Abusive relationships function like a cult. Here's why that matters.

How patriarchy and abusive men co-create relationships that are nearly impossible to leave

Abusive relationships are cults. They center around powerful leaders who distort their followers’ thoughts and feelings, rendering them progressively more dependent on the abusive leader. The men at the center of abusive romantic relationships gaslight their partners to the point of brainwashing, exerting control over their partners’ sense of self, relationships, and most private thoughts and feelings. These relationships cults, much like religious cults, thrive because of the social dynamics that enable them. If you’re born into a cult, you’re far more likely to join another, which is why we often see generation after generation of women abused by men.

It’s also why we tend to see generation after generation of women who believe their abusive partners really love them, who think the abuse isn’t abuse at all, or who believe that if they could only be different, their partners would change.

This isn’t just an attention-grabbing reframing of abuse dynamics. It has real import for understanding, grappling with, and ultimately upending the myriad horrors of abusive relationships.

We’ve seen over and over again how religious cults manipulate sexuality and romance to control their followers. But the dynamics in abusive romantic relationships are substantially similar to those of cults.

What abusive relationships share in common with cults

Cults work by tearing down a person’s sense of self, then replacing the person’s values and personality with the cult’s philosophy. When we look at the hallmarks of cults, it becomes apparent that the typical exploitative heterosexual relationship is distinguishable from a cult only by the number of participants:

• Authoritarian control: Patriarchal men believe they should have total autonomy—as much free time, money, and resources as they want. And society supports them in that belief, suggesting that equality is not possible, or that it’s the woman’s fault if the relationship is unequal. Over time, this evolves into authoritarian control, especially if the woman stops working and becomes financially dependent. In many abusive marriages, the children are the ultimate weapon. An abusive family court system ensures that even dangerous men get some custody of their children. Men weaponize mothers’ protective instincts, using the children to trap them even when no other tactics would work.

• Isolation: Patriarchy teaches women that their relationships with men are more important than any other. So women spend less time with their friends and family, robbing them of the social support they’ll need if they ever leave. Abusive men encourage this isolation, and may even police women’s relationships and time. Marriage and motherhood are themselves isolating, demanding so much work that it’s nearly impossible to sustain meaningful outside relationships.

• Charismatic leader: It’s hard to see most patriarchal men as charismatic, given the low overall value they bring to women’s lives. But patriarchal socialization encourages women to overvalue men, such that they perceive any man who appears to like them as charismatic. Isolation and brainwashing over time make the man appear more charismatic.

• Extreme beliefs: The mundane patriarchal beliefs most marriages demand include: that a woman must give up her name and give her husband’s name to the children she births; that a woman’s time matters less than a man, and that there is no scenario in which she can reasonably expect a man to contribute equitably to household and parenting labor; that women owe men more support, love, and forgiveness than men give them; that it is unreasonable for women to have any standards or needs; that women who have just given birth must care for men who are fully capable of caring for themselves; that women owe men sex, and that if they don’t deliver on this requirement, they can’t expect basic decency in return; that men’s failings are all accidents warranting immediate forgiveness; that there is no amount of sacrifice from a woman that is too great; and that women are entitled for having needs. These extreme, bizarre beliefs are normalized in patriarchal marriages, to the point where most people do not even realize: 1) that their lifestyles manifest these beliefs; 2) that these beliefs are deeply oppressive.

• Love-bombing: Men love-bomb women to attract them, and sometimes to keep them. Because women get so little love in a patriarchal society, though, the amount of love-bombing most women require is depressingly small. For many women, a half-hearted apology is all it takes for her to overlook years of abuse.

• Economic exploitation: Economic exploitation is a hallmark of heterosexual marriage. Even when both parties work outside the home, as is the norm in most marriages, then man typically earns more because of widespread economic abuse of women. Household labor exploitation allows him to solidify his earning power as he destroys hers. He may cut off her access to family finances, and try to control her spending, especially if she stays home with the children. There’s another layer of economic exploitation, too: leaving a bad marriage is extremely expensive, especially if you have to fight for your kids and have been a stay at home parent. The worst men will use the court system as a further tool of economic abuse.

• Hostility to outsiders: A sure sign that a man hopes to set up a cult of two is that he is hostile to outside beliefs (especially feminism) and that he spends time extolling the virtues of men and manhood. This functions as a form of authoritarian isolation and brainwashing that holds women captive.

• Coercive persuasion: Cult leaders do not typically use overt physical violence to control participants. The coercion and the threat of violence are more subtle, manifesting in the threat of withdrawal of love, abandonment, or financial ruin. We intuitively understand how cults can dominate and control a person without physical violence, yet for some reason we struggle to accept the presence of this very same domination in heterosexual relationships. Roughly 20% percent of romantic relationships are violent; the remainder use the threat of violence, the mundane fact of violence against women, as a subtle weapon.

While anyone can be susceptible to a cult, certain life experiences make a person more vulnerable by causing them to normalize abnormal behavior. Those risk factors include a history of abuse or neglect, being in an emotionally fragile state, and low social support.

These risk factors also increase the risk of entering and staying in an abusive relationship. And critically, they’re the circumstances that patriarchy deliberately nurtures in women. From birth, we socialize girls to be emotionally dependent, to eschew relationships with women in favor of scraps from men. We systematically deprive women of social support, while demanding that they give endlessly. And in a patriarchy, almost all women have experienced some form of abuse.

No wonder so many women normalize, or don’t even notice, abusive behavior. This is a political problem that allows individual men to become cult leaders to individual women. As with everything else in patriarchy, these dynamics persist because they benefit men.

How abuse disrupts the ability to escape

Abusive relationships have a fairly predictable life cycle:

1. In the early months and years, a woman will not see the relationship as abusive. Thanks to love-bombing and patriarchal socialization, she may actually see her relationship as the best she has ever had. This encourages her to trust in her partner and become even more dependent—by rushing into marriage and children, by quitting her job, by abandoning her friends and family.

2. Over time, the abuse may become more apparent, especially after children arrive. He might start hitting or verbally abusing her. Maybe he’ll mistreat the kids. Sometimes the abuse is subtle: exploiting her time and labor so he can relax. These more subtle forms of abuse tend to take much longer to recognize. As this abuse appears, a woman may recognize the behavior as harmful, but continue to believe that he means well, that she can fix things in therapy or with better communication, or that he just “loses control” but is still a “nice guy.”

3. If she’s lucky, she may eventually awaken to the reality of her relationship. But this is just the beginning, because by the time there are kids and financial dependency, she may be stuck for years.

We can see how at each stage of these relationships, brainwashing and patriarchal conditioning entrap women. Even as a woman begins to see her relationship for what it is, though, the cult mentality can kick in:

• She may rely on her husband as a source of legal advice, believing him when he says he’ll leave her penniless and take the kids rather than consulting her own lawyer.

• She may listen to and believe the things he tells her about herself.

• She may second-guess herself as a parent.

• She may listen to people who endorse the abuse she receives, and who share her patriarchal conditioning.

• She may fall easily and quickly for disingenuous apologies and faux displays of remorse.

To outsiders, especially those who have rejected patriarchal conditioning, her behavior won’t make sense. Those who refuse to see the role of patriarchy may blame her, pretend the abuse is insignificant, or even encourage her to stay.

The mass delusion of patriarchy

The United States has a long and sordid history with religious cults, resulting in thousands of deaths and untold harms to families and communities. This may be because of the religious fervor that, compared to other wealthy nations, holds such a tight grip on our country. Children are socialized to normalize extreme religious beliefs, and to suspend much more disbelief than they might learn to if they lived elsewhere.

A similar dynamic exists with abusive relationships within a patriarchy. From birth, women living in patriarchal societies are enculturated to normalize and accept violence. Our wider culture learns to devalue women, too. So that which should be obvious—that men should competently parent the children they made; that women’s time is as valuable as men’s; that sex is not an entitlement for anyone; that men owe women as much care as women give them—becomes controversial, even radical.

Put simply: patriarchal societies obscure reality and destroy critical thinking. They cause people in abusive relationships to see their relationships as normal, even loving and healthy. And they cause those on the outside to minimize the abuse, blame the victim, or insist that women can communicate their way out of abuse or get something better through couples counseling.

When cult members try to leave, they often get little help, and are repeatedly love-bombed and reeled back in. Then, there’s a mass suicide or homicide and everyone shrugs their shoulders and wonders why.

Women in abusive relationships almost never get help. Friends and family tell them to give him another chance, or insist that he seems nice. They tell women marriage is hard and requires work, that they must communicate more or go to therapy. Victims’ parents and families routinely side with the abuser. As a result, simply recognizing that a relationship is in fact abusive is a Herculean effort that can take decades—not that society rewards the work this demands. When women seek help from the courts, they’re more likely to be punished than helped. And then, when he finally kills her, or attacks her children, what do we do?

We ask why she didn’t leave sooner. We pretend that domestic violence victims are stupid, that they stay in their relationships because they don’t know any better, that if only they could make better decisions society would come to their rescue.

It’s a mass delusion that enables the many individual delusions of abusive relationships.

The truth as a powerful antidote

Families with loved ones in cults often talk about deprogramming. Because, of course, the truth is a potent disinfectant when you’re being abused—whether it’s a religious sect or a relationship.

Women in a patriarchy need the truth, which is something like this:

It is abuse to steal your time and your life. He never has to lay a hand on you to abuse you. And keeping you with him by threatening to take your kids or impoverish you is an act of abuse, too. Patriarchy doesn’t need every man to beat or kill his spouse to control women, because the threat of violence lurks in every patriarchal relationship. If he becomes violent—physically, emotionally, or sexually—he’ll probably try to gaslight you into believing you deserve it, and it will likely work. Abusers always believe their victims deserve it. But the truth is there is nothing you could ever do that would make a normal, non-abusive person abuse you.

This isn’t what we tell women. Instead, we teach them to over-value relationships with men, pursuing them and overlooking red flags, and staying at almost all costs. We tell them to go to therapy, to communicate better or differently, to read Fair Play. Buy my course. Try my tool. Spend ten years in therapy with me. We exploit them for capitalist gain, promising them a path out of abusive patriarchal relationships.

But there is no individual escape hatch from patriarchy, and no specific strategy a woman can adopt to deserve better treatment from an individual man—or society as a whole. Political problems require political solutions. And the only viable solution to an abusive relationship—whether with patriarchy or with a patriarchal man—is to find a way to get out. If he wanted to do better, he would. If he wanted to treat her like a person, he would.

This is a less appealing message than a quick fix. But the truth is never as simple as a lie.

It’s still the most potent tool we have to break free of the cult of patriarchy. We cannot solve a problem until we know what the problem is. And the problem has never been women’s poor communication, or bad relationship skills, or failure to give men a chance or invest in proper self-help.

Patriarchy teaches us to think irrationally. Being honest about what patriarchy is and how it works is the first step out—even when the truth is ugly, there’s no easy path forward, and little support for survivors.

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