Living with the Dominator

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The Dominator uses various and numerous tactics to keep these rules in place. Here I have described some tactics The Dominator may use to keep each of the above ‘rules’ in place:

Uses intimidation to control his partner by shouting, glaring, sulking, driving too fast and firing questions at us without giving us a chance to answer. As a result, we believe he is angry and try to placate him. The Headworker I provide three day Freedom Programme Facilitator Training. However, I will not accept any trainee who has no prior experience or understanding of the programme. Trainees who have completed the Home Study Course will become eligible to attend the training. The potential is limitless!Women should believe and accept all the excuses he gives us for his abuse’ – uses the ‘only’ word! It was ‘only’ a slap, blames drink, stress, YOU!

Uses children to control us. He turns them against us and if we leave him he uses the courts to harass us for access. He says he's not the biolgical father and tells us we are bad mothers. As a result, we lose our children or he seriously damages our ability to parent effectively. The King of the Castle A woman should never be allowed to leave or end a relationship, no matter how abusive or violent it is’ – says he loves us, threatens suicide. Below are the eight personae of the 'Dominator' with descriptions and the effects each one can have on us. The descriptions below are from the renowned Freedom Programme for female survivors of male domestic abuse. I am the author Pat Craven. When I was a Probation Officer I ran courses for male 'perpetrators’ of violence against women and children. For two years I sat among groups of men who had injured, raped or killed their victims. I realised that abusive men use a range of tactics to control women.Of the history of the programme, Ella Tarlton, Casework Co-ordinator at Julian House, said: “The course was developed by Pat Craven who worked as a probation officer with male perpetrators of violence against women and children. After hundreds of conversations with perpetrators she learned that abusive men use the specific tactics to control women and realised this information needs to be shared with vulnerable women. She developed the Freedom Programme to help change, and even save women’s lives and wrote a book in 2008 called “Living with the Dominator” so that the information was accessible to people who could not partake in the programme.” Women should stay at home and not have a life of their own’ – isolates us from our family/friends, stops us from working. The Freedom Programme examines the roles played by attitudes and beliefs on the actions of abusive men and the responses of victims and survivors. The aim is to help them to make sense of and understand what has happened to them, instead of the whole experience just feeling like a horrible mess. The Freedom Programme also describes in detail how children are affected by being exposed to this kind of abuse and very importantly how their lives are improved when the abuse is removed. The programme usually lasts for 11 or 12 weeks and is FREE. It provided by hundreds of agencies across the UK. Some of them are rolling so women can join at any time but this varies according to local needs, etc. I also realised that abusive men do not understand their own behaviour. They do not realise that they decide to use violence when they realise that their other tactics are failing.