Transcription
We keep calling them narcissists, and some of these men just really, truly hate women, and they've been taught to. Now, don't get me wrong, right? Some of them are actual narcissists. I get it. But let's talk about the ones who hate women, whether they've got a diagnosis or not, and how that hatred really gets handed down.
It's not always some big dramatic event that sort of created a monster, right? It's in podcasts, it's in the culture, it's in media, religion, at your childhood dinner tables. Sometimes it's in how no one steps in when he yells at her in public, right? That moment when everybody kind of looks away. That's not nothing. That is unspoken permission.
And we want to believe that it's insecurity, that he's scared, that he's broken. But what if he's just entitled? What if the abuse isn't a trauma response, it's a belief system?
I'm Lisa Sunny. I'm a toxic and abusive relationship expert, author of four books, and host of Real Talk with Lisa Sunny. I help women break free from emotional abuse and manipulation, escape these toxic relationships, and I make videos like this to say the things that most people are too afraid to say out loud. So, if you are done analyzing him and just ready to tell yourself the truth about what's actually going on, hit subscribe.
Now, let me be clear. It is possible that he's a narcissist or a sociopath or a psychopath. You know, Dr. Romney has said that she believes all domestic abusers are narcissistic. And I actually agree with her. I felt so validated when I heard her say that. But that's not why he's abusive, because abusiveness doesn't come from trauma or fear or confusion. It comes from entitlement. Right? It comes from values. From the belief that he has the right to control you, to punish you, to mold you, silence you because you're less than him. Because you're a woman.
Lundy Braftoft, in that amazing book, "Why Does He Do That?", he says it just flat out. Abuse is not caused by mental illness, and it's not caused by unresolved trauma. It's caused by a man's core beliefs about women. And honestly, all the diagnosis talk, it's just noise. We pathize abusers because it gives us something that we can hold on to, right? If I can just understand why he does this, then maybe I can help him change. But you're not going to be able to outlove someone's hatred for you. You can't therapize someone who doesn't even think they're the problem. And you sure as hell can't fix a man who believes that controlling you is his right.
We need it to be about something broken in him. Because the idea that someone we loved, slept next to, cried in front of, just knows that he's hurting us and he doesn't care. That's not just painful. That breaks something in you. Man, that's painful. Makes you doubt your ability to judge people's character, and it makes you question your own reality.
We want it to be about trauma because trauma feels like something we can soothe or control or change. We want it to be fear because maybe that sounds more human. But listen, entitlement, misogyny, that doesn't need care. It needs consequences.
And let's talk about what actually fuels this. It's not the dark corners of the internet, but the stuff that we literally just live with every day. Misogyny isn't always obvious. It's not always angry and loud. Sometimes it just kind of sounds like, "I just want to know where you are because I worry about you." Or, "You know, I hate it when you dress like that. It's not respectful." Or, "You've changed since you started that job. I miss the old you." Sounds like concern or love, but it's not. It's manipulation, and it's a performance. It's all about control. It's making you smaller so that he doesn't have to feel insecure.
And here's the hardest part, right? He's not confused. He's not doing it because he just doesn't know better. He's doing it because it works. He got more attention when he pulled away. He got more sex when you were scared he'd leave. More control when he made you feel like you were too emotional. He got to skip accountability while you were in therapy asking yourself if you were the narcissist. That's not confusion. That's benefit.
So, what actually drives this? Well, let's break down the beliefs behind the behavior. The first, male entitlement. The belief that women exist to serve, right? That our time, our attention, affection, bodies, emotional labor, our reactions, they're his to manage. And this shows up in big ways often, but also in these little small moments that you get trained to ignore. When you're expected to just drop everything to support his bad day, but yours, that's too much. When he sulks because you didn't text back fast enough, even though he never replies when he's out. It's when he asks you for something small and he acts like you're asking for the world. This is the guy that calls you high maintenance because you have basic standards. The one who thinks that sex is owed just because you're in a relationship, right? "You're my wife." This is the one who gets pissed off and irritated. This is the one who gets pissed off and irritated that you're tired after taking care of everyone, including him. And it's not just Andrew Tate. It's your dad who never did the dishes. It's the teacher who goes, "Boys will be boys." It's the ex who said, "Hey, if I'm paying, I decide." It's everywhere. And honestly, most men, I'll give them. They don't even see it. But it also benefits them to not see it.
Now, the second, control as proof of love, right? He doesn't say, "I'm trying to control you." That's way too direct. He doesn't even think he's controlling you because he feels entitled. He just says, "I'm worried about you." He says, "I don't like that guy friend." Right? And he just calls it boundaries, right? "My boundary is I don't want to be in a relationship with someone who has guy friends." Almost like men don't trust men. Huh? He doesn't want you to post that picture. And it's not because it's actually inappropriate. It's because other men might look. You're his. Suddenly, you're tracking your own behavior to avoid upsetting him, and you're calling it respect. And I'm telling you, at first, I hear women say, "Oh, it feels flattering, like protective even, right? He's invested." But then it grows kind of slow. You stop wearing what you used to love. You stop talking to people that you cared about. You shrink yourself to avoid upsetting him. And he's going to tell you it's because he loves you. But love doesn't require obedience. It also doesn't punish independence. And his love does. This guy doesn't want a partnership. He wants a possession.
Well, this brings me to the third one. Weaponized emotional fragility. And this one, ooh, it's sneaky, right? It looks like vulnerability. And as women, the truth is, we're taught to reward that, right? Ooh, he's emotionally mature. He's the guy that tells you about his pain early in the relationship, about his trauma, his awful ex, his mom, his fears. So, when you finally speak up for yourself, it kind of hits a wall, right? You're told maybe you've triggered him. You're being mean. You're just like everyone else. You're tiptoeing through all the conversations. You're managing his mood. You kind of soften like a woman is supposed to. You rehearse what to say and when to say it. You second guess whether your boundary is going to hurt his feelings. And suddenly all of your arguments are about him and his feelings, never about what he did. It's going to be all about your reactions. You're the one that's doing all the repair work, and he's sitting here like he had nothing to do with it. We see this as like emotional depth and maturity, but it's manipulation. He just dresses it up and calls it honesty, but it's performative pain.
Now, the fourth, the manosphere. No, it is not a conspiracy theory. It's real. It's huge. It's growing. Men are literally being coached. Coached on how to manipulate women. They're told to pull away, to build desire, to punish bad behavior, to never apologize, to never show emotion, never validate. And I have a video that goes into way more detail on this called "He Studied How to Break You." Men are being taught how to pull away, to build desire, to punish bad behavior, like you're an animal, to never apologize, never show emotion, never validate. Because the moment that they do, they've lost frame. And the worst part, it is not just some anonymous trolls on a Reddit thread. This is men with podcasts, huge followings, TikTok channels, book deals, YouTube platforms reaching millions. And they call it male empowerment, right? But what they're really teaching is how to emotionally destabilize a woman just enough to keep her chasing them.
Now, Laura Bates, in "Men Who Hate Women," a book that basically traumatized me on an airplane, shows how these spaces really radicalize young men to see women as the enemy. And I'm telling you, it is not an exaggeration. It is the foundation. Read that book at your own risk. Okay? These men, they don't want connection. They want power, and they are being taught exactly how to get it from each other. They don't say abuse, they say discipline. They don't call it manipulation. They call it being in control. They believe this. They rebrand dominance as confidence. They teach each other how to lead by withholding, punishing, and ignoring. This is not a relationship. It's a power play. It's emotional abuse, but with like a nice filter and a subscriber count.
Now, Chuck Derry, who's done powerful work in violence prevention, he was the founder of the Gender Violence Institute. I interviewed him once. It was incredible. He puts it really simple. Men abuse women because they can, because it benefits them. I'm going to link an article that he wrote in the caption. It will blow your mind. And Chuck's right. They get sex, attention, domestic labor, your silence. They don't have to grow. They don't have to listen. And they don't have to give, but they get loyalty. And you get blamed for having basic needs. And that's why they do it. It's really not that deep. It's exactly why it's so dangerous.
You stopped sleeping, talking, trusting yourself, and still you stayed. You convinced yourself there had to be a reason. He said he loved you, so it had to be something else, right? Maybe he didn't mean it. Maybe it was the stress, his past, your fault. You weren't looking for a way out. You were looking for a way to like make it all make sense. And every time you think this isn't normal, he'll give you just enough to make you question yourself again. And that's not you being naive. That's him being calculated. You didn't pick him. He conned you. And it happens to so many people. And to be fair, it happens to men, too.
But this is why the culture protects men like him because it rewards them. When a woman speaks up, we're told we're too bitter, too angry, too old, too feminist, too much. And it's all designed just to keep you small, to shut you up. Because when enough women start finally telling the truth, especially the women over 35, the whole thing starts to unravel. So that's why they have this built-in defense mechanism that nobody should listen to a woman over 35 anyway.
So let me say this crystal clear. For the woman who still loves him, who thinks he didn't mean it. He is not confused. He knows exactly what he's doing. And you, you're not broken. You've been targeted. You are reacting normally to being manipulated. Stop explaining yourself. Stop justifying his behavior. He heard you. He understands you. He doesn't care. You were just taught to see his potential instead of the actual pattern happening in front of you. You were trained to call his cruelty his trauma, to make yourself smaller so he could feel big. But now you're waking up. And hello, that's dangerous to him because it means you might leave.
But you don't need a label to leave. You don't need a diagnosis to heal. You don't need closure from someone who benefits from your confusion. It doesn't matter if he's a narcissist. If you're ready to stop spinning in the why and just start finally focusing on you, you can join my trauma bond recovery course. You can work with me privately or in my live group coaching that I host with Dr. Peter Solano. That's where we start breaking the addiction, one honest truth at a time. We stop calling it love when it was never that to begin with.
Comment if this is your story. Share it if you're done making excuses for men who hate women. And subscribe if you're ready to just stop calling it narcissism and start calling it what it really is: misogyny, entitlement, a system. It ends when you stop playing along.