Perhaps the most dangerous things for Hollywood to get wrong is how it portrays abusers. For stories, the abuser has to be fairly obvious and get straight to the violence. In truth, the abuser tests his victim and grooms them over a period of time before the abuse starts. It is only after the hooks are set that the abuse can begin. There are signs you can see that can warn you abuse is coming, and that is what I want to detail here.

The picture above is of Lee Maurer. He likes to beat on women because he thinks it makes him more of a man.

I did a blog about him last week, after he challenged me and then backed out when I accepted. That led to a few things happening, and the reason I am writing this.

First of all, his ex- girlfriend reached out to me and started telling me about the abuse, both physical and mental, she suffered at his hands. At the same time, since Lee Maurer’s Facebook account was suspended, he started using his current girlfriend’s account to message a page I help run. She swears that Maurer has never hit her and anything his many ex- girlfriends say has to be a lie.

But that is the thing, real abusers take time to set up their victims before they do anything. It is almost a dance as the abuser finds his victims, tests to see if they are likely to stick around after the abuse starts and then starts grooming her to play the role he wants.

Real abusers are rarely as obviously monsters as portrayed in fiction. Most of them are really charming, at first. No one would go near them if they showed their real face at the start of a relationship. It is only when the victim is dependent on them that they are free to cut loose.

I can see this with Lee Maurer’s current girlfriend. She is adamant that since he hasn’t hit her, that he just can’t be an abuser. As she wrote, trying to convince me, “He has never ever, even lifted a hand or raised his voice to me. This is all lies. Does he look like he is abusing me ? Didn't think so !!” (Well, I have reason to believe that it was again Lee Maurer using her account to message me to convince me he doesn’t hit her.)

Well, abusers never hit their victims until the first time.

Abusers unconsciously look for victims with low self esteem. If you don’t think you are worth much, you are more easily controlled. The best way to control victims with low self worth is to bombard them with affection. This is far different than how Hollywood portrays things. A woman that has never thought much of herself on some level suddenly having a man saying she is the best thing in the world is very hard to resist. Before she knows it, he has moved into her life and taken over, and she is glad for it. He makes her his entire world, and more importantly - he makes sure he is her entire world. Only then can he move to the next stage.

Things start out with the abuser making the victim give up some of their boundaries. They need a foot in the door, so it is probably something small at first. When they find something the victim feels uncomfortable doing, or goes against their beliefs, they will coax, tease and otherwise do their best to get them to do it anyways. It can be something like persuading a vegan to have a glass of milk. If it is too big at the start, they will balk. But once one boundary is down, the abuser is fairly certain he can bulldoze over any others.

At the same time, it is a type of test. If the vegan firmly puts down her foot, the abuser knows it probably won’t work with her and will likely move on to easier prey.

The next stage in this sick dance is isolation. Actually, from the start the abuser will start in on this, but after his victim has passed the test of not defending their boundaries he knows to ramp it up. Anyone that the victim can draw strength from or flee to must be distanced from.

It can take different forms, depending on the person and how deep into the dance you get. The abuser may do things like tell his victim that her best friend, the one she relies on to be there for her no matter the cost, has been hitting on him. Lee Maurer’s ex told me this, “After I was there he became increasingly more abusive. He refused let me find a job, or contact, my trusted friends and family. He refused to let me see my mother and daughter for Christmas.”

The above story is not surprising, but it is a later stage. At the start, isolation will probably take the form of love bombing. The abuser showers affection on his victim and asks for more and more of her time, which means that friendships get distanced. The abuser wants to be with the victim 24/7, and increasingly demands she cancel plans with her friends so he can show how much he loves her. He will possibly take care of her every need so she doesn’t have to work, because having her own source of income means she can afford a hotel room if she flees in the middle of the night. He will try to shower her with everything she needs, so that he can threaten to turn off the spigot at any time. His house is hers, because he wants the only other alternative to be homelessness. But all this is presented as the goodness he is doing for her.

Quiet a bit different from the knuckle dragging cave man fiction portrays abusers as, eh?

Some details may differ. He may let her work, but have other methods of control. Sometimes just the complete emotional control the abuser has is enough to keep them from running. They do often go after vulnerable women after all. But it is important to note that he will move fairly quickly to be in a position where her options get less and less.

There will be tests, and molding, along the way. The cycle will repeat itself, each one getting worse as the victim is groomed as the abuser desires and their means of leaving is slowly cut off.

But don’t expect it to be obvious. Good abusers hit their victims behind closed doors and not in public. As Lee Maurer’s ex said, “He constantly degraded me in private. Never in front of anyone.” Obviously, hitting people in public is bad as well. The abuser will act like a prince towards his victim in front of witnesses and like a devil out of sight of others. Good abusers are as skilled as molding unwitting allies as they are victims. It helps keep the victim in check since no one can believe that the charming and kind person they see could ever hit a woman.

And of course, sometimes scumbags hang out with scumbags that will cover for each other.

The tests will be escalations in the abuse. Insults and such for starters, then physical most likely. The first time an abuser hits his victim it will not send them to a hospital, and probably won’t even raise a bruise. He tests the water with a simple slap. Then he continues the dance by apologizing. He will probably blame something like stress at work, or the beer he was drinking. He will make promises to change, to go to therapy or whatever. He will plead, promise and maybe even threaten to kill himself unless the victim keeps him in their life.

And if the victim doesn’t walk out then and there, he knows he is free to take it to the next level. All the promises will be ignored and the isolation, control and abuse will only increase. Every time the victim seems likely to bolt after an escalation, the game of begging, promising, etc will repeat. I personally know of a case where after a victim came back from the ER after what the abuser did to them, instead of leaving, the abuser soon arranged for them to move to a city over an hour away.

The small pushes on the boundaries and controlling behavior will go up each time. Now the victim can’t have any social media, because he says he doesn’t want the men on her friend’s list to think they have a chance. He may demand she call him several times a day, maybe taking a picture to prove she is alone and at the house. Again, this will be weeks if not months or more into the dance, not at the start.

Where will it end? The abuser won’t stop escalating, ever. He will crush the spirit of his victim, and then take more. Fleeing is the only way a victim can avoid being abused. The abuser will not change. Many women will not leave a man because they say he will come around. But inside, they are afraid of being alone and having nothing, or maybe of him coming after her. The deeper into the abuse cycle, the greater the chance the abuser will stalk the victim that flees and do them harm. The sooner the victim gets out, the better than chances of safety. The key is to see the signs and run, not walk, from the relationship.

Lee Maurer’s ex told me what it took for her to leave. “Lee also uses verbal degradation and insults. He is into this sick bdsm s**t. I am not. When I refused he literally held me down, and forced himself on me, and beat me in the private area so badly with a belt... metal end that I have a scar now. I left two days after that. Snuck myself and all my things out before he ever woke up.”

Obviously, the word of an ex-girlfriend should be treated with a bit of suspicion. But when multiple women tell the same story of abuse, it is time to listen. In truth, Lee Maurer seems a rather incompetent abuser, failing to set his hooks in deep enough. He seems to go through 3-4 women every half year or so. It starts out with him lamenting the girl that left him, crying to his friends on Facebook how he still wants her. About two days after the last post about his ex, he announces he is deep into another relationship. Pictures of them flood his timeline for weeks, and then everything stops. Soon after that he starts crying again and the cycle continues. That tells me that he is good at the opening, but fails to fully isolate his victims, so they can still walk away. Part of his strategy seems to be to try to get females from out of state to come and live with him. That means that they have less friends on the ground in Detroit, but they probably still have friends and family that can wire them money for a bus ticket that he can’t work on to distance them from. As an example, the woman he is currently trying to groom as a victim is a 19 year old from Texas, now in Detroit of course, who a friend found an article detailing how she was found after running away from home at age 16. A troubled teen, far from all her family and friends, unable to even buy beer. She is a near- perfect victim in the making.

The ex- girlfriend I am quoting moved to another state to escape Maurer. She has PTSD, scars and is keeping her location secret to prevent him from ever finding her again. Some may say that she can’t be trusted, and Lee Maurer is calling her crazy, etc to the woman he is currently grooming as a victim. And yes, crazy exs do happen. But if you are going into a relationship with someone and he isn’t on speaking terms with even a single woman he used to date, isn’t that a big red flag?

Hollywood and fiction present the abuse as being early on and quick to recognize. They need to do so to let the audience know what is going on. In reality, it is more like how you boil a frog. Too much too soon and the frog will jump out. But if you slowly raise the temperature, you can get them to stay. Whether the grooming is conscious or unconscious is besides the point, it happens. When you see it happening, you need to get away. Some say that since it is not conscious, that we shouldn’t blame the abuser. I always blame the abuser and accept no excuses for the way they were raised or anything else to absolve them of responsibility.

This blog was based mainly on the book, “The Gift of Fear” by Gavin De Becker. There is much more in the book that can’t be covered fully in this piece you are reading. If you claim to teach self defense to women, you need to read the book. If you think a friend may be abused, you need to read this book. If you are reading this and you recognize several things in your relationship, you need to read the book. The book can be found at most library systems for those victims that aren’t allowed to have much money or maybe don’t want to have it lying around the house for the abuser to find.

Note- I referred to the abuse as “he” often in the article. But women can abuse as well. Because of the physical differences, female abuse tends to be more mental, with things like threats to commit suicide and such used to keep the victim in line.