I have seen any number of abusive situations, and I have found five main types of abusers. They are:
Abusers for reason
Abusers for God
Abusers for character
Abusers for social norm
Abusers for gender.
All of the above misuse the above concepts for wrongdoing. In this they discredit these concepts and feed reaction against such things.
The abusers in the name of reason thinks that reason is the higher function and that the emotions are an inferior function. They go for emotional partners. They tear them apart mentally, eliciting emotional reactions that allow them to claim the partner to be irrational, crazy or weak. If the partner starts using her mind and seeing through the behavior, the abuser changes his tune. Suddenly she is manipulative, dangerous or psychopathic. She is crazy if she reacts emotionally; she is psychopathic if she reacts rationally.
I am reminded of the stance of some American conservatives. If you are a liberal and not making much money you are a loser; if you are a liberal and making good money you are a hypocrite and a dangerous person. Why are you dangerous? Because you are a refutation of the conservative's false worldview. These people want to believe that they own financial success, nevermind that the reason that they can make the money that they do is owed vastly to science and education – both majority-liberal endeavors. So if someone who is not a conservative makes lots of money, that contradicts the lie that they want to feed down everyone's throats. Similarly Hurricane Carter was seen as a dangerous person since his childhood, because he was a black person who was not a loser and who would not put up with being treated as one.
In a much similar manner, these people think that they own reason. They do not begin to own reason, and a person with true understanding of reason will call them on the irrationality – as well as the asininity – of their behavior.
Then there are abusers in the name of God, or of righteousness. These people would point to the passages in religious texts about the man being in charge of the woman; but they would not do their own part and treat the woman righteously in return. In most cases they themselves are in sin, and a true Christian will likewise see that sin.
Their sin, in most cases, is either lust, hypocrisy or unrighteous anger.
Most of these men did not go after the woman for righteous reasons. They went after the woman because she was hot. If they start accusing her of being slutty or anything of the sort, it must be brought to bear that it was their lust that attracted them to the woman, and that they have no business accusing her of such things.
Hypocrisy is found in that situation, and in many others. The Bible gives the man the authority under the condition that he conduct himself in a loving and righteous manner. A man who is not willing to do such a thing has no business thumping the Bible.
But probably the worst of the sins in this situation is unrighteous anger. Now there are some deluded people who think that all anger is unrighteous; they are wrong. Even Jesus got angry at some people; for that matter even do Buddhist monks. The belief that all anger is bad does not create enlightened people, it creates hypocrites. There very much is such a thing as righteous anger.
However there is also such a thing as unrighteous anger; and this is what we see in the bulk of such situations. A man breaking his wife's skull is unrighteous anger. A man calling a seven-year-old child a loser and telling her that her mother is a bitch is unrighteous anger. A man giving his wife a black eye because the soup was too salty is unrighteous anger. A man coming back from the pub and beating his wife is unrighteous anger.
In all of the above cases the man is guilty of sin; and a true Christian will call him on it.
The abusers in the name of character have decided that the partner is a bad person. Whatever their reasons for coming up with this conclusion, their behavior is frequently much worse than that of the partner. They become nasty to the partner, whether the partner deserves it or not, and they themselves as a result become jerks, whether or not they started out as ones. They decide that the partner is a bad person, and they themselves become bad people – whether or not they were so originally – through their behavior toward their partner.
If you really think that your partner is a bad person, the rational thing to do is to leave them. Yet many people in this situation not only do not leave the partner, but they do everything in their power to keep the partner from leaving. This shows that they are getting something out of being with the partner; and their claim that the partner is a bad person is contradicted by their own behavior. If the partner truly was bad, then such a person could not wait to leave her. That they want to stay with the partner shows that they are getting something out of the partner – usually quite a lot out of the partner. And if you are getting something out of somebody, you are obligated to treat her rightfully, whether you think that she is a bad person or not.
The abusers in the name of social norm have decided that the partner is a social deviant – crazy, amoral, psychotic, whatever. Usually the people who do such a thing are hypocrites. I know a situation in which a man kept calling his girlfriend crazy and a slut; but he had paranoid schizophrenia, had threatened to kill a nurse and had had sex with a dying cow. There are others who are very badly wrong. For example there are many feminist women who claim that some men are sociopaths or narcissists and that these men can never be good. This contradicts most basic reason. Anything capable of choice can choose to be good or bad. That includes sociopaths. They may not have a functional heart, but they can use their minds to figure out what is rightful behavior. Anyone is capable of rightful behavior, and to damn people for life is not only cruel and mean but completely irrational.
If one is with a criminal, then the question to ask is, Why are you with this person? Are we not judged by the company we keep? As for the people with mental illness, reason demands a completely different approach. If someone really is sick, then that person needs help rather than bullying. And if someone is not mentally ill, then accusing them of such things is slander. In either case the attack is a wrongful one; and in all cases one is made a jerk by making such an attack.
Finally there are abusers in the name of gender. There are men who think that women are evil or inferior and should be beaten down; and there are women who think that men are destructive or that men are pigs. In most situations, both attack precisely the wrong people. The men brutally abuse women who, for the most part, are good human beings and ones nice enough to want to be with them. The women viciously attack men nearest the liberal centers of learning and culture who, for the most part, believe in women's rights. The first rarely touch the actually evil women, who usually find ways to avoid them; and the second have neither the guts nor the power to reach the real brutes and the real misogynists. In both cases, the worse people in each gender abuse the better people in the other gender. And this creates a destructive set of incentives upon society in which everyone – both men and women – are taught that being a jerk pays and that being kind gets you mistreated.
The rational response to such people is that neither gender is either good or bad. Anything capable of choice is capable of both right choice and wrong choice; and that means both men and women. And what people who believe such things do is prevail upon, respectively, men and women to make the worst choices possible and act in the worst manner that they can act. That makes both sets a parasitical and evil influence. It is not the matter of men vs. women. It is the matter of gender warriors against the rest of us.
All of these people completely discredit the concepts that they use. And that feeds all sorts of destructive directions. Abuse in the name of reason discredits reason, and that feeds anti-rational attitudes. Abuse in the name of God discredits religion, and that feeds atheism and other religions. Abuse in the name of character discredits the concept of character, and that feeds immoralist attitudes. Abuse in the name of social norm discredits social norms, and that feeds antisocial behavior. And abuse in the name of gender discredits one's gender, and that feeds hatred of one's gender.
All of the above people are engaged in behavior that is not only bad for their partners but bad for the world. And it is in the interests of everyone to confront or expose the people who do such things.