Weaponizing

Abusers Weaponize Everything and Anything

Weaponizing is exploitation. It is the manipulation of anything and everything an abuser can use to get to the objective he is after. Since there are so many ways victims may experience a weaponized tactic, let’s talk through a few.

Incompetence and Capability

Most of us will experience the weaponization of ability, or what is noted via social media as ‘weaponized incompetence.’ We can cover a lot of behavioral territory with this term.

• ‘Inability’ to locate things around the home
• ‘Inability’ to understand your expressed needs
• ‘Inability’ to do more than smaller ‘helping’ tasks around the home
• ‘Inability’ to parent with you

The list goes on and on here. Please note, we use the word ‘inability’ very loosely for these weaponized behaviors. This is in no way a lack of true capacity to complete the tasks, but  a childish way of refusing to be an adult when these tasks need to be accomplished.  

We all know that men are able to put forth effort and care in running a home with their wives, if they choose to do so, many weaponize the role they should maintain as a healthy, loving, life partner.

Psychology

This topic area should be a post of its own due to how many ways we can address the psychological manipulation and weaponization of abusive husbands. 

Let’s examine a few bullet points (We may come back for part II.).

• Pitiful stories about their home life as children. Abusers use these stories to prey upon a victim’s empathy and compassion. Many men in my programs have egregiously lied about things that happened (or didn’t) as a weaponizing tactic.
• Mental health is Pandora’s box for abusers. In many of the cases I’ve worked, abusive men threaten and weaponize all types of mental health concerns because it evokes compassion from a caring wife. This might include multiple diagnoses, multiple rounds of meds to help ‘fix’ their problems, and even threats of *taking their life.
  • *Please note, if you have an abusive husband who threatens suicide, do not hesitate to call 911. No family member is equipped to navigate this without professional help. Additionally, all people helpers would be required to notify authorities if there was any indication of harm to self or others. 
• Using therapy talk to support their position of pity or power (they use it for both). They will also weaponize therapy talk to manipulate and tear down their victim through psychological and emotional abuse. 
• Countering threats as a weaponizing action causes great psychological and emotional harm to victims. It is manipulative exploitation on steroids. Most women feel powerless to match any of the energy that comes from threats. In most cases, women feel there is no other option but to acquiesce to the threat
• Memory weaponization might be ‘forgetting’ calendared family events, promises he makes to you, or even behaviors he doesn’t remember doing. Calling an abuser out about this may result in aggressive counterattacks. 
• Insecurity, or safety. When abusers say they are afraid of their wife, or they don’t feel safe around her, they are using this as a weaponizing strategy to counter her needs, and the abuse they exhibit .
• Shame or powerlessness comes largely from the so-called addiction recovery communities. Both of these are weaponized by men who abuse to reduce responsibility, deflect being called out on wrongs by blaming or DARVO’ing the victim.

Any psychological weaponization is an egregious coercive tactic, one we recommend having strong support to help you navigate. 

Finances and Assets

This talking point might not be one of the areas where you consider the weaponization happening in your spouse’s type or patterns of behavior. But if you have been the victim of financial abuse, you know these difficulties well.

• Controlling access and use to all resources
• Stating that the money is ‘his’ because he works, and you do not
• Weaponizing your role as ‘just a stay-at-home mom’ by saying he works outside the house and should not be asked to do things at home. We include this pattern in this section due to the restriction of resources that are mutually held assets when married. 
• Ruining your credit or using all of your resources before or during the marriage
• Blaming you for any of the normal life expenses as too much of a stressor for him 
• Restricting you from working, either to have your own funds or to help with the family’s needs. The opposite may apply if he doesn’t work or won’t hold down a job well.

Empathy, Kindness, and Praise

Abusive men are very adept at all types of weaponizing. The one that gets at the core of human kindness, empathy and care is an area we want to take particular note. Men often do things that appear to be kind, but are ladened with expectation and demand. Bringing you coffee will come with an expectation, just like buying you dinner or washing the dishes. It all depends on what his agenda is for that action. He will expect something of you. If you do not comply, the abuse often escalates to punishment of some type. 

In addition to kindness or empathy, abusive men often weaponize praise, meaning praise seeking, or brownie point demands. If they ‘help’ at home, they expect to be recognized for this great offering. Some abusive men are very loud about this expectation, others will covertly demand to be noticed and appreciated, weaponizing every action or help offered as some magnanimous gesture you are required to notice or reciprocate to.

Healing and Recovery

Many abusive men seek therapy not to work on themselves, but to find support for their narrative, which is often that their wife is the problem and they are hoping the therapist will help her. If the wife would just get help, she would see that he’s done his work. Or, if she would do her work, he could get past all of the problems and back to normal. 

Weaponizing therapy, healing and recovery can be effective for abusers due to the lack of training, infrequent confrontation from therapists, and a lack of recognition of the nature of abusive deception – yes, abusers can lie to everyone, therapists included.

Truth

Since lying is a main thread of abuse, weaponizing any element of truth-telling is one of the more subtle ways abusers weaponize. Weaponizing truth is more than lies, it involves whole narratives that may be fabricated. Often, other people are used as a transparent authority to support the abuser’s position. There are often threads of gaslighting or blame-shifting in this type of weaponization. Remember, this is about exploiting and manipulating.

A Form of Coercive Control

Weaponizing is a coercive tactic with a long-reach and deeply impactful harm potential for wives of men who use ‘targeted partner abuse©.’ When we are not keeping a careful eye on our own awareness processes, we can inadvertently miss the cues that something isn’t right with the behavior of the abuser, thus entangling ourselves in the messiness of weaponization. 

Any type or pattern of abuse or coercive control is executed to meet a particular objective. Whether this is to gain an advantage or prevent something from occurring, the end result is to gain an advantage. This is often the reason it is said that it is about power and control.

Navigating Coercive Weaponization

Awareness is key to navigating any type of abuse. Being able to name the action for what it is, is crucial. One way to ensure you are seeing things correctly is to take notes of the abuse events to go over with a trained abuse specialist. The validation and affirmation from someone trained to recognize, and call out the tactics will help you not feel like you are misjudging or being overly critical – something almost every victim will be accused of doing.

You do not have to travel this path alone. At Center for Peace, we will walk alongside you, supporting you as you work out the plan you need to maintain your well-being.

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