Women’s Psychological Aggression Toward an Intimate Male Partner: Between the Impulsive and the Instrumental

Impulsive Aggression

As mentioned, impulsive aggression is characterized by a loss of control over anger, which is commonly manifested by an eruption of shouting, screaming, and throwing or breaking objects. First are three descriptions of the inner mechanism of low self-control following what some women have phrased as “the need to let off steam,” which precedes the outbursts:

It was sheer hot temper. You do not control yourself. You know how it is with a balloon; you blow into it and blow into it, until one day it explodes. It is a process that you cannot control. . . . He would start and I would follow. (Mrs. T)

There are men that think all the power is in their hands, and in cases like mine, you swallow and swallow and swallow. It becomes like a volcano or a snowball that gathers speed and at some point crashes. That’s what happens to me: I feel like a volcano that at one point spits out its lava. (Ms. S)

It is a whole set of circumstances, where one thing adds on top of another, and another, and at some point it all comes out and explodes in a way that is wrong. (Ms. J)

Using metaphors of tension building and eruption phenomena, these three accounts express the simple tension build-up mechanism, whereby feelings of anger and hostility add up to a point that needs release, suggesting a lack of agency over one’s contribution to the aggressive dynamic. This mechanism of feeling that is exacerbated over time, adding layer upon layer of tension to the point of outburst, fits Lenore Walker’s (1979) model of the “cycle of violence,” which was one of the first attempts to capture battering men’s emotional escalation mechanisms and pathways to a violent assault.

The next two accounts share what follows such an outburst of anger and its aftermath:

We would argue and I would ask him, “are you waiting for the monster to come out of me?!” And I felt the answer was yes, and when I used to lose it, it wouldn’t be pleasant. I would scream and throw whatever came close to my hand—plates, glasses, whatever I would grab I would throw . . . and he would leave the house and run away. (Ms. R)

I remember an incident where we had a fight and I left the house for my parents. On the way I tried to call him and he wouldn’t answer which got me even more upset. So I returned home, but he was in the house with a friend, binge drinking. I walked straight to him, took all their alcohol and poured it down the kitchen drain . . . He obviously commented about it and I got angrier, so I knocked down the mirror on the wall before me, and it broke into pieces all over the floor. Only then, after doing all of this, could I calm down. But only after I had let it all out . . . every last bit of it! (Ms. G)

Ms. R. accounted for her impulsiveness by attributing a negative intention to her husband (i.e., “are you waiting for the monster to come out of me?!” And I felt the answer was yes). Such an interpretation of one’s partner’s ill intentions is also known from early CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) interventions with perpetrating men, whereby one’s cognitive tendency in a conflict is toward the negative framing of situations that consequently escalate anger. Similarly, Ms. G’s returning to conflict after initially detaching reflects her difficulty to de-escalate, which leads her to smash the wall mirror. In her words, she describes how this impulsive act released the tension that had built up inside her, allowing her to regain control over her anger.

A further episode of impulsive behavior is Ms. Z’s response to a futile argument with her husband about money-spending priorities, and describing her feeling of being financially dependent as a “trap.” She opted out in the following way:

As I left the house I saw his car and a chair standing next to it. I don’t know how it came together, but I had this rage. I stepped out of the front gate, lifted this chair, which was made of wood and steel, and I started hammering it over the car’s front window. And as it finally smashed to pieces, I started going around and breaking every single window of his car. I broke them all! He stood there behind the fence yelling “ I am calling the police!,” and I screamed back, cursed him, and threw the chair at him, though it fell to the ground and broke. I think I was bleeding, I can’t fully remember. I went away crying, walked down the street and called my brothers . . . (Ms. Z)

This event seems severe in both its impulsive energy (“I don’t know how it came together, but I had this rage”) and in its material aftermath damage. Ms. Z told of other severe events of aggressive behavior which she claimed were rooted in her rough childhood with a battering father who was at times in prison, in a neighborhood where street and family violence were a standard norm. Yet, eccentric as it may be in its behavioral sense, it is similar in its pattern to events described above: an impulsive, emotionally charged reaction, characterized by poor ability to modulate anger, and to de-escalate thoughts and behavior, whether through a negotiation with the other side or by the perpetrator’s one-sided unconditional action.

Instrumental Aggression

The following are women’s accounts of various tactics for retaliation, including the degradation of the partner, by using a more thought-out and emotionally contained method. From giving the silent treatment to ridiculing their partner’s masculine performances, the behavioral expressions of these women appear to be emotionally less heated, giving them a more deliberate and punitive character.

Ms. N, a mother of two, was financially independent and assertive. She described her husband as a domineering, emotionally dependent, and jealous man, quick to feel rejected by her. When telling about her way of dealing with his domineering style, she describes her moves, which again, suggest a lack of self-awareness for her agency in escalating the aggressive dynamic:

I felt that we were rather equal in this way; that one doesn’t need physical violence to abuse the other. Keeping quiet is also sufficient. There were many silent-treatments on my part. Not from his. Shortly after we had a fight, it was over for him. “Next!” is how he would put it; his point of view was—we had a fight, it was over and done! But I would not talk to him for long periods of time . . . there was even a period of six months that I totally ignored him. (Ms. N)

Ms. N speaks of the power she holds by being able to detach herself from her husband in the aftermath of conflicts. Although time and space are needed by many couples to cool off from an argument, ignoring a partner for a period of 6 months seems like a strategy of immense punitive power. By ignoring her husband in times of conflict, it seems she intentionally fuels his discomfort,

A similar strategy—hurting the partner by fueling his anxieties—is told by Mrs. A, another working mom who claimed she was married to a controlling husband:

What would upset him the most was when I didn’t answer him; when I used to ignore him! That would totally throw him off balance! Or not being home when I know he should be arriving, to take the children and go somewhere without letting him know where we are . . . that would get him started: “Where are you?!! Why don’t you call me”?!! I could also do things on purpose, like dress-up really nicely for work, with make-up and high heels, as a response to his accusations of me being unfaithful. (Mrs. A)

Mrs. A told of her motivation to get-back at her husband by consciously plotting her steps. Like Ms. N, realizing his vulnerability as a suspicious and controlling partner, she stressed his tendency to feel disregarded, thereby propelling his anxiety. Her behavior and retaliating motivations consequently escalate the conflict.

Another passive-aggressive strategy for retaliating and causing emotional distress was by stopping or refraining from doing domestic roles, or denying the partner certain taken-for-granted privileges that are common in a co-habiting relationship. Mrs. S, a woman who ran the household, described such a dynamic:

I stopped functioning as a housewife: I stopped preparing food for him, I only made food for the children, and I would make food and hide it from him. Since he was the one who bought the food, he would say “I bought this food and it’s my right to eat here.” I would say “No, it’s not! Make your own food; there is food in the fridge, make it yourself!.” That would make him crazy. . . . I also stopped doing his laundry. I would do everyone’s laundry but his; I would leave his clothes untouched. So if he got up in the morning and realized he had no clean underwear, he would threaten “I will not let you use the laundry machine!” (Mrs. S)

In her retaliation strategy of stepping-back from and denying him the privileges that are commonly exchanged among co-habiting couples, Mrs. S describes how withholding and refusing interaction was functional in getting him upset. One may see a sense of entitlement that this man expresses regarding his right to eat what his wife has prepared, or the legitimacy of Mrs. S’s nonviolent act of stepping-back from the couple’s division of labor. In turn, if the husband was to limit the food he bought to the exclusive disposal of himself and the children, or exclude himself from, for example, his role as the family driver or handyman, would such acts not be defined as psychological aggression? Such abstention from roles and marginalization of rights has a passive-aggressive quality and can go both ways. In this case, her behavior disrupts her partner’s life routine and embodies a dismissive message that seems counter-productive for solving the conflict.

One other group of events describes situations whereby women verbally provoke and directly insult their male partner. The following examples include invalidating the partner’s intelligence, his family of origin, or his masculinity through hostile and toxic remarks that tend to undermine a person’s sense of worth.

Mrs. Y portrayed her grown-up life as a grand mistake, succumbing to her mother’s disapproval of her true love and ending up marrying the wrong partner. Although she held a graduate degree and directs a medical service, her husband was a blue-collar worker with only basic formal education, a power gap that became a recurrent theme for putting him down:

He works all day under serious heat; he’s a blacksmith and often comes home complaining he’s had a hard day. When I tell him I also had a hard day, he dismisses it by saying “Yeh, you sit all day under your air-conditioner . . .”; and I say, “Wow, look here, I am not to blame that your mother didn’t have the means to invest in you and your education!!.” I tell him “you’re illiterate!.” Why should he be the only one to humiliate?! I am more educated than he is! He will tell me that I am mentally ill. “Who the hell do you think you are?” I tell him: “Your family is a bunch of mentally ill people and you are illiterate!”; and he replies by shouting back “You are constantly condescending! You think you’re something better . . . !” (Mrs. Y)

Here, as described, is a trivial dynamic of mutual lack of empathy that Mrs. Y and her husband share for one another’s self-pity. Responding to his remark about her privileged physical working conditions, she escalates the conflict by invalidating his family of origin as having no vision for their children’s future. Her remarks imply her family is better, and by labeling him “illiterate” she expresses her opinion of him as a flawed outcome of a flawed family. The hurtful and invalidating qualities of her remarks are self-evident in her husband’s response.

Whereas degrading her husband for belonging to a mentally ill and illiterate family is a gender neutral “flaw” that can go either way, highlighting a man’s inability to fulfill fundamental male-expected roles are more gender particular in their vulnerability for men:

I would tell him he’s a loser, because he is! He’s a zero! He could not get rid of his addiction; he could not support us as a family breadwinner! I should have told him that as well, and I am sorry I never did, but even a child he wasn’t capable of making. So he was a zero! He had a whole complex about that, so I would never tell him such a thing, I still had some consideration for his feelings . . . (Ms. B)

In linking her husband’s inability to work and earn a salary to his being worthless as a man, Ms. B highlights his deficient manhood: he could not support the family, could not step-out of his drug addiction, and could not perform sexually. Breadwinning, being in control, and being sexually competent are three basic, aspired gender roles that men want to project and be recognized for. And so, by mirroring her partner’s multiple masculine insufficiencies, she irritates his pride, a strategy that seems poignant and disparaging.

By similar logic, Mrs. C deters her husband from mistreating her and threatens to publicly expose his sexual impotence:

I knew how to use his sexual impotence very well. In times when he would verbally question my self-worth I would tell him “what are you worth?! We both know you can hardly get it up and standing!.” Say such a thing to a man and you’ve brought him down, as low as it can get! And I used that as a threat several times, telling him that if he keeps on treating me badly I will go ahead and share this with people in our community, the men in our community—and I wasn’t afraid to do so! (Mrs. C)

As Mrs. C rightfully mentioned, being sexually impotent can be a major soft spot for some men, and therefore the failure to perform in intimate sexual situations can be a powerful tool for a woman to either devaluate a man’s self-worth, or to gain control through the threat of public shaming. In realizing the potential anxiety her husband might experience in this matter, Mrs. C threatens him by “letting everyone know,” a load of potential embarrassment that proved, in her words, to be a powerful deterring mechanism.

Theoretical Implications

At times of emotional arousal in a frustrating conflict, psychological aggression is a common mode of behavior that is perceived as a relatively moderate and less harmful tactic for a person to achieve his needs. Between the impulsive and the instrumental ways of aggressive behavior, some people have a tendency for one or the other that may unfold in different potential scenarios.

One scenario, for example, may be an escalation to physical violence directly from instrumental aggression tactics. If instrumental psychological aggression promotes the desired outcome, the conflict may be resolved and likely end. If the desired outcomes are not achieved, one might directly escalate to physical assault. Yet, another more likely scenario is that one party, feeling frustrated and emotionally aroused, will turn to the impulsive mode (e.g., shouting, screaming, throwing, or breaking artifacts).

That said, it is likely that, in real life, impulsive or instrumental aggression are not enacted in their pure and exclusive form, but rather interplay according to the unfolding of the conflict. In other words, impulsive aggression is likely to follow the failed outcomes of the instrumental approach, because most people try to promote their interest vis-à-vis their partner without losing their temper and control over their behavior. If the desirable outcome is not achieved by instrumental psychological means, the level of frustration elevates, ability for self-control is challenged, and impulsive psychological dynamics may unfold, thus elevating the chances for physical assault. A third scenario is also possible—especially for highly agitated individuals with low self-control—whereby, a conflict is initially addressed with an impulsive reaction which, if proved inefficient, heightens the risk for escalating to physical violence.

Each one of the three scenarios may represent a person’s tendency vis-à-vis the issue of control: A need to control the partner may mainly be exhibited in instrumental tactics that requires an ability for self-control, and a low ability to control the other and/or low ability to self-control, will more likely fuel the impulsive.

The clinical character of the sample influenced the types of women, the types of violence, and, as mentioned above, the story-constructions we heard. Accordingly, and due to the high prevalence of psychological aggression in the general population, there remains a need for future studies about women’s aggression with community samples, with women who do not see themselves as primary victims.

Implications for Practice

This article has described some elements in the mechanism of women’s psychological aggression that may or may not lead to physical violence, have severe consequences on people’s well-being, and represent various problems in a couple’s problem-solving skills. Psychological aggression may also cover for more essential problems in couples’ relationships, and therefore—whether passive or active, covert or overt—should always be an important target for intervention. Giving attention to, and discussing with, IPV clients their tendency for impulsive or instrumental aggressive behavioral expression may refine intervention focus and goals and improve intervention relevancy and results. Although aggressive expressions are usually not purely impulsive or instrumental (one type may become the other and vice versa), screening for a person’s prior interactions in IPV conflicts will reveal his or her inclination to one of the two.

First, the in-depth qualitative look into various psychological aggressions may assist practitioners in widening their view of and seeing through the more subtle and indirect nuances of psychological aggression, helping them identify them as aggressive behavior with some destructive impact. Second, the findings of this research differentiated between two types of psychological aggression and may help in the screening of aggressive women clients and indicate the need for a more deliberate intervention focus with them. For example, women like Ms. J and R, who described moments of impulsively losing control, may benefit mostly from a focus on anger management and emotional regulation (e.g., time-out technique, awareness to negative interpretation of neutrals situations). For women like Ms. N, who may ignore their partners for months, or Mrs. S, who absented her husband from the family table, a focus on attitudes concerning aggressive problem-solving might be a useful central goal. Assuming that instrumental aggression on the part of men reflects a higher level of one’s functioning when compared with impulsive personalities (Stanford et al., 2008; Winstok & Perkis, 2009), we may find that instrumental aggressive women might similarly have the psychological ability to appreciate, and the cognitive ability to utilize, nonaggressive conflict resolution tactics.

Both intervention focuses (i.e., emotional regulation skills and changing of attitudes toward conflict resolution) have the potential to de-escalate couple conflicts and enhance women’s assertiveness, whether by channeling anger into assertive negotiation or by learning the power of persuasive arguments.