Sanctuary for the Abused
Friday, December 22, 2017
Know Excuses
KNOW EXCUSES!
Abusers will minimize, justify, deny, distort, lie about and blame others for their behavior to escape consequences, It is our responsibility to hold them accountable.
The following quotes are taken from batterers in the Alternatives to Domestic Aggression (ADA) Program of Catholic Social Services of Washtenaw County.
I wasn't able to stop there
It was an accident
I don't accept change
I didn't know how to be accountable
Accountability didn't stick with me
I didn't get my act together
I didn't adapt to the way society is now
My adrenaline overflowed
We're Afro-American / Hispanic / Italian / etc. and that's how we talk
She was coming after me
It was an afterthought
I guess I got too aggressive
That's what got me aggressive
Everything was up in the air
Alcohol came in to play
Alcohol brought the violence out of me
Alcohol enhanced the problem
Alcohol escalates a little bit
The alcohol controlled me
Alcohol was involved
The alcohol started talking
Alcohol set me off like a keg of dynamite
I had an alcohol problem
I had a little alcohol
I'm more succeptable to violence on alcohol
The alcohol changes my personality
It was an alcohol related incident
I was really under the influence of alcohol
She allowed it
It was a lot at one time
There was an altercation happening
We got into a little altercation
I had no alternatives
She was anemic
I tried to let her know what life is like in America
That's how I am
I didn't analyze the situation
Anger comes out of me
The anger escalates
I have an anger problem
I was venting my anger
I couldn't control my anger
I had an anger problem
I did it out of anger
I don't handle anger well
Anger creates violence
I had an inability to control my anger
My anger controlled me
I didn't know how to vent my anger in a different way
I was into the anger thing
My anger got the better of my rational thinking
I got angry and didn't use patience
I didn't have the right answers
We kept upping the ante
It was an animal response to a perceived threat
An argument broke out
Before I knew it we got to arguing
It's an arguing type situation
We had a violent argument
The argument started in the bedroom and went into the kitchen
I was avoiding an argument
We got into an argument match
I got into a violent argument
The argument got out of hand
We had a basic sibling argument
We had a normal argument
We had a domestic argument
We just had an argument
We had physical arguments
It was an overheated argument
We were in a heated argument
We both used all of our artillery
She asked me to hit her
I was half asleep
I didn't have an opportunity to be assertive
It was a detrimental atmosphere
I kind of got an attitude
I have an attitude problem
I bring alot of attitude home with me from work
My attitude overtook my actions
It became automatic
It's kind of automatic
I was avoiding the bigger problem
I was avoiding hurting her
I was avoiding punching her
I didn't get away from the situation
I came back on her
My back was up against the wall
I backslid
I was just getting back at her in some demented way
I had a physical background
If she was a bad woman she deserved a pop in the eye
My relationship went bad
It got really bad
I'm baffled about it all
I was baited into it
She lost her balance
I went bananas
She was in the bar
Without thinking I barked
It was that strong German beer
That behavior came out
My behavior was wrong
My behavior repeated itself
It was violent behavior
Being what I am
Things got the best of me
It was the best I could do
I let my inner self get the best of me
I was beside myself watching
I wasn't a better man
I just avoided the bigger problem
Sometimes I get angry and blackout
I blew up
The flame blew
It built up inside until I blew up
It was a blight on our weekend
I was blind to what was going on
Sometimes I have blinders on
The abuse blossomed in our relationship
It's in my blood
The blood boiled
We blow up at each other
We had a blowout
I might have blown up
It happened out of the blue
I blurted out
My anger boiled over
I got to my boiling point
I was boiling
I just boiled over
I took so much until I get to the boiling point
I didn't put it in my book
All of a sudden, boom, it happens
Then, boom, out of nowhere
I was born with aggressiveness
I let women bother me
I was boxed in
I didn't engage my brain before my mouth
I didn't know how to break off
I didn't put on the breaks
We had a mutual breakup
I was brewing
I was pushed to the brink
That's when everything broke loose
I broke
I broke there
I was brought up that way
I guess things build up in me
It builds up
It was all built up inside me
A lot of things built up to it
Everything built up on me
I build and build and one day boom
I was like a bull in heat
It was the stress of my buttons being pushed
All the time people push my buttons
I let a lot of things push my buttons
She controlled my buttons
She pushed my anger buttons
She taunted me
I had a buzz on
Sometimes it just goes right by
I calmed her down
She destroyed my calm
I couldn't calm down
I couldn't keep it calm
That's the way it came out
The abuse came up out of me
It came out of me before I could stop and think about it
It just came out
I can't shut up
I wasn't careful
I was getting too carried away
I got carried away
I didn't catch myself
I didn't catch a key subject that came up
I was caught off guard
I got caught up in anger
I got caught up in my violent behavior
I got caught up in this one incident
I got caught up in the situation
Something caused me to do it
It was cause and effect
It takes two to cause
I was off center
I didn't get a second chance
I changed
I was going through some changes
Chemicals altered my way of judgment
My chemistry takes over
I was just being childish
I didn't have a choice
I had no choice
I made the wrong choice
I made a bad choice
I made bad choices
I made horrible choices
I made some real poor choices
I don't choose to yell and scream
I was in a violent circle
The whole circumstance came down
I don't know if I'm going to click
It wasn't the suit of clothes I wanted to put on
Cocaine showed the bad side of me
There was physical combat between us
The b-word comes out
It comes out
It just comes out that way
This problem kept coming up
My anxiety and frustration starts coming out
I couldn't communicate with her
Our communication didn't work
It takes two to tango
It's the only way I know how to cover up my communication skills
I put myself in a compromising situation
I couldn't concentrate
I jumped to conclusions
I had a nervous condition
I was conditioned to act that way
There was a confrontation
I got confused
I'm no good at confusion
I did not consciously do it
We had hostile contact
I was out of my context
I was containing her
I couldn't control my temper
I wasn't in control enough of what I said
It led on to where I got out of control
I couldn't talk without losing control
I lost control and everything bad
It was a situation I couldn't control
My efforts to control myself failed repeatedly
I was on the verge of losing control
I got out of control
I lost more control
I didn't have enough control
I tend to get out of control
Things got way out of control
I didn't know how to control myself
I was being controlled by someone else
I felt like she was controlling me
I was backed into a corner
We both lost control
I couldn't avoid a confrontation
I couldn't take it anymore!
I couldn't stop it
We're like a lot of couples in that respect
It had to run its course
I cracked
I went crazy
It was crazy
I just went crazy
My bad attitude crept back in
I crossed the border
I crossed over
I'm on a cruise
It was the culmination of a lot of bad things
It was a daily abusive thing
We did this dance together
I had a hard day
I brought a bad day home with me
I was having a hard day
It's just how I deal with things
I couldn't deal with it
I couldn't deal with the situation
I just f'ed up and made the wrong decision
I made that bad decision
I made the wrong decision
I made a very, very bad decision
I went off the deep end
It's a character defect
I reacted to defend myself
I was defending myself
I automatically take a defense
It was a defensive reaction
I was brought up on the defensive side
It was a delusional thought I acted on
I was deranged with bitterness
I'm not perfect at diagnosing people's problems
I didn't do it
I was diffusing her upset and irrational behavior
I was just directing her out
I have never directly abused them from a physical standpoint
I didn't have self-discipline
We had some discrepancies
She was just as bad
It's a disease
That's my attention deficit disorder
It was a minor dispute
It was a divorce issue
I was on her like a rabid dog
I don't know what I do
It was a domestic dispute
I took a dominant role
It was a real cheap door
She went down to the ground
I didn't realize what was going on until it all went down
I get angry when I drink
The drinking made it physical
I was driven toward that goal
I was drunk
She initiated the whole thing by being drunk
I was half way drunk
I go off the edge
I was right on the edge
She took me over the edge
I was set over the edge
I get too emotional
I get a little bit too emotional
I am emotionally weak
My emotions were at their wits' end
I should have handled my emotions better
My emotions take over
I didn't keep my emotions down
My emotions erupt
I can't handle my emotions
I had angry, violent emotions
I ended up hurting her shoulder
I ended up hitting her
I ended the argument
Drinking enhanced my problem
It had an energy of its own
I couldn't do enough for her
I didn't remove myself from the abusive environment
I'm not equipped to handle things ahead of time
It erupted in me
I finally erupted
Violence erupts
The argument would escalate
Our fight was escalating
Everything escalated
We escalated our voices
It escalated to physical abuse
It got escalated
The situation really escalated
It escalated from that
It kept escalating on
A small argument escalated into a serious situation
I got even with her
It was an abusive event
My evil side came out that night
I'm not the domestic violator her ex-husband was
We exchanged some words
There were words exchanged
I didn't see any exit
I more or less expected her to be obedient
I explode
I hold it in and then explode
Things build up and I explode
I exploded at her
I exploded at them
She was irrational and explosive
I was just expressing my opinion
We got in each others face
I was a failure
I took a fall
It's easy to fall into things
It had gone too far
We went farther than any time before
I was going too fast
My father doesn't have a lot of patience
It's a fault of mine
It's a fault that leads to argumentation
I returned the favor
My fear came out in abuse
I was fed up
I don't feel good
I fell into it
I fell back into it
I fell off the map
I fell back into that old person
It was a situation I fell into
It festered until it came out into the open
I couldn't figure her out
We ended up getting in a fight
Our fight got extreme
We had a fight
We had a fist fight
We got in a fight
It was because we were fighting
The fights started to get a little more physical
I find myself doing it
My finger poked her in the eye
My fingernails grow too fast
My fingernails were a little longer than they are now
It was the first thing that came to me
I did not use fisticuffs
I was too fixated
I flew off the handle
It's because of my flighty thinking
I fly off the handle
It set me off on a bad foot
I realized that I used too much force
She forced me to
I was forced to
We found ourselves in conflict
I found myself arguing back with her
I found myself somewhere I didn't want to be
I found myself chasing her
I'd freak out
I was in a frenzy
I was venting frustration
We f'ed up
I blew a fuse
I have a short fuse
I had a short fuse
I blew a gasket
She poured gasoline on the fire
I'm a Gemini
It was a generational cycle
In my generation it's the way we spoke
It was a generational thing
It's in my genes
I was genetically born with it
My anger came out like a bad Genie
I was on my gentlemanly way and she proceeded to hit me
I let her get to me
I let it get to me
She would get me to do it
I go off
I could only go so far
I let myself go
She got my goat
I got going with what I had to do
I got going
I'm not good in one-on-one relationships
I thought the violence was going to be gone
There was a gun involved
It had gone too far
She got to me
That's the way I grew up
I got into a groove of life
I didn't want to grow up
She wasn't grown up
It caught me off guard
That's the kind of guy I am
I have this bad habit
It's a bad habit
Force of habit
I picked up her bad habits
I had to
Things got out of hand
I used my hands
Every man should be able to handle one woman
I had a hard day
An argument happened
What happened, happened
When that happened
The assault happened
It happened that way
Things happened quick one night
It happened in an argument
It's what happened in the past
It just happened
It happened
We fight and it happens again
Sometimes that happens
Came to a head
I didn't know what was heading me into this
I was headed down that road
Heat of the moment
It happened in the heat of an argument
Sometimes when the heat gets turned up things come out
It got heated up
Heat of passion
I got heated up
Some heated words were exchanged
I held her back from hitting me
I got into it with her
All hell broke loose
I can't help myself
It's hereditary
I have a high history of violence in my life
I was holding her in my arms
She's just a woman scorned
The honeymoon wore off
She had a bad hormonal imbalance
It was a hot button
My house needs to be designed differently
It's an abusive house
It's because I'm human
I had no idea I would be offensive
I was showing my ignorance
It was in me
I was into the battering incident
They were incidents
I had there have been incidents of violence
I was incoherent
She initiated the violence
Hell hath no fury...
I dealt with it inappropriately
I went insane
It was an insecure thing
Alcohol was the instigator
It's my basic instinct
It's my aggressive male instinct
I was not very intelligent
I got into it with her
I was intoxicated
I introduced a gun into the discussion
I was too personally involved
I was irrational
It was rather isolated
It was a wrong judgment call
It's our karma
I was acting like a little kid
We knew each other too well
The next thing I knew The knife was thrown in the fire
We knocked each other down
I didn't know better
I don't know what came over me after a while I just - I don't know
I didn't know what I was doing
I don't know how it came up
I was lacking in communication
I lapsed in to my same pattern
It was too late to pause and reflect
I didn't laugh, my lip just went up
I didn't learn my lesson
One thing led to another
It all led up to that
I was on the edge of what was legal
I was giving her a lesson
We didn't let it go
I had license to be angry
Violence was a part of our life
Sometimes life is abusive
I've been living that lifestyle
Liquor makes me violent
I was with her too long
There are situations where I really lose control
I was verbally losing it
I was losing it
I lost my ability to control myself
I lost my cool
I lost control
I lost it
We get loud sometimes
It was loud
We weren't in love
I have a problem with lying
It makes me
I was not being a man
I'm not that kind of man
It manifested itself
It was a bad marriage
That's not me
I didn't mean to hurt her
I didn't mean to do it
I didn't mean it
It was a meeting of the thing
All the men in my family do it
It was a bad mess
I was a messed up person
She messed me up
Your mind comes up against a roadblock
I can't know what was in my mind
I don't know what was going through my mind
My mind wasn't on it
I wasn't in my everyday mind
I naturally wasn't in my right mind
I had too much on my mind
I wasn't in my right mind
I was misinterpreted
I made a stupid mistake
It was a mistake
I made a human mistake
I repeated my mistake
It was because of how she spent money
It was my mood change
I was in a mood
It was this ornery mood I have
I was in a bad mood
She was in the arguing mode
We have our moments
There was still more abuse after that
I was going through the motions
I engaged my mouth without thinking
I moved her out of the way
I came back to myself
It's a natural human response
It's just my nature
Somebody needed to do it
She got on my last nerve
I let it get to my nerves
I get nervous
I didn't go to a neutral place
I am a non-violent person
It was before noon
I wasn't my normal self
It came out of nowhere
I was still numb
Out on the nut
The fight occurred
An affair occurred
I went off
I offered to shoot my wife
I had an old-fashioned way of doing things
It was the only way I knew
I couldn't let the opportunity go by
My abuse got out of hand
I had an outburst
We had a violent outburst
I was over reacting
I overreacted a little bit
I reacted totally overboard
I went overboard
I over-disciplined her
I can't stop being abusive overnight
I overreact
I overreacted to the situation
I overstepped myself
I overstepped my bounds
My parents formed my values
It was a part of me
It was a part of my personality
I can't get past this
I was led down the wrong path
I lost my patience
People let me do it
I was another person it's in my personality
What my inside personality, Igor, did was very bad
I didn't keep things in perspective
It was petty behavior
It was a phase I was going through
The phone hit her
Before I knew it was getting physical
It got a little physical sometimes
When it's about to get physical
I'm not a physical person
I was physical with her
We got physical
Things got physical
We were on a different plain
It went until it played itself out
I was less than pleasant
I couldn't please her
I was just getting my point across
I get to the point where I get somewhat violent
I reached my breaking point
It just popped out of me
Something possessed me to do it
I was powerless and didn't know what to do
She precipitated my way of thinking
I can't think as precise when I'm ticked off
I can't keep the pressure from blowing up and hurting someone
Pressure built up because she goes to school
I can't control the pressure inside of me
I threw my principles out the window
I turned off my principles
I had a big problem with that
I had a little problem
My son had become a problem
I was programmed to act this way
It progressed from that point
She provoked me
I was protecting myself
She pulled her head away
It was a punctuation
Push turned in to shove, shove turned into choking
I get pushed over the edge
It started out as a pushing thing
I'm a pussy if I walk away
It all happened quick
I have a quick temper
Everything happened so quick
I went into the rage
I let the rage get the better of me
It's my rage
I would rage
I woke up in a rage of fighting
I had to express my rage
I kind of ran into a little situation
I was not thinking rationally
I react
I react badly
I reacted stupidly
I react in the same manner
I would react violently
I just reacted
I reacted wrongfully
It automatically caused a reaction
I was out of touch with reality
I didn't realize I was being abusive
I didn't realize I was being controlling
I didn't realize the impact of what
I said I did it for no reason
There was no reason to it
It happened for no apparent reason
My reason went bye-bye
My ability to reason was swept away
It was a reckless act
I couldn't recognize my bad choices
It wasn't recoverable
I was reflecting past aggression
It's a reflex
It was an abusive relationship
Our relationship was going to end anyway
I am guilty of a bad relationship
I relapsed
I had to let it release a little
I released my anger
I needed to remove myself from the situation
I needed to remove the violence from my system
No repair was possible
I was restraining her
I didn't restrain myself
Things were repetitive and hostile
My resentment had a lot of angry energy
I responded
She needed physical restraint
I was restraining her
I retaliated
I should have got rid of her some other way
Everything rolled into one
It was the end of the rope
I guess I got too rough
My father rubbed off on me
She rubbed me the wrong way
We were in a ruckus
Some things were said
She's fat
I just said something back
The scales tipped to set me off
If I had any sense I wouldn't have battered
I had no common sense
I was out of my senses
She set me up
She set me off
It set me off
I was trying to settle her down
I was settling her down
I shot off at the mouth
A shouting match proceeded
I don't know to shut up
I was sick then
It's a sickness
That's a side of me that doesn't show up that often
I got on her bad side
It was that kind of situation
I couldn't get out of the situation
It was a hit or be hit type of situation
The situation didn't diffuse itself
The situation was destined to get out of control
The situation didn't resolve
She put me to sleep
It was a sleeping disorder
Slip of the tongue
She slipped
I slipped in to threats
It was slipping in
I snapped
It grew like a snowball
Something was coming
I was never violent when I was sober
My relationship went sour
She was from the south
We spark off
Sparked a violent streak
Figure of speech
I spoiled a romantic evening
Things happened spontaneously
Spur of the moment
It was a spur of the moment thing
She started it
This is the state we're in
She stepped between us
The stick hit her
I got the short end of the stick
I went by a bunch of stop signs
The storm had to pass
I didn't straighten up
I had a violent streak
I got it from the streets
I just stung her
I was stupid enough to do it
I did it out of stupidity
Things succeeded from there
I succumbed to the fact
It was a big suggestion
I couldn't take it anymore
I thought I was talking nice
I let my temper out
I have a quick temper
I have a problem with losing my temper when we disagree
I didn't know how far my temper could go
I lost my temper
I have a quick and violent temper
I have a problem with my temper
I have a bad temper
My temper's got a lot to do with it
I'm hot tempered
I have a temper problem
I lost my temper enough
I don't know how to hold my temper
I have a short temper
I was just being tender
Things succeeded from there
I didn't give myself time to think
I didn't think about what I did before I did it
I couldn't think
I didn't think
I don't think before I talk
I didn't think enough to walk off
I wasn't thinking straight
I wasn't thinking right
I wasn't thoughtful
It wasn't a threat, it was a promise
I slipped into threats
She takes threats well
It was part of the tide of violence
I'm a time bomb
As time goes on it gets worse
I do it all the time
It was because
I was so tired
I got caught up in a trap
She triggered my actions
Something triggered it
My work triggered me off
We had that trouble
I didn't try hard enough
It takes two for an argument to happen
It takes two to fight
Things were ugly in the house
I was uncertain about myself
It was unconscious
I was unconsciously thinking
I was leading an uncontrollable life
I was unhealthy
I was unloading
I was up all night
It was ugly in the house
It was my upbringing
I got upset and mean
I just get upset
I'm here for being upset
I get upset and worked up
She was used to it
I vented my anger
We used alot of verbal and it turned into physical
I was a victim of her abuse
I have violence problems
I have domestic violence
I got violent with her after she got violent with me
I'm not a violent person
It was a visitation thing
You can only walk away from so much
I couldn't walk away from it
I did not want to do it
That's just the way I am
It was the only way I knew
It was the hot weather
I went back to those old ways
She weighs a lot
We got into it
The discussion was not going well
Things were kind of wild
I tried to wiggle it out
I woke up that way
We had words
My words came out of my mouth
I didn't leave work at work
It was a work related type of thing
I was too worked up
It came up worse than it should have been
We got worse and worse
We wrestled and I won
We ended up wrestling
I made wrong decisions
It took 10 years
I just zipped
contact us at dgarvin@csswashtenaw.org
Labels: abuse, abuser, blame, excuses, projection
6 Comments:
All credit due to my NPD husband, my personal favorite: "I can't help myself."
then you must leave. Now.
One more to add...... I was trying to teach her a lesson
Incredible list! I am awed.
"Abusers will minimize, justify, deny, distort, lie about and blame others for their behavior to escape consequences, It is our responsibility to hold them accountable."
This quote is from the beginning of the article. Yes, abusers are responsible for their behavior, but we also know that abusers/psychopaths will never internilize their guilt. Believing, helping, educating and protecting the VICTIMS of abuse will be time and money well spent. And then when we no longer accept the abuse of evil ones, they will have no where to hide. Just a dream I know, but this is what could help so many.
From the website Luke 17:3 ministries inc. "There are a number of behaviors that can be considered abusive, but we often don't think of them in that way simply because we have been raised experiencing these behaviors from a relative that we have known all of our lives, and we think of his behavior as normal, because it is all we have ever known from him.
Because we love this person, we tend to overlook his behavior. We have also been trained since childhood to ignore or make excuses for the abuse by other relatives who are in denial or who protect the abuser (see The Silent Partner). A family member's bad childhood, background, war experiences, alcoholism, personality disorders, psychological problems, etc., may help us to understand him, but should never be used as an excuse to justify his mistreatment or abuse of others. Whether he chooses to get help for his issues or not, he does not have the right to inflict them on anyone else."
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