We’ve all come across the phrase, “Hurt people hurt people.” It’s often repeated in conversations around trauma, personal growth, and emotional healing. While there is some truth in the idea that unaddressed wounds can shape how we relate to others, this phrase becomes dangerously misleading when applied to domestic abuse.
Survivors are frequently told that their partner is “damaged,” that they “can’t help it,” or that their abusive behaviour stems from unresolved trauma. These explanations often come from friends, counsellors, or even from the abuser themselves: They didn’t mean to hurt you — they’re just wounded. But what if that perspective completely misses the point?
Decades of evidence and insight from domestic violence experts reveal something very different. Abuse isn’t the result of emotional instability. It’s not a lack of control. It’s a deliberate choice, an exercise in power.
Why Trauma is Not the Cause of Abuse
One of the most common and harmful misunderstandings is the belief that abuse arises directly from unhealed trauma, particularly traumatic childhoods or exposure to violence in the home. While such experiences can certainly increase the likelihood of emotional struggles, they do not directly cause someone to become abusive.
The reality is that many people who experienced childhood violence or neglect go on to live non-violent lives. And plenty of abusive individuals report no traumatic background at all. Being harmed in the past never justifies harming someone else in the present.
This is equally true when it comes to mental health. While some abusers may meet the criteria for conditions like narcissistic or antisocial personality disorder, many do not. And those who do are still accountable for how they treat others. Mental illness may coincide with abuse, but it does not excuse it.
Researcher Donald Dutton has shown that some abusers display emotional traits rooted in early life — such as fear of abandonment and fragile self-concept. While these factors may influence how someone forms relationships, they do not erase the reality of choice. Most abusers carefully select how, when, and to whom they are abusive — often acting with restraint in public or around people in authority. The issue isn’t lack of control, but lack of willingness.
Some will say they have PTSD, or disclose stories of being abused themselves. These accounts may be genuine, but they’re often used to win sympathy or shift blame. As abuse expert Lundy Bancroft notes: “If their story is being used to justify mistreating you, it’s a distortion.”
Abusers often rewrite their own history, portraying themselves as betrayed or damaged, not to heal but to excuse their actions. For anyone supporting survivors, it’s essential to ask: Is this person sharing their pain to recover — or to rationalise causing harm?
The Myth of the “Wounded Abuser”
It’s easy to assume that someone lashes out because they’re broken or overwhelmed — especially when they speak about a painful past or emotional struggles. For many survivors, this can lead to deep internal conflict: If I could just be more loving, more patient, more compassionate, maybe they’ll stop hurting me.
But this way of thinking is dangerous. It downplays the real harm being done. It shifts attention away from the abuser’s actions and onto their feelings. It allows deliberate cruelty to be explained away as emotional confusion.
Professionals who have worked extensively with abusive individuals — like author and counsellor Lundy Bancroft — repeatedly point out that most abusers function quite normally in psychological terms. They’re not lost in emotional chaos. They’re not unaware of their impact. They are acting on deeply held beliefs: I have the right to control you. I am entitled to punish you. Your needs don’t matter if they conflict with mine.
Even when traits like emotional volatility or attachment wounds exist — as Dutton’s research acknowledges — they still don’t override the capacity for self-control. These traits may help illuminate certain tendencies, but they don’t dictate a person’s decisions. Abuse is never an automatic outcome.
Abuse is Strategic, not a Sudden Snap
One of the biggest misconceptions about abuse is that it’s driven by sudden bursts of rage — an emotional explosion. But the truth is, domestic abuse usually isn’t about isolated moments. It’s almost always about a sustained pattern of control that gradually takes over the survivor’s daily reality.
Sociologist Evan Stark calls this coercive control — a strategic process that chips away at a person’s autonomy and safety. It can look like isolating someone from their support network, micromanaging finances, monitoring phone use, undermining their parenting, rewriting their memories, withholding love, or mixing affection with threat.
What’s important to understand is that none of this is accidental. It’s all intentional. The abuser is crafting an environment where the other person feels uncertain, trapped, and powerless, all without necessarily leaving physical marks.
Abusive Behaviour Is Not a Loss of Control
A major indicator that abuse is intentional is how easily it can be switched off when the situation calls for it.
Survivors often describe how their partner can go from screaming and threatening, to suddenly calm and polite when someone else walks in. At home, they might break objects and shout, but in public, they’re composed and friendly. One day they share a tearful trauma story, the next they belittle you for being “too sensitive.”
It’s telling that when objects are smashed in a fit of rage, it’s usually your belongings — not theirs — that get destroyed. These aren’t random explosions. They’re calculated choices. The abuser knows what they’re doing. They know where the line is. And they know when to stop.
This ability to control their behaviour in front of others makes it clear: the abuse isn’t about losing control. It’s about using control.
Control Is Learned — Not Inborn
People aren’t born knowing how to dominate others — they learn it. Controlling behaviour is shaped by environment, culture, and messages absorbed over time.
Many abusive individuals grow up in families or societies where power, dominance, and entitlement are normalised, particularly in traditional gender roles. For example, boys might be taught to hide emotion, always be tough, or take charge at home. Girls might be told to please others, stay quiet, or tolerate bad treatment in the name of love.
Over time, these ideas harden into beliefs such as:
- “If they cross me, I need to put them back in line.”
- “I’m the one who makes the decisions.”
- “It’s not abuse, it’s discipline.”
- “They made me do it — I had to react.”
These mindsets don’t appear overnight. They’re absorbed from parents, peer groups, media, and social institutions that reward dominance and equate control with strength.
But absorbing harmful messages isn’t the same as acting on them. Plenty of people reject what they were taught and choose compassion and respect. Abusers choose something else — and that’s what matters.
Why Naming the Myth Matters
When we keep believing the myth of the “damaged abuser,” we excuse things that should never be excused. We end up placing more emphasis on the abuser’s past than on the survivor’s present safety. And we feed a cycle where survivors continue waiting, hoping, or blaming themselves for someone else’s deliberate cruelty.
If you’ve experienced domestic abuse, you need to know this: You didn’t cause it. You couldn’t have stopped it. And it didn’t happen because the person who harmed you was too wounded to know better. It happened because they felt entitled to hurt you — and they chose to do so.
Releasing the myth that “hurt people hurt people” doesn’t mean you’re heartless. It means you’re seeing clearly. You’re putting accountability where it belongs — not on the trauma, not on the pressure, and not on yourself — but on the one who made the decision to harm.
And that clarity is where your power begins.
References
Bancroft, L. (2002). Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men. Berkley Books.
Stark, E. (2007). Coercive Control: The Entrapment of Women in Personal Life. Oxford University Press.
Dutton, D. G. (2006). The Abusive Personality: Violence and Control in Intimate Relationships. Guilford Press.
Featured image: Trauma and domestic abuse. Source: whitestorm / Adobe Stock.
