When a family affected by partner abuse splits up, some children discover how much more pleasant life is without their father in the home and may choose to distance themselves from him. This can be a sign of emotional health and recovery. The abuser then often claims, predictably, that the mother is turning the children against him; in his mind, what else could it be?

Tom’s behavior communicates to his children that having power over other people is a desirable goal. The possibility that sharing, equality, cooperation, and mutual respect can lead to a fulfilling life may be beyond their conceptual reach. When the sons of abusers reach adolescence, for example, they commonly begin manipulating girls into relationships that are sexually or emotionally exploitative. They may lack empathy for their victims, having been conditioned by their fathers to shut themselves off to caring about the feelings of females.

Many of my clients are skilled spin doctors, able to distract children’s attention from what is before them and get them confused about the obvious. Consider the following scenario. A nasty argument breaks out between a mother and a father, with yelling and name-calling on both sides. Their children can barely follow what the fighting is about, partly because their stomachs are tied in knots from the tension. For the rest of the day, their mother is distant and depressed, snapping at them over trivial frustrations. Their father disappears for two or three hours, but when he turns up again he is in a good mood, joking and laughing with the children as if nothing had happened. (An abuser can naturally snap out of the bad effects of an abusive incident much more quickly than the abused woman can.) So which parent will seem to these children to have been responsible for shattering the calm of their home earlier? Probably the grouchy one. It is therefore not surprising that abusers are sometimes able to reverse their children’s perceptions so that they see Mom as the volatile or unreasonable one despite the abuse they witness.

Why does an abuser sow divisions in these ways? One reason is that his power is decreased if the family remains unified. I have had a number of clients whose partners and children have consistently supported each other, and the client is always bitter about it, griping, “They’ve all turned against me,” or, even more commonly, “She’s brainwashed the children to be on her side.” Many abusers take steps to avoid this outcome, using the principle of “divide and conquer”: If people in the family are busy fighting with each other, attention is diverted from the man’s cruelty or control.