebook, preferably in terms that flatter you and demonize your partner. Get the faceless masses of the Internet on your side. Seek validation from complete strangers online. Then, when you get it go back to your partner and say 'See? Everyone else thinks you’re totally wrong, too!'" — "How to Screw Up Your Relationship”

Bundy: "If you are a former abused [partner] who is no longer with [their] abuser, consider telling your story in public. There is a tremendous need for [survivors] who have had personal experience with abuse to go to social service agencies, schools, police departments, and other groups and help people to grasp more deeply what abuse looks like and what tremors it sends through so many lives." — Why Does He Do That?

Veaux: "Let your feelings be your guide. You will probably encounter many situations throughout your life which evoke an emotional response from within you. With only a little practice, you can learn to let these emotions guide you down the path of ruin. This is as easy as falling off a log, and nearly three times as much fun. When someone or something evokes an emotional response in you, whatever it may be, you will tend to feel that your emotion is justified. Why? Because the ancient, pre-linguistic parts of your brain from which your emotions come are the same parts of your brain that tell you whether or not your emotions are justified. It’s a clever and tidy system." — "How to Screw Up Your Relationship”

Bundy: "[Their] controlling, disrespectful, or degrading behavior is a pattern. This item is as important as the others but requires the most judgment and ability to trust your instincts. When exactly does a behavior become a pattern? If it happens three times a year? If it happens once a week? There is no answer that applies to all actions or to all people. You will need to form your own conclusions about whether your partner’s mistreatment of you has become repetitive." — Why Does He Do That?

Evans: "Recovery from verbal abuse is the opportunity to accept all your feelings and to recognize their validity. You may be the first person to recognize and accept them and to know that they are not wrong. They are, as we have said earlier, indicators that something is or was wrong in your environment, and it isn’t you." — The Verbally Abusive Relationship

Veaux: "Enlist others. Sometimes taking your grievances to the internet might not get you what you want. After all, what do you do if your partner says 'Why should I care what a bunch of strangers on the internet think?' If that happens, it’s time to up your game. Go to people you both know in real life — friends, relatives, former and current partners. Don’t be shy! Talk about your partner’s failings in graphic detail. Don’t leave out any embarrassing or uncomfortable fact. Then, the next time you’re arguing with your partner, you can say 'all our friends agree with me!' or 'even your mom thinks you’re wrong!'" — "How to Screw Up Your Relationship”

Bundy: "...it is essential not to stay isolated with your distress or confusion about what is happening in your relationship. Find someone whom you can trust—it might even be a person you have never considered opening up to before—and unburden yourself. This is probably the single most critical step you can take toward building a life that is free from control or abuse. ...Get support for yourself no matter how. Find someone somewhere who can understand what you are going through, who can be trusted with confidences, and who can help you hold on to your sense of reality. Reach out." — Why Does He Do That?

I don’t believe that "How to Screw Up Your Relationship" is any more problematic than any other resource on polyamory that does not include a direct mention or educated discussion about abuse. However, the discrepancies between the advice given by “How to Screw Up Your Relationship” and Why Does He Do That? serve a powerful point about the need for everyone in the poly community, especially leaders, to educate themselves about the mentality and tactics of abusers and include it in the literature.

If we want to confront abuse within the poly community, much work needs to be done. First and foremost, we must educate ourselves about the mindset of abusers and their tactics and learn how to confront abuse effectively. Secondly, we must be more proactive about acknowledging abuse in our own literature and provide direction to existing resources.

Last but not least, we must empower those who experience abuse to share their stories and seek support from within the community. In doing these things, we will come to learn how our own practices can influence abusive dynamics and will be more prepared to prevent them in the future.

Author’s Note

I wrote this piece over about three weeks following an intensive reading period. I want to thank the people who have helped me compose and edit it, most notably my partner, who has accepted his own presence in this narrative with grace.

However, the process one goes through to confront abuse is not as simple as a composition project. Without the help of my friends and loved ones, who have listened earnestly, spoken honestly, and supported me patiently and compassionately, I would not have been able to confront the realities of my own abusive relationships directly. To them, and all the people who will support me going forward, I am immensely grateful.

I would be grateful to you, in turn, if you shared this piece. My intention in writing it has been to put an answer to a question I once asked in a place where I once looked. If you yourself know of a similar place, put it there. Even if you do not find this piece relevant to your own life, consider the possibility that, by giving it to someone else, you may be providing them with something that is relevant to theirs.

I and they will thank you.

Resources

• National Domestic Violence Hotline for the United States and Canada: 1–800–799-SAFE.
• Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men, by Lundy Bancroft
• To Be an Anchor in the Storm: A Guide for Families and Friends of Abused Women, by Susan Brewster
• Controlling People: How to Recognize, Understand, and Deal with People Who Try to Control You, by Patricia Evans
• The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to Recognize It and How to Respond, by Patricia Evans
• More Than Two: A Practical Guide To Ethical Polyamory, by Eve Rickert and Franklin Veaux
• The Gaslight Effect: How to Spot and Survive the Hidden Manipulations Other People Use to Control Your Life, by Dr. Robin Stern
• The Gottman Institute: A Research-Based Approach to Strengthening Relationships
• Out of the Fog
• Transforming Communities (once available at www.transformcommunities.org, it seems this site has been moved; HAUNT recommends Community United Against Violence as an alternative)
• DSM-IV and DSM-5 Criteria for the Personality Disorders, American Psychiatric Association