Ok - so I am going to breakdown the psychology of abuse in 4 ways to try to make the "basic concept" easy to understand .. but please realize, this is only the mechanics of it, a person's unique set of circumstances plays a huge role as well n is always the "unknown factor".
Basic outline:
Perfection
Abuse
Remorse
Abuse
Apology
Amends
Perfection
Repeat
Defined Stages:
Honeymoon Stage: Everything is perfect. You could not imagine anything or anyone ever coming between you.
Escalation Stage: Little things that never bothered the abuser before, bother the abuser now. His or her volatile reactions to these things are the victim's fault. ("You should have known better.", "Can't you see nobody likes it when you do that?" etc) More and more of the hidden darker qualities of the abuser start coming to the surface, but as they surface, their existence becomes the victims fault. (anger, possessiveness, aggressive behaviors, etc) Even though it is bad, there are still enough "good times" to give a bit of hope and when abuse does happen, apologies come after. The victim thinks "If I can just change, we can go back to what we used to be." But no matter how much the victim changes - another change is always required to "make things better again" according to the abuser. The victim still hold out hope.
Explosive Stage:
By now, the victim has become totally isolated from all friends and family and is no longer self reliant but is financially dependent upon his or her abuser so feels trapped with nowhere to go and nobody to help. Abuse is full blown by now. There are no breaks and no apologies. The victim fully believes everything is his or her fault and is living in total fear and chaos. The abuser reminds the victim as much as possible how awful a person he or she is, how everyone left bc nobody wanted anything to do with the victim, and how the a user's actions are all the victim's fault. Threats are made as to what will happen if an escape is ever attempted. The threat may be bodily injury to the victim, someone the victim loves or sometimes to the abuser - or something the victim fears more, but it is always a very powerful control tactic.
Escape is actually the most dangerous time if abuse.
If a victim does not attempt escape - one day the victim will notice a change in the abuser.
Atonement Phase
The abuser will suddenly become apologetic and swear this will never happen again "if only" the victim will stay. The victim gets showered with gifts and praises. The victim feels like royalty.
Recycle to ...Honeymoon Phase - repeat all over again
Each phase may take weeks or months to cycle through so the victim doesn't even notice the transition, giving the abuser plenty of time to adequately manipulate the victim's mind (aka "brain wash") It has been compared by psychologists to the psychological warfare used on POWs.
How each stage is perceived by the abuser:
Honeymoon: "I need to put my victim at ease. I need to relax a bit too. I can make sure the unpleasant things are hidden away, we can stay happy."
Escalation Phase: "My victim has too many friends. Too much family. This has to stay just between us. I have to get my victim away from them. I can't let my victim continue on in the way he or she is bc I can no longer continue on in this way. It has to change. It has to change now. My victim must change."
Explosive Stage:
"Good. I finally got my victim away from everyone. Why won't my victim change? My victim has to change. I will make my victim change."
Atonement Stage:
"Omg, what did I do? No - this did not happen. I will make sure it did not happen. I will make it better."
Rinse n repeat to honeymoon stage.
Stages as perceived by the victim:
Honeymoon:
"Omg I can't believe I found such a wonderful person! I am so lucky! This is who I was searching for my entire life!"
Escalation:
"What's going on? Why is everything going wrong all the sudden? My (abuser) says I did it. I will change. I have to. I want to fix this. I want to go back to how we were. How did I screw it up so bad? God I wish I weren't such a screw up, I had the best person n I screwed it all up!"
Explosion:
"Omg, my (abuser) is right, I am a horrible person. Nobody likes me. I have no friends. None of my family will talk to me. I am all alone - and worse, I feel like a kid. I can't even survive on my own. My (abuser) has control of all my money. I can't leave. I have no money, no friends, no place to go - and my abuser threatened me. It's bad enough all the things my abuser already does - if my abuser did that, I would rather die. I will just stay."
Atonement:
"Wow! I thought my abuser was going to keep torturing me but my abuser realized what he/she was doing and apologized. Isn't that sweet? Take a lot to own up to something like that you know. My abuser must really love me. Plus .. look at all these wonderful gifts, and aww what wonderful things my abuser says to me! I love my abuser!"
Rinse n repeat to Honeymoon phase
To understand the dynamics of my specific case, you would have to understand I have helped him through a lot of psychological pain in the years we have been together - just not all of it. He was severely abused by his mom, dad, church and later in life by his brother n sister n niece. You would also need to understand the strain of the stress we live under daily. He was improving himself - but change takes time. Making new habits n new behaviors takes time. Put too much stress in the mix and that goes out the window. Finally - you would need to understand the last time he was in the mental health system they knowingly almost killed him and lied to him about other things so he does not trust the mental health system n is in fact scared of it. I have been working with him to allow him to see not all doctors within the mental health system are like that but that too - takes time. So yes, right now ... its a matter of he is stressed n does not know how to handle it n I am "there" but its killing me atm. I took worse from him before he was trying to do better for 5yrs though so I know I can withstand - I just need to vent and not be told "its your fault".
Does that make sense?