A Conversation on Male Circular Reasoning

Unpacking the Abusive Run-around

If you have attempted to talk something over with a husband or intimate partner, you are likely familiar with male circular reasoning, and the aggressiveness that is often a part of this when the man is abusive. 

Circular reasoning, or circular arguments have footing in the field of logic. The position of the controlling voice is that they are right – because they are – not because they hold solid evidence to support (not abusively prove – these are different presentations) the position they represent. In the battle to be right, the discussion loops around without supporting a valid and reasonable conclusion. 

Let’s unpack this with a few examples.

Supporting Evidence vs. Abusive Proof

Built on principles of philosophy, a solid argument seeks to address both sides through various appeals so that the evidence itself draws out the truthful conclusions. The nature of an argument is not a fight, as is often the common meaning of the term.

Abusive proof is not evidence. It is the bullying of the position held, by the one attempting to coerce, belittle, or wear down the other party in the conversation. Abusive husbands often use this tactic to harm and to avoid any responsibility for their actions, or to the issue being addressed.

A Conversation is an Argument to an Abusive Man

If you have ever attempted to present an injury to your husband only to receive an attack from him, you are familiar with how men position themselves in these discussions. 

When the wife presents a concern, the abusive husband’s replies are often attacks and criticism. Ironically, he complains that she is criticizing him – when what she is seeking is to be heard and understood in love. Her husband will not comply with this when his agenda is to shut her down, avoid answering the question, redirect the cause, or reject any request for care for her feelings.

The Wife’s Feelings are the Attack

It’s not your feelings that are the problem, it’s not your tone either. Most importantly – it is not that you don’t know how to communicate. The issue is that you are talking – to him.

When a wife speaks to her husband, he has a decision to make in response to her. He can, 1) hear criticism and attack, and then launch into his circular arguments in support of the male social narrative about complaining women; or 2) choose to dismiss the cruelty that comes from a male echo chamber, and strive to hear the meaning of the message she is attempting to convey.

This decision to defend the herd mentality is embedded in what men believe is their obligation to the pack. It is not news that men view women as complaining and naggy. If they don’t support the herd, rejection from the herd may impact them negatively.

Weaponizing Emotions

There is so much to say on this point. Emotions are weaponized by men, for their limited ability and right to express (the lie men won’t let go of) their emotions. They are weaponized for the way women present their emotions to men; and lastly emotions are weaponized in therapy, being grossly misrepresented, misunderstood and hyper-elevated – but this is a topic for another post. 

For decades men belabor their pitiful state of not being allowed or taught how to express themselves. This is one of their more egregious claims. Anyone who has spent time in conversation around a man knows about their defensiveness (emotion), anger (emotion), silent treatment (emotion) or even those who have hit walls and thrown things – which are also evidence of their emotions. All of these demonstrations are evidence that men have a particular way of expressing emotion – most of which is to power over others. 

Men have emotions and they know how to use them. It just happens to have a different presentation than a woman’s expression of emotion. Men also know how to professionally enotionalize with others when they are negotiating contracts, networking, or engaged in other office interactions. 

Men are emotional – they just want to control how we discuss male emotion versus female emotion.

Actions Have Impact Regardless of His Intent

Bringing an abuse injury or betrayal to a husband should not result in his indifference to your pain – but it will. Abusive men are more concerned about themselves than your feelings. A woman’s feelings are easily dismissed by a man.

What a wife is seeking from her husband when he abuses and betrays is to be concerned about her – concerned for her – receptive to how his actions felt and were experienced by her. Yet, all too often, men are mad at their wives for bringing up the topic, instead of disappointed within themselves for the way their choices impacted their wife. 

Men have a presentation of disregard for the pain they cause their wife – to the point of being more put out that she’s hurting and telling him about it – than by the abuse and betraying acts. 

When men bring up the lame excuse, “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” they are deflecting the weight and cost their wife accures with an attempt to negotiate meaning. That is unacceptable!

Negotiating His Discomfort and the Expense of Her Pain

When abusive men are presented with the impact of their abuse, they formulate and project the reason a wife brings the issue up as an unwillingness to let it go, to just get back to peace and normalcy. Men negotiate peace while their wife pays the price of the injury or while they package it in a lame excuse like, “I made a mistake.”

No, Bud – that is not a mistake. That is a decision. Actions cannot be disconnected from the thoughts that generate the behavior. These two elements are inseparable – as are the effects of your thoughts and actions on others – especially your wife

When Nothing He Says Matters

When these statements are presented by the abusing husband, you have reached the point of dismissiveness. He is letting you know that he’s disconnected himself from the cost to you, the weight of his actions in exchange for your silence will be the next level demand.

What he is saying is true – in a twisted and backwards way of looking at the issue. What he’s saying shows that what matters is what he feels, not what he did.

The “I’m not allowed to feel bad” Accusation

Statements of this nature indicate that the abuser believes his discomfort outweighs or overrides the cost accured by his victim. Your pain, which he couches in a criticism of him, is now the point of the discussion. 

He’s twisted the events, upset that you cannot see how magnanimous he’s been by even being in a conversation of this kind with you. 

An abuser, feeling badly about his choices, should never be the priority in a discussion on understanding, accountability and change – and yet – this tends to be one of the biggest reasons these kinds of discussions go unresolved. 
There are two points to resolve, his discomfort and your needs. These will be conflicting demands as long as he refuses to engage – *Just mere talking isn’t engagement.

A Wife’s Reaction Becomes the Problem

The great bait and switch of a discussion involving abuse and betrayal of a husband shifts to the wife’s reaction. It shifts to her need to talk it out – over and over – until his remorse balances out the cost she will carry and includes more than hearing her. It includes  an ability to articulate her experience and pain in a way that indicates clarity of the matter.

Men know that this isn’t something you get over easily – which is why they tend to run you to the ground emotionally – they don’t want to go the distance here. Men will often turn this into a claim of punishment for them. What a horrible assessment, to accuse their actions – which are pain-laden for you – into punishing them because you want to talk to the person you believed loved and cared about you – and crushed you anyway.

Your pain is not his punishment, but many wives will be punished for talking.

When an Apology Means Sorrow…

 …when it means that the abuser or betrayer understands the toll his actions took on his wife, when he is prepared to meet her in the cost his actions inflicted, then maybe the couple will achieve a point of relational resuscitation. 

As long as the abusive husband continues to drill down in his defensiveness, seek credit for what litle is offered to recover what was damaged, withhold humble remorse and grace for the time needed to walk out the egregiousness of his actions – little will be resolved.

Defensiveness is Evidence of a Lack of Remorse

Defensive irritation towards the injured wife, regardless of the words expressed, are in direct opposition to any ownership and accountability. They are representative of the abuser’s true thoughts about his actions. 

Abusive men tell on themselves in discussions of this nature. It doesn’t take countless years in post-doc work with multiple degrees to ascertain from the way a man responds to the woman he abused to see what he really thinks about her, about the marriage, and about himself.

The Quiet Weight of ‘Targeted Partner Abuse’ and Intimate Treason

The most profound piece of evidence we have today about the cost of abuse and betrayal by a husband is in the profound number of women expected to carry this burden quietly so that men can move on from their uncomfortable “mistakes”. 

Men who abuse, do so without regard. The cost isn’t lost on them, they do not care about it, while also knowing that they will worm their way out of it by dumping it on the soul they destroyed. 

The evidence is real. When you unpack the types of conversations we’ve outlined in this post, there is no anomaly being presented. It is a playbook outline that men have used across generations of time and international lines. 

The condition is so common, we can outline it here, knowing it resonates with nearly every victim and will be argued by nearly every man. Men argue – circularly – to get out of the cost of what they did. 

The problem is – a cost will be paid – by the wife. Cost is inextricably linked to the man’s decision. It cannot be removed. It must be paid by someone.

Center for Peace, An Effective Program for Abuse Correction

It isn’t that men do not know they are abusing, betraying and hurting their wife. It is the internal conflict between what is known and what they are exposed to – and how to adjust their own internal stories, update their beliefs and values enough to develop a healthy relational alignment with their wife. 

Learning to navigate a relationship destroyed by something he can’t fix can be a stumbling block to men who have two options, fix it or ignore it. Their idea of fixing is often more like ignoring – which will never work for their wife. 

At Center for Peace, we offer a program rich with educational principles to help them navigate themselves in a world where men have been able to exploit women and destroy lives while abusively negotiating their way out of accountability.

Come join us in July, where we’ll wrestle with all of the narratives and permission-giving beliefs that prevent growth and healing. We’ll learn what moving forward really means, without the extreme arguments, and without the irritation and defensiveness, which never solves anything. 

If you want any chance at resuscitating yourself, to present yourself as a huband, you need something different than what you’ve done in the past.