Red Flag Decoder: “If You Don’t Challenge Me, I Will Never Abuse You”

A rare insight into the belief system that drives coercive control

The Red Flag Decoder series takes real conversations, emails, and text exchanges drawn from across the internet. Each example is fully anonymised, with identifying details removed. The aim is to break down what is really being said beneath the surface, highlighting the red flags and the tactics at play so they can be recognised clearly for what they are.

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Background Context

Most of my Red Flag Decoder articles have looked at dating or early relationship red flags, typically involving subtle or covert manipulation. This one is different. It comes from an email sent by a man to his wife after many years of marriage, and the red flags are so glaring that they point to a woman living in significant danger.

The writer presents himself as the victim, then openly blames his wife for his abusive behaviour. Throughout the email, he justifies abuse, claims she causes it, and argues that she has a responsibility to prevent it by changing her own behaviour. Few messages reveal the abusive mindset this openly, making this an unusually clear example of the beliefs that drive coercive control.

These excerpts come from a five-page email. Alongside it, he included a list of 21 things she needed to apologise for, eight admissions he expected her to make, a long list of the value he believes he brought to the relationship versus the negative contributions he believes she brought, and a 16-point contract that he wanted her to sign. Together, they reveal an extraordinary level of entitlement, control, and misogyny.

You can view the 16-point contract that was included in the email here: https://substack.com/@shadowsofcontrol/note/c-277802609?

For those who feel concerned after reading it, you will be relieved to know that this woman managed to leave her husband safely.

The Email

“This doesn’t feel like a marriage this feels like a competition. I always feel like I’m just supporting and competing with a lesser person who has not accomplished half the things I have yet I am burdened with responsibility but no authority. I have never felt more disrespected and humiliated by someone in my entire life.

You need to realize you will never win a competition against me. If you go low, I’ll go lower. We are not equal. You should quit competing with me because I will always win.

You need to get this notion out of your head that I am a chronic abuser because I am not. There were women I was with who didn’t warrant a single ounce of abuse. You are the one who triggers abuse. If you don’t challenge me, I will never abuse you, you have yet to understand that. I am only choosing to respond with abuse because nothing else works.

Your notion of this socially progressive ideal that women are owed resources or protection and still should retain leadership and autonomy is completely wrong. The fair exchange for protection and providership is a degree of submission, yet you have never submitted.

You should learn that high testosterone men are attuned to status and hierarchy so when you challenge me, which almost all your actions inevitably do, it triggers a competitive or assertive response. This is completely up to you to understand and learn how to navigate this and how your actions trigger competition.

If you aren’t willing to figure that out, we should choose to separate.

For me to even consider taking you back, you need to relinquish control and follow all my listed rules.”

Understanding the Abusive Mindset Through the COERCES Framework

In my article about the abusive mindset, I introduced the COERCES framework to help explain the belief system that drives coercive control. Rather than focusing only on what abusers do, the framework explores what they believe. These are not isolated behaviours or random reactions. They reflect a structured worldview built around power, hierarchy, and justification.

Each letter represents a core feature of that mindset:

C – Control
O – Ownership
E – Entitlement
R – Righteousness
C – Competitiveness
E – Enmeshment
S – Superiority

What makes this email so extraordinary is that these beliefs are not hidden beneath the surface. He states them openly, explains them, and defends them. Together, they provide a rare window into the psychology of an abuser.

C – Control

“If you don’t challenge me, I will never abuse you.”

“For me to even consider taking you back, you need to relinquish control and follow all my listed rules.”

These statements make the demand for control explicit.

Control is the belief that they should be in charge and have the final say. It treats independence as disobedience and expects the other person to adapt.

Throughout this email, he presents abuse as something she can prevent if she behaves correctly. That framing is central to coercive control because it shifts responsibility for his behaviour onto her. He then goes even further by demanding that she relinquish control and follow rules that he alone has created. The relationship is organised around his authority, while her autonomy is treated as the obstacle that must be removed.

O – Ownership

“I am burdened with responsibility but no authority.”

“The fair exchange for protection and providership is a degree of submission.”

Ownership is the belief that your partner belongs to you. It treats them as something to possess rather than someone with equal autonomy, rights, and freedom.

These statements reveal that mindset clearly. He believes that what he provides gives him authority over her and that her role is to submit in return. He is no longer describing two people choosing how to build a relationship together. He is describing an arrangement in which one person acquires authority over the other because he believes the relationship gives him that right. She is no longer simply his partner. She becomes someone who should accept his authority because, in his mind, she belongs under it.

E – Entitlement

“Your notion... that women are owed resources or protection and still should retain leadership and autonomy is completely wrong.”

“You should learn that high testosterone men are attuned to status and hierarchy...”

Entitlement is the abuser’s belief that their needs, opinions, expectations, and preferences should take priority.

His argument assumes that the relationship should revolve around what he believes he deserves. He rejects equality as though it is an unreasonable expectation and argues that leadership naturally belongs to him. He even appeals to biology to make his expectations sound inevitable rather than chosen. His conclusion remains the same throughout the email: his worldview should define the relationship, while her expectations should be adjusted to fit his.

R – Righteousness

“You are the one who triggers abuse.”

“I am only choosing to respond with abuse because nothing else works.”

Righteousness is the belief that their behaviour is justified, even when it causes harm.

He openly admits that he chooses to abuse yet immediately presents it as reasonable because he believes she caused it. By placing responsibility for the abuse onto his wife, he protects his own self-image and avoids any need for accountability. His explanation becomes a justification, and that justification allows him to continue believing he is right.

C – Competitiveness

“This doesn’t feel like a marriage, this feels like a competition.”

“You will never win a competition against me… I will always win.”

Rather than seeking mutual understanding, abusers treat the relationship like a contest.

He defines the marriage as adversarial from the very beginning. Every disagreement becomes a struggle for power, and every difference of opinion becomes something to defeat. His goal is not to understand his wife or resolve conflict. His goal is to win.

E – Enmeshment

“Your notion... that women are owed resources or protection and still should retain leadership and autonomy is completely wrong.”

“This is completely up to you to understand and learn how to navigate this and how your actions trigger competition.”

Enmeshment is the belief that your partner is an extension of you rather than a separate, autonomous person. Their role is to think, behave, and respond in ways that support your emotional world rather than express their own.

These two statements reveal that mindset clearly. Because he does not fully recognise her as a separate person, her thoughts, choices, and autonomy are judged almost entirely by how they affect him. Her own inner world becomes secondary to his. He expects her to organise herself around his emotional reality rather than her own.

S – Superiority

“I’m competing with a lesser person who has not accomplished half the things I have yet...”

“We are not equal.”

Superiority is the belief that they are better than you and therefore deserve more power.

His claim that they are “not equal” may be one of the most revealing statements in the entire email. Healthy relationships begin with the assumption that both partners have equal worth, equal rights, and equal dignity. He rejects that assumption completely. Once equality disappears, dominance becomes much easier to justify.

The Trap

Messages like this are dangerous precisely because they sound structured, rational, and self-assured. He is not describing a loss of control. He is explaining why his behaviour is warranted.

That is what makes it persuasive. The language of ‘logic’ disguises what is actually being argued: that abuse is both justified and preventable, if she behaves correctly.

The trap is the gradual shift in responsibility. Instead of his wife asking “Why is he doing this?”, she may shift her focus to “What did I do to cause this?” Once that shift takes hold, the abuse is no longer the problem. Her behaviour is.

From there, self-monitoring takes over. She may begin adjusting her tone, her words, her reactions, trying to avoid crossing an invisible line that keeps moving. The relationship becomes organised around preventing his reactions rather than expressing her own reality.

This is how coercive control embeds itself. Not just through fear, but through a system that makes her responsible for managing it.

What’s True

Disagreement does not cause abuse. Being challenged does not cause abuse. Feeling disrespected does not cause abuse.

Abuse is a choice, and this message makes that explicit.

There is nothing insightful about telling someone they can avoid harm by behaving correctly. That is a conditional threat.

Healthy relationships are built on equality, mutual respect, and shared responsibility. Every element of the COERCES framework points in the opposite direction.

In a healthy relationship:

• You can disagree without being punished.

• You can express yourself without it being seen as provocation or competition.

• You can set boundaries without those boundaries being treated as attacks.

• You are not responsible for regulating another person’s behaviour.

• Safety is not something you have to earn through compliance.

A healthy partner takes responsibility for their behaviour, even when upset, even during conflict. They do not outsource that responsibility onto you.

When someone says they would stop abusing you if only you behaved differently, they are not describing a problem to solve. They are revealing a dangerous system of control.

🌿 Has this touched something in your own story? If you feel comfortable, add a comment – your words could be the reminder another survivor needs today.

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