Abuse Is A Choice: Here’s What Really Drives It And How Men Can Change

We unpack why abuse is a learned choice rooted in fear, control, and missing emotional skills, and we map a path toward accountability and healthier leadership. We share the “button” concept, name nonphysical abuse, and end with three reflection questions to drive change.

• the myth of losing control and the truth about choice
• fear of losing control and the pursuit of order
• the button metaphor for triggers and responses
• nonphysical abuse: verbal, emotional, financial, isolation, threats
• male privilege versus partnership and communication
• emotional literacy as a missing skill and a learned practice
• extreme ownership and accountability over ego protection
• identity untangled from power, status, and dominance
• reflection questions for honest self-assessment

Share this episode and sit down with the reflection questions in front of a mirror. Because growth starts with truth. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. For daily, motivational, and up-to-date content, follow us on Facebook and Instagram at ExcellenceAbove Talent. Keep moving forward. Never give up, and you are never alone in this battle.

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage On Abuse
• 2:24 Control Versus Accountability
• 4:30 The Button And Personal Triggers
• 6:50 Fear Of Losing Control
• 9:20 Chaos, Order, And Real Leadership
• 12:10 Anger As A Shield From Honesty
• 15:40 Nonphysical Abuse And Threats
• 18:30 Privilege, Power, And Partnership
• 21:23 Missing Emotional Skills

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

You're listening to Excellence Above Talent, a podcast where we have the hard conversations about the lives of men and what leads us to achieve greatness and suffer defeat. Hear from other men's journeys as well, as we all learn and grow together to become inspirations to ourselves and those around us. And now your host, Aaron Thomas.

SPEAKER_01: 0:42

Back again. Phase one, episode two of why men become abusive. And again, you have to take this from the standpoint of what I've seen and what I believe. There could be a plethora of ways and reasons why men become abusive. I'm just giving you a snapshot of why I think men become abusive. So abuse isn't a mystery. It's not a random personality glitch because you can't pinpoint an abusive man. You can't look at a man who is poor and make the assumption that's an abusive man. You can't look at a man who is rich and say because he's rich, he can't be abusive. That could also be a man who has abusive tendencies and who can be abusive. So you can never look at someone and make that assessment. Because if I don't know anything, I know this. Men who are abusive can put on the best face for society to see how good he is as a person. And behind the scenes, he's a monster. Men become abusive because somewhere along the line, they decided control was easier than honesty, vulnerability, or accountability. If we're going to change, we have to stop pretending we don't know where this behavior comes from. Today we strip it down to the truth. Most men spend their entire lives dodging the truth about why they became abusive. They frame it as losing control or having a moment or getting pushed too far. But none of that is real. None of that is honesty. And I in my class, my batters intervention class, I talked about the button and the importance of holding on to your button and not allowing people in your life to press your button. I would ask the question who has your button? The button that pisses you off, the button that makes you fly off, the button that makes you scream, yell, and holler. You're holding the button. And if you don't want no one touching the button or pressing the button that's going to make you explode, then you don't let them touch that button. You don't let them touch that emotion or that trigger that's going to make you explode. And you know what those emotions and triggers and actions are. As a man, you are in complete and total control as to how you react to things. And losing control, having a bad moment, or getting pushed too far is a weak man's process as to why he was abusive. If a man wants to stop being abusive, he has to understand the truth about where the behavior comes from. And sometimes you have your button out and you might not know what's going on or why you feel a certain way. So we're going to go over some things that could potentially help you understand that your button is your superpower, and regardless of what goes on in your life around you, you have a choice to make. And with that choice comes consequences, good or bad. So one, men become abusive because they fear losing control. Loss of control scares insecure men more than anything else. So they overcompensate, they tighten their grip, they raise their voices, they dominate the conversation. It is not strength. It's fear disguised as authority. Abuse is rooted in a man's inability to tolerate his own vulnerability. People make the assumption that because I'm talking about men needing to be vulnerable, that I'm trying to make men weak. But men who aren't vulnerable, men who aren't honest, men who aren't who aren't transparent or accountable are the weakest men we know. They are weak, they are sad, they play the victims, and it's always somebody else's fault. And we know people like that. I struggle with this. I used to struggle with it, and I sometimes have to go back and have the conversation with myself from time to time. I cannot control what I can't control. I can't control wife, kids, coworkers, teachers. I can't control anything on the outside. I can't control everything on the inside. I can't control who I am as a person, how I act, and how I respond. And if you find yourself trying to control people because it makes you feel safe, you have to dig deeper to figure out why you have why it has to be that way. Why do you have to control someone to do something in order to make you feel safe? What happened in your childhood? What traumas did you go through? I think a lot a lot of times with mine, I was in Iraq, and there wasn't a whole lot of control that I had when it came to going out on missions or getting um, you know, shot or getting blown up. Like that, there just wasn't no control. Seeing people hurt, seeing people die. So when you come back to the United States and you feel that loss of not being in control, you want to try to control everything. Because you make the assumption you know what it could be like if you're not in control, newsflash. You can't be in control of anything or anyone except yourself. And I had to learn that the hard way. Trying to control people, trying to control circumstances and situations, trying to control how people view me at my job or, and at the end of the day, they're going to view you how they see you, and there's nothing you can do about it. You could be the nicest person to them, and they still don't like you. You don't have any control over any of that. And a man should not fear losing control if that man has some level of order in his life. There was a book by Dr. Manny Arengo called Crushing Chaos. And his the big summary of his book is if there is chaos in your life, if you're losing control as a man and you're trying to figure it out, you have to look in a mirror and ask yourself, is there order in your life? And who is creating the order that's in your life? Because as a man, if you don't have order, you have chaos. You feel like you're losing control. And instead of finding an order to why you feel that way, you latch on and you try to make other people conform to the feeling that you have. And that's just not what real men do. Because we're trying to figure it out, we're trying to be the best version of ourselves. We can't force people to do things that they don't want to do in order for us to feel like we're living our best life. It's a lie. And even if they do it, you're still gonna feel some type of way. You're still gonna find a way uh that you're losing control uh to be abusive and to talk and to hit and to do whatever it is that um you do as a man to make yourself feel good in that space. But afterwards, you feel broken. It's not a fun feeling. Two, men become abusive because anger feels easier than honesty. Honesty requires admission. I'm insecure, I feel inadequate, I'm scared she'll leave me. Most men would rather flip the broom upside down than admit they're afraid. Anger feels powerful, vulnerability feels exposed. So men choose anger, and anger escalates into abuse. Again, if as a man you're running from honesty, transparency, if you're running from vulnerability and accountability, you will find yourself being abusive. And when I say abusive, it's not you don't have to hit someone to be abusive. You can verbally destroy someone mentally and emotionally. You can financially become abusive in a relationship. This is what she has to do because I'm paying the money. It it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be physical. You can use isolation. Make someone pull away from family and friends so that you can manipulate that person to do whatever it is that you want her to do. You can use your kids as abusive tools. Well, if you don't do this and I'm I'm gonna leave, and then who's gonna take care of you and four kids or five kids? You can threaten someone. If you don't, then I'm gonna do this. Or you punch a hole in the wall. That is a threat. That is saying if you continue going down this path, the hole in the wall is gonna be your face next. There was a guy who killed a dog in Odessa, threw it on the ground and punched it in the head until it died, and he got sentenced for animal cruelty. And I'm not 100% sure that that dog wasn't his girlfriends, but I believe it was his girlfriends. That is a threat. That is a, I am pissed off, I want to hurt you, but I'm gonna find something that you love, that you care for, and I'm going to kill this dog in front of you and make you watch. And there's nothing you can do about it. That is that is a threat. Because if she doesn't change, if she doesn't feel, if he feels like she's not doing what he needs her to do, he's letting her know the next time it won't be the dog, the next time it'll be you. And then male privilege. It's sad that people get pissed off when we talk about privilege, white privilege, women's privilege, male privilege, black privilege. Like, there's privileges that each group has. And it's not a negative thing, it's just a thing. As a man, you should not treat your woman as a servant. You shouldn't make all the big decisions, you shouldn't act like the master of the castle. Yes, you are the head, but you still have to communicate and talk to your wife and come to agreements and not just be like, I run this. Because if you ever read your Bible, God was a God who communicated, who asked questions, who tried to find the best way for everybody. But if there wasn't the best way, He would He would make that decision. You can't be the master of your castle. And if you're the master of your castle, that's like saying you're the God of your household and you're not making room for God to be the main one leading you that need to lead his family. And as a man, you can't define the roles as men and women. This is what men do, this is what women do. Again, sit down and have that conversation. I think it's super important. So again, abuse isn't just this overall, I'm a punch you, I'm punching you. It's there's a lot of ways men can be abusive. Number three, men become abusive because they were never taught emotional skills. A lot of men weren't raised with emotional education. They were raised with silence, no emotional vocabulary, no conflict resolution skills unless it was stone hands, no self-awareness, no healthy models of masculinity. So when life hits them hard, they respond with control, intimidation, or violence. Because that's all they know. Not having emotional skills isn't your fault, but refusing to learn them is. I'm super big on as a young boy learning why you feel the way you feel. Super important to be tapped in to your emotions. Super important to learn how to communicate your feelings and how you feel. Because it's just not anger. You might feel angry, but that's not the underlying reason of why you're angry. You could be angry because you're embarrassed. You could be angry because someone says something about you and you want to respond. You know, if it's there's there's deeper levels to your anger that you don't know unless you understand your emotional vocabulary. If you're more self-aware of your feelings and emotions and you have an understanding of like, I feel angry, but I feel angry because I should have got up and put gas in my car, and now I'm riding to work on E, hoping to get to work because I have to be to work on time because I can't be late. That's why you're angry. Anger just doesn't arise for fun. There's always a rhyme and reason why. So it's super important to be self-aware and to know why you're angry. And we're gonna dive more deep into it. This is just an overview of some of the ways why how men become abusive, and then we're gonna try to have a conversation to inspire and motivate men to be better. Number four, men become abusive because they don't want accountability. Accountability requires change. Change requires work. Work requires humility. Abusive men want control without responsibility. Dominance without consequences. They want to maintain power while avoiding growth. But growth doesn't happen while you're defending your ego. Growth happens when you admit the damage you've caused. Jocko Willock talks about extreme ownership, that you can't blame anyone for anything because you can always go back and figure out this is the day that put me on this path. Let's say me and my wife had a big explosive argument about money. But six months ago, she came to me and wanted to have a conversation, and I and I blew her off. And then for six months, it stewed and it brewed, and she felt some type of way. And then finally, six months later, there's an explosion. And as a man, you can run around and be like, well, what's what's her problem? Why is she like this? You can play the victim, but if you take a step back and reflect and try to figure out, okay, how do we get here? You can always find that moment or that time and place where you should have done something different. You should have said something different. You should have sat down and had the conversation. You should have allowed her to be heard. So the extreme ownership part is you can there's you can always find a way to figure out what you did to put yourself in this situation. Number five, men become abusive because they attach their identity to power. Many men believe if I'm not in control, I am not a man. If she challenges me, she's disrespecting me. If I'm not a leader, I am losing. This mindset leads straight to abusive behavior. Power is not manhood. Control is not leadership, dominance is not love. A man who defines himself by power will always harm the people around him. I'm going to say it again. A man who defines himself by power will always harm the people around him. Society has got us in this box to think that as a man you have to have the big cars, the nice house, the women, the money, because that creates power. And I've been around enough people to know that people with cars and houses and women and money aren't the happiest people to be around. And we have to turn the Dow towards, as men, being open, vulnerable, transparent, and honest. Because that's where true power is. Power isn't the money that you have. Power is how you treat the people that's in your life. That's power. That's control. That's love. And for some odd reason, we've we've turned all the things that make us potentially abusive men into what everyone wants to be like or to emulate or and they're inspired by when the inspiration shouldn't be all the negative things. And it they're not negative in a point to where, like, you know, having a a nice car and having a nice house and having money isn't bad. But if that is how you view your manhood as, that becomes bad. Because there's no control in that. You have to play this game in order to win. And if you're competitive like most men are, you'll do whatever it takes. You don't care who you hurt, how you hurt, how many you hurt, you have to win this game. And I think that's turning a lot of men who might not be abusive, abusive. One of the many ways. Abuse isn't something you just pick up along the way. It is something that is learned. It's not an uncontrollable impulse. There was a lot of guys that said I blacked out, and I always called bullshit on that. You don't black out. You know what you're doing. You're picking up your hand, you're balling up your fist, and you're punching someone that you say you love. You don't black out, you don't lose control. Your arm isn't moving by itself. You are doing these things consciously. Drugs, alcohol, it doesn't care. You know what you're doing. It's not an uncontrollable impulse. It is a choice. Every single time, you know if you get drunk, you become abusive. Stop drinking. You know if you get drunk and you're not in a good head space, or you and your wife was arguing, stop drinking. Because that's gonna be your excuse. I was pissed off. Well, I was so drunk that I didn't remember what went on, but two days before, you and your wife got into a big old argument, and it never got settled, and you drunk and you drunk and you drunk until you said you wanted to forget. And then you beat her. It's a choice. Or you cuffed at her, or you yelled at her, or you made her feel like crap. Because that's how you feel. It's a projection. A man who screams and yells and hollers and beats a woman, it's a projection. He's a little boy stuck in a big man's body, and he's trying to hold face and act like he's got everything in control, and nothing in his life is in control. Everything is chaotic. It's a horrible way to live. If you can choose abuse, you can choose something different. But that requires facing the truth directly instead of running from it. So I have reflection questions each podcast episode. So the three reflection questions are number one, what do I try to control when I'm afraid or insecure? Number two, how do I use anger to avoid vulnerability? Number three, what emotional skills do I need to learn or rebuild? If you're serious about change, share this episode and sit down with the reflection questions in front of a mirror. Because growth starts with truth. If anyone hasn't told you today that they love you, then let me be the first to say I love you. You're awesome. You're amazing. You deserve the best that this world has to offer. Do not give up, do not quit. The world does not get easier, but you get stronger. You have a blessed day.

SPEAKER_00: 21:46

Bye. Thank you for listening. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. And for daily, motivational, and up-to-date content, follow us on Facebook and Instagram at ExcellenceAbove Talent. And remember, keep moving forward. Never give up, and you are never alone in this battle. We'll see you next time.