Breaking the Cycle: Understanding and Changing Abusive Behavior | Stephen Ing S4E10

If you’ve ever wondered why abusers do what they do, whether therapy actually works for them, or how we can truly break the generational cycle of domestic violence — this episode gives you clear, compassionate, and unflinching answers.

Lisa Sonni sits down with Stephen Ng (also known as Steven Ng), a seasoned Marriage and Family Therapist with decades of experience working with abusers, survivors, and families. Drawing from both his professional expertise and personal journey, Stephen challenges common myths about domestic violence and offers a deeper understanding of what real, lasting change requires. This is an educational conversation for anyone who wants safer relationships, stronger communities, and real prevention of abuse. 

Transcript

00:00:00:13 - 00:00:08:18
Speaker 1


00:00:08:20 - 00:00:17:18
Lisa Sonni
This is Real Talk With Lisa Sunny: Relationships Uncensored, the podcast they don't want you listening to.

00:00:17:20 - 00:00:35:01
Lisa Sonni
There's a version of this conversation that we hear all the time, right? Abusive men are broken and they're acting out of pain. And if they just get the right help and the right therapy or the right partner, they'll change. But what if that's not the full story? What if some of what we believe about abusive men just isn't true?

00:00:35:01 - 00:00:57:11
Lisa Sonni
So today's episode is actually very different than what I usually do, because instead of talking about abusive men, sort of from the outside, we're going to be talking to someone who has spent decades sitting across the table from these men that we're talking about. So I want to introduce my guest, Steven Ing, who is a licensed marriage and family therapist and has spent years doing this work.

00:00:57:11 - 00:01:04:17
Lisa Sonni
So I want to kick it over to you to really introduce yourself and your work, what your experience is, so that we really know who we're talking to today.

00:01:04:22 - 00:01:29:00
Steven Ing
Sure. And thank you, Lisa. I'm glad to be here. I think for this audience, it's important to know that I didn't come to this work by accident when I was a little boy in first grade. This is my earliest childhood memory. My mother had already left. My father divorced him, and she picked up my little brother, a babe in arms, and moved to Reno.

00:01:29:05 - 00:01:55:19
Steven Ing
In those days, that would be in the 1950s, believe it or not. I guess it wasn't that hard to find people because he stalked her and then broke into her apartment at around midnight, and I awoke to the sound of her body being slammed into the walls and her crying for help. And as little as I was. I hope people will understand.

00:01:55:19 - 00:02:12:19
Steven Ing
It kind of chokes me up even now to think about it. But I was so little, I was overwhelmed and I was confused. It was it was emotionally more than I could handle. And so I don't feel great about this, but I did pull the pillow over my head, trying to block the noise, the sounds of her crime.

00:02:12:19 - 00:02:39:20
Steven Ing
Because, you know, she's my mom and I should have helped her, but he's my dad and he's this authority figure, and I just felt so torn and tormented. Well, the pillow was utterly ineffective, and I finally ended up sitting bolt upright in my bed and started yelling, stop it, stop it, stop! It kind of chokes me up to think about it.

00:02:39:22 - 00:03:05:02
Steven Ing
And then there was just this. As loud as the abuse and the violence had been. It became that silent, that quiet. And it was as if my father had been reminded, oh, I've awakened the children as if that wasn't going to happen anyway, doing what he was doing. And he left. And the next morning I didn't get up or go out of bed.

00:03:05:03 - 00:03:31:00
Steven Ing
My mother didn't come in and talk to me, and the next morning we never discussed it. So that was my beginning, my entry into the world of domestic violence. And of course, like most American boys at that time, I was raised with the ethos that boys don't hit girls, and I grew up with that. And I for some reason, I would always despised psychotherapy.

00:03:31:00 - 00:03:52:06
Steven Ing
And so I wasn't particularly interested in that. And it wasn't until a lot of life experience and some rather spectacular failures on my own part, in terms of trying to have relationships that I decided to go to Al-Anon because by this time my mother had become an alcoholic. I went to Al-Anon, and I also went to adult children of alcoholics.

00:03:52:06 - 00:04:20:11
Steven Ing
And I was amazed. I was amazed at how much help I got. And then after a year and a half, I felt like, wait a minute, this stuff really works. I need to go back to school. And I did and became a therapist and was licensed at around age 37. And yeah, and I've been working ever since. And people ask me, why are you ever going to retire?

00:04:20:11 - 00:04:49:14
Steven Ing
And I never going to retire. Now I have a chance on, you know, social media like today with you to reach out to a larger world because it's not so much that I'm looking for followers, but I'm really looking for partners who will help me change this world because we have lost our way when it comes to domesticity and violence and what a home should be like.

00:04:49:14 - 00:05:16:21
Steven Ing
And we need some help. And and I need a lot of help because I have a real strong desire to share a larger message with a larger community. So I still work, and I still work with men every day. Mostly, I would say maybe 5050, in groups and individually. And so there I am, seated in my office, and I have maybe ten very abusive men around me.

00:05:16:21 - 00:05:38:01
Steven Ing
In the last 26 years, I've been working with men who commit violent sex crimes against women. And, you know, I know it sounds horrible to people hearing that. And I can tell by the look on your face, this is disturbing, but it's actually so fulfilling because, you know, we say at least here in America, we say, oh, that is so sick.

00:05:38:01 - 00:05:59:18
Steven Ing
I can't believe you did that. But it's literally true that he is sick and he does need help. And I am delighted to be of help to these guys and they are delighted to receive help. So that's where I'm coming from with all this and all the things I have to say today really are going to be based on that life experience.

00:05:59:21 - 00:06:23:23
Lisa Sonni
That's amazing. You know, you you have said some things that are, you know, when you're talking about your own childhood. I was thinking about my own son who witnessed some horrible things when he was three and strangely still remembers despite the young age. But, you know, I don't work with men, both in the capacity of I don't work with perpetrators and I don't tend to work with male victims, though I have worked with some.

00:06:24:00 - 00:06:42:00
Lisa Sonni
But the thought of working with perpetrators, I'm like, oh, I don't, I could never, but what's interesting is just, I don't know that I have the patience or temperament for that. I'm not sure that I'm the right fit. Having said that, I'm always like, I want there to be some resource. And actually, you know, where do you send these men?

00:06:42:00 - 00:07:08:19
Lisa Sonni
Someone that I work with closely. Aisha Greenberg says this frequently, and I agree with her. I bet you don't. But I agree with her in that therapy is not an appropriate place to send an abusive man. But what she means, I'm sure not to correct this woman, but she means, I think, your average therapist. You can't just send, you know, an abusive man to go do ifs work because that's not the reason he's abusive.

00:07:08:19 - 00:07:16:08
Lisa Sonni
So there's different work. Not to say that no therapy could work, but just she means generally speaking. But what's your take on that?

00:07:16:08 - 00:07:59:02
Steven Ing
Oh, man. You know, I'm so glad you said that. Sometimes I have so many things to say. They crowd out all the other things, and then I hear someone, you know. Sure. A prompt like that. And it's there's such an important thing. And I think every woman listening to this and every man to listening to this needs to know what is what is overwhelmingly contraindicated is referring an abusive relationship to marriage therapy because all marriage therapy, no matter what the theory, no matter what the therapist is, it's all designed to bring two people into a place of equality where they can talk comfortably, or they can work on problems without attacking each other.

00:07:59:02 - 00:08:34:23
Steven Ing
And when you do that, if I could use my hand puppets here for a minute when you do that. So the abuser is sort of up here on top and controlling things the best way he thinks he can. And for the therapist to put her up here is experienced by him as a relative loss of power. And that is a problem because if he feels like he's losing it, like he's out of control, he is going to become more controlling and that is going to cause abuse in the very near future.

00:08:34:23 - 00:08:58:05
Steven Ing
So it's really important that when there is any sort of domestic violence that we don't refer to therapy. I hope that message gets out in time to help some people, because I think a lot of marriage therapists naively think they can handle that because, well, they never lived through it. Once you've lived through it. It changes your perspective a lot.

00:08:58:06 - 00:09:18:20
Lisa Sonni
It sure does. It can be so much worse and create more violence, more abuse. And I and even just, you know, the gaslighting that takes place, like, I can certainly recall having been told in my own relationship, you just need to communicate better. Or in fact, it was a it was a male therapist that I will never forget said to me, you need to just be more respectful.

00:09:18:20 - 00:09:39:02
Lisa Sonni
And I'm sitting here thinking, this person mistreats me. No, I didn't have the language of abuse. I was not aware of narcissism, abuse, domestic violence. I would never he hadn't hit me yet, so none of that would have registered with me. But I was being so mistreated and I walked out of there going, I need to be more respectful, interesting.

00:09:39:02 - 00:09:44:10
Lisa Sonni
And I felt so wronged. And he walked out of there all, you know, see, he knew you.

00:09:44:12 - 00:10:10:19
Steven Ing
Okay, so I'm going on behalf. I'm just going to apologize to all the listeners because we therapists are the ones who created this theme, or I guess we could update that to a meme. Now, you know, what we have here is a problem is with communication. We have a failure to communicate. And that's nonsense because virtually everybody who comes into my office, they both speak perfectly clear English, and they can communicate with anyone else in their life.

00:10:10:19 - 00:10:35:12
Steven Ing
So it's not a communication problem at all. The other part of this is, you know, I living here in Nevada, I have a requirement, you know, like every other I'm sure every other jurisdiction has a requirement for therapists to have ongoing training. And my training specifies clearly that I need to have yearly training on suicide prevention. And I respect that.

00:10:35:12 - 00:11:00:03
Steven Ing
I think that's reasonable, but suicide is far less common than domestic violence. And therapists who are doing couples counseling. They are going to encounter abusive couples far more often than they're going to be encountering suicide, but they have no training for it. So to be saying something like what he said to you, it just makes me kind of queasy.

00:11:00:04 - 00:11:04:23
Steven Ing
I get sick to my stomach because that's so utterly wrong, so utterly unhelpful.

00:11:05:04 - 00:11:06:21
Lisa Sonni
Right? Completely.

00:11:06:21 - 00:11:26:05
Steven Ing
And it's time to fire him and immediately go on to look for somebody else. And for those, you know, for all of us, money is an issue, right? And so you can't keep going to appointment after appointment looking, but to at least ask around and if necessary, get the therapist on the phone before you go into an appointment.

00:11:26:06 - 00:11:51:16
Steven Ing
Yes. And take some responsibility for picking out the therapist on behalf of the person getting the abuse. I think it's, but like I said, I think I would not recommend that she do couples counseling anyway. I would recommend because she's not the one with the problem, unless she has a problem that I don't know about. But if she has a problem, she could go to her own counselor and get help for whatever her problem might be.

00:11:51:17 - 00:12:14:05
Steven Ing
Could be drinking, could be anything. But he needs to go to you know, I'm going to be really hard core about this. But you know how in therapy it makes sense for women who've been sexually assaulted to be counseled by other women? Yes. Yeah. It's like a no brainer, right? Yes. In the same way, I think gender has a component in the counseling of men who are abusive.

00:12:14:05 - 00:12:37:03
Steven Ing
And I think it's really important for men to be able to verbally, you know, throw some elbows and establish what is the norm in the office. For example, in my office, it has always been the rule. If you're late to your group therapy, that's okay. You can still command, but you have to give me 25 push ups first.

00:12:37:03 - 00:12:54:20
Steven Ing
And there are other rules. If you're in group therapy for domestic violence or any of the other issues I work with, which are all criminal issues, if you say something that's racist, if you say something that's sexist, you have to immediately drop and give me ten push ups for every single one of those infractions.

00:12:54:20 - 00:12:55:05
Lisa Sonni
You do.

00:12:55:05 - 00:13:13:18
Steven Ing
This, you can get away with that in the men's group. And and when they want to argue with me and say, well, that wasn't racist, I'll be glad to explain that wasn't sexist. I believe it was, and I will. I would be delighted to explain it to you. Why? As soon as you get up. But that's not right, I said.

00:13:13:23 - 00:13:30:00
Steven Ing
You know, I understand that you don't agree, but I'm the one with the chalk. I have the whistle. I'm the umpire. Do the push ups. I don't want to do it. I'm not asking you to want to do them. You have to do them. Well, I'm not doing them. Then. Then you have to get out of my group.

00:13:30:00 - 00:13:47:00
Steven Ing
Well, then what? I mean, the. Well, then you have to go back before the judge and talk to him about why you didn't want to be in group. And I'll be writing him a note saying you preferred to voice sexist comments in group, and you didn't want to deal with the consequences. Wow. And so I share this with you.

00:13:47:00 - 00:14:09:21
Steven Ing
Not in the spirit of braggadocio, but we men are. You, you you try out for any football team, it's not unusual to have a high school coach who is a teacher for the school district, to be yelling your name and calling you out and saying all kinds of very rude things. Oh, because he's the coach, he can get away with that.

00:14:09:22 - 00:14:35:10
Steven Ing
Your math teacher cannot get away with that because that's a mixed coed environment. But on a football team, if you made a dumb move, you're going to be told that was the stupidest thing you could have done. And it's acceptable because at a certain level in male culture, we normalize not abuse, but we normalize straight talk in the context of love.

00:14:35:11 - 00:15:02:22
Steven Ing
So it's because I do care about you that I'm calling you out. I've never run women's groups, obviously, and I can't even imagine a woman's group doing the same thing. But in the men's group, it's somehow very nurturing. I know that sounds crazy, but it is. It is nurturing and it gets, you know, it's sometimes it gets very heated to the point where I have to say, you have to leave now, or I'm calling the police because he doesn't want to surrender.

00:15:02:22 - 00:15:08:16
Steven Ing
He doesn't want to. Well, you know, the rules don't apply to him, right. So yeah.

00:15:08:17 - 00:15:32:07
Lisa Sonni
Well and I that's of course they do. And I think, you know, my experience, both personal experience and in working with so many women, the entitlement that's there and frankly the superiority I think as well. But the sort of entitlement this justification. Right. I only yelled because she wouldn't listen. I had to put her in a chokehold. I had to push her against the wall.

00:15:32:07 - 00:15:55:19
Lisa Sonni
I had to throw her up a staircase. In my case, there's always a reason that they seem to have, but I think it comes from this kind of entitled place. And I think even, you know, like they're entitled to make sexist comments in a group there. So having another man there to sort of call them out, because I think, I think a lot of men seem to almost be performing for other men, like you're performing misogyny.

00:15:55:20 - 00:16:08:07
Lisa Sonni
We laugh at women, we say we're all sexist. We're all like that. So I love hearing a man say, we don't do this. That's not what being a man is. That's not what we do. That's not how we treat people or women.

00:16:08:12 - 00:16:51:10
Steven Ing
You know, that's exactly why I'm looking for partners. Because, you know, if I help ten guys in a group, I've helped ten guys. And if you multiply that in a number of years, I've been doing this in the number of groups per week, and it just is a drop in the bucket. And we need a cultural shift. We need to get back to the idea, an ethos, if you will, of where men take pride in how gentle they are with women, where men can take pride in being relationship skilled and in and embracing their feelings, including the feelings that they would be taught by the manosphere, the feelings that make them look weak because it

00:16:51:10 - 00:17:22:06
Steven Ing
takes guts to own your feelings when your feelings aren't, you know, strong and cool and all of that when you're feeling afraid and when your feelings hurt or you're feeling weak right now, you know those feelings are not ones that men are encouraged to ever share. Usually not in their own families. Not, and certainly not by the school system, and not even in church, which I find very odd that churches can't be a part of this, but I think they could.

00:17:22:07 - 00:17:41:08
Steven Ing
I just don't think they're thinking about it, and I don't think they're taking action. So, you know, I don't want to sound like I'm trying to paint myself as a badass because I'm really not. It's just that if I allow abuse of women to go on verbally in my office, it negates the whole meaning and purpose of my existence.

00:17:41:08 - 00:18:06:07
Steven Ing
So I can't do that. And I've actually I've had men show up for family therapy, where the divorced wife has her son with her, and he shows up uninvited, and I've had to stand at the door of my office and say, you cannot come in here. And they will argue with me. And I'm really clear on boundaries in this situation.

00:18:06:07 - 00:18:32:00
Steven Ing
Not always in life, of course, but I'm really clear. And no, you cannot enter my office. And if you stay here, I will call the police and have you arrested for trespassing. And they still will continue to argue. But I'm very, absolutely committed to calling the police, and I have no problem with that. Now, you know, I take all of this probably because of my childhood, so much to heart.

00:18:32:00 - 00:18:54:19
Steven Ing
But it is also true that as an adult, I've experienced abuse in and out of my office. And gosh, four years ago I had a man show up who claimed he had an appointment. He did not give me a fictitious name, and then he did something very clever. He asked me if he could have a Kleenex, and I said, of course, you know, and I turned to get him a Kleenex.

00:18:54:19 - 00:19:22:23
Steven Ing
He followed me over to the Kleenex box and stabbed me multiple times, and I blacked out. I went down to my knees and. And then the second time he stabbed me right here and here. He'd stabbing both sides of my neck down into the chest, and I, I don't I've never experienced adrenaline before like that. It was like rising from the dead.

00:19:22:23 - 00:19:37:09
Steven Ing
I'm telling you, it was like some cartoon figure. I just. I stood up and we started fighting. And at the end of it all, there was blood all over the office. And it was very much like one of those crime scenes from the drama Dexter.

00:19:37:11 - 00:19:38:09
Lisa Sonni
Yes.

00:19:38:11 - 00:19:55:15
Steven Ing
And the thing I came away with from with all of this is, you know, who helped me the first. Well, the very first people. We always talk about first responders, and we mean ambulance drivers or police. But the very first responders were the women next door.

00:19:55:16 - 00:19:57:01
Lisa Sonni
I was about to say woman.

00:19:57:02 - 00:20:20:03
Steven Ing
And the women next because I was, you know, I'd watched enough violent movies. And my wife, that's what my wife calls them. I called them training films. And and when you're being attacked, you're supposed to cry out for help. And so I was yelling while I was fighting. Call 911. Call 911. Call the police. Call the police and the women next door.

00:20:20:03 - 00:20:45:07
Steven Ing
After about a minute of that, seemed like they said, we've called the police, they're on their way. And very shortly after that, my assailant, after stabbing me a few more times, he walked away. Wow. And my second batch of first responders were the men who had just left my group. The men who were referred for their own abusive behavior.

00:20:45:08 - 00:21:06:06
Steven Ing
They were outside talking, and as they often do after a group, and he walked right by them as if nothing had happened. And then I came out because I followed him out. I wanted to make sure I got his license plate, if nothing else, and he walked away and I covered in blood. I was just like like Kerry in the movie.

00:21:06:12 - 00:21:31:09
Steven Ing
I'm covered in blood. And I said, that guy just attacked me. Could you one of you follow him? But don't let yourself get hurt. And without saying another word, one of them spun on his heels, turned on his video on his phone, and he followed the guy for three blocks until the police showed up and arrested the man, and he ended up being a key witness in the trial for attempted murder.

00:21:31:12 - 00:21:50:07
Steven Ing
So, you know, it's we are, all of us, complicated. We are more than just one thing. And even my abusive clients, approximately 30% of them themselves. Of my clients who've committed sex crimes, 30% have been sexually abused themselves. So we can be more than one thing.

00:21:50:11 - 00:22:13:01
Lisa Sonni
Yes, we absolutely can. You know, there's this, I guess, huge conversation about, like where abuse comes from now, where where I sit in dealing with women who've been abused. I think that victims spend way too much time talking about. But why now? Lundy Bancroft's book. Right? Why does he do that? I love the book. Phenomenal book. Where would we be without it?

00:22:13:02 - 00:22:39:20
Lisa Sonni
However, that's step one, and I think we need to know why does he do that? But I think what is the impact on her is actually a better question in the context of the work that I do. But your work also comes from why do they do that? Right? That's your whole thing? I would assume. So. We think when you're in it anyway, like insecurity and trauma or they just need anger management and but where does power and control fit into this okay.

00:22:39:21 - 00:23:02:21
Steven Ing
And one of my pet peeves here, even here in my town we refer to this kind of counseling as anger management. You know, he's been sentenced to six months of anger management. And that's unfortunate because and I guess I should also come clean here. As a little boy in my family, there was so much craziness, alcohol abuse, domestic violence and all the rest.

00:23:02:22 - 00:23:26:11
Steven Ing
My father was eventually murdered by the police here in town when I was a little boy, and because they were afraid of him. Right. So when we talk about anger management, that's such a red herring, because I know that I could abuse my little brother if I was angry, and I did. I know that I also abused him just because I was being controlling.

00:23:26:11 - 00:23:51:10
Steven Ing
I was just being mean. And also there was a contributing element that I was put in charge of being his daycare provider when I was seven, kind of young, and it took me many years. It took me, gosh, like 25 years to stop taking responsibility for that and to realize, oh, I too was a victim because I never should have been put in charge of raising my little brother when I was that age.

00:23:51:11 - 00:24:17:19
Steven Ing
That was. That's nuts. But times were what they were. And my mother was a single mom, and it was the 60s, and there wasn't a widespread availability of daycare. And I don't know that she ever could have afforded it have had that been a thing. So families do what they do to survive. And when I think about anger management, it kind of implies, oh, you did this because you got angry, right?

00:24:17:20 - 00:24:46:16
Steven Ing
And I and I think that that's simply not true. And the deeper truth is something men will never tell you, that the deeper truth is that anger is always a secondary emotion, and the primary emotion is fear. Men are not going to tell you or their wives just how very afraid they are, afraid of losing control, afraid of losing her, afraid that she doesn't respect them anymore.

00:24:46:20 - 00:25:08:04
Steven Ing
Afraid that he's never going to be good enough to have her love afraid of. And there's a there are thousands of things different men can be afraid of. And that's one of the key components of treatment, is to learn to identify your fears, first of all, by learning the word. And it's not a dirty word to say, I'm afraid or I feel scared right now.

00:25:08:05 - 00:25:28:08
Steven Ing
And then to start managing your emotions intelligently. That's what every man needs to learn. And I think, you know, you said you had a little boy, right? For your little boy to grow up understanding. Being afraid doesn't make me less of a man. It doesn't. It's not an attack on my masculinity, but failing to face my fears. Now.

00:25:28:08 - 00:26:01:23
Steven Ing
Now we're talking about some lack of courage, some real lack of manhood. And Gandhi said any attempt to impose my will on another is an act of violence. So the alternative then, for our boys is to teach them, instead of trying to get an illusion of control and safety by controlling the people around you, look inside and admit that you're afraid and do what you need to do to take care of yourself instead of controlling the people around you.

00:26:02:02 - 00:26:33:17
Steven Ing
Whether it's yelling at your wife or yelling at your kids, or being violent, or any of these other things to just admit, oh, okay, I'm really afraid when they talk this way and I may need a time out. I may need a counselor, I may need an entirely different marriage or a different life. But whatever the solution is, there is no marital problem that ever is going to improve one iota by the addition of small, judicious amounts of abuse.

00:26:33:22 - 00:27:04:18
Steven Ing
Abuse is a dead end. So whether it's physical abuse that we're talking about on the continuum of abuse, you know, abuse doesn't start, domestic violence doesn't start with a punch to the face. It starts with that lack of respect for my partner as an equal. Right. And so I really need to go back there and start off with that mindset first that she she is my equal, but she may not be the right partner for me.

00:27:04:22 - 00:27:20:08
Steven Ing
Maybe we need to go to a counselor that gets some help figuring this out of. Maybe one or both of us need to look in the mirror and admit to ourselves, whoops, I made a mistake. I thought I was doing a great job at mate selection. Turns out not so great.

00:27:20:08 - 00:27:46:00
Lisa Sonni
It's hard to think about all the different reasons. Like I think my own brain. I'm just so far past. I don't care why they do it, just get away from them, you know, like I help women leave. Stay safe. Right. And get out. Because these trauma bonds that keep women so stuck and just the deep attachment that exists in these relationships and the way that a lot of abusive men, as you're pointing out, really want that control, they don't let their spouse leave.

00:27:46:01 - 00:28:17:14
Lisa Sonni
That's not an option. They block doors. They beg. They get angry. Motivations aside, there's a lot of benefits, I think, to men being abusive now obviously not a benefit to anyone but themselves, but I'm sort of thinking of that article written by Chuck Derry. I don't know if you've read it, but either way, it was an article that he wrote not recently at all, but on the concept of all the benefits that men themselves who attended his batterer programs, outlined as why they were doing it.

00:28:17:14 - 00:28:36:00
Lisa Sonni
Because he he was like, why, why, why aren't these classes working? What's going on here? And it was this list that is just an endlessly gross list of reasons to control her, to hurt her so that she can't leave me, so that I decide where she goes. So that I decide what she does. I can control the kids.

00:28:36:00 - 00:28:39:09
Lisa Sonni
It was so overtly to control her.

00:28:39:12 - 00:29:15:16
Steven Ing
Self-serving. Yeah, I you know, I have my own experience with this because I've been working in the trenches with men in this way and talking to them. And I there are just a number of dirty little secrets that my male clients typically don't share. They don't share with the police the criminal justice system. They don't share it even with their own lawyer, and they don't share it with me or their group until after they've seen other people model behavior of sharing, after other people have admitted certain things.

00:29:15:18 - 00:29:39:21
Steven Ing
And I think we all tend to think, you know, like the example of, well, why, why, why does he do this? And we look for causes and causes, as in almost like physics, you know, like if object A strikes object B, then it causes this reaction. Well, I've done lots of lecturing on domestic violence and I've asked that question, could you give me some of the causes of domestic violence?

00:29:39:21 - 00:30:04:08
Steven Ing
And I'll tell you, I'll get like 30 hands going up and I'll have 30 answers up on the whiteboard as I go through. And I'll say things like poverty, father's example, drunkenness, and it goes the list goes on and on. But it's really all of this is is, for me, a little bit of an exercise in futility because I explained to my audience, domestic violence is never caused.

00:30:04:14 - 00:30:31:00
Steven Ing
It is a choice. It is a choice that we make. And that choice that we make is for a variety of reasons sometimes. And here's another dirty little secret my clients often admit when I ask the question, do you think there was anything else you could have done other than what you got? You arrested and yeah, well, what could you have done otherwise?

00:30:31:05 - 00:31:01:05
Steven Ing
And the answer is always, I don't know. They literally they don't know what else to do. And there's a reason for that. You know, we do send our children to school and other training and educational experiences to learn how to read and write and participate in our civilization. But if you think about it, generally speaking, neither church nor school nor most parents teach their children how to have great relationships.

00:31:01:07 - 00:31:23:13
Steven Ing
We just don't do that. And I think my parents didn't do that with me for one very simple reason. They themselves did not know I believe my parents, even my crazy abusive dad. I think he loved me and had he known how to help me have a great life, he would have helped me even he. But my mother for sure.

00:31:23:13 - 00:31:45:19
Steven Ing
Who is the one who ultimately saved my life and and who made it possible for me to have a life. My mother would have gladly shared that information, but she didn't know. And. And that leads to so many other dirty little secrets. You know, I, I think one of the things, you know, I'm, I'm really anxious not just to talk about the abuse.

00:31:45:19 - 00:32:06:03
Steven Ing
I think we need to talk about abuse, all of us, because that's our species way of processing. The harm and the hurt we've experienced is like talking it through. That's how we humans have done it for the last 100,000 years. But when it comes to getting to the other side. Okay. Now what do I do or what do I need to do different?

00:32:06:07 - 00:32:13:18
Steven Ing
It's not going to be helpful if I speak more respectfully. That's not going to protect. That's not going to prevent. It didn't prevent.

00:32:13:18 - 00:32:19:12
Lisa Sonni
It for me. Just so we're clear, actually, I did try to be more respectful. And then he beat me so it didn't work.

00:32:19:13 - 00:32:20:23
Steven Ing
Oh, God. Yeah.

00:32:21:00 - 00:32:23:02
Lisa Sonni
Oh my laugh now. But it's not funny.

00:32:23:06 - 00:32:53:08
Steven Ing
Well, you know, it's like Woody Allen, another crazy name. You said. What? His comment. He was asked how to define comedy is. He said it's tragedy plus time. And I think that's so true that it's laughing at ourselves and laughing at these insane experiences we put ourselves through is part of the healing process. But for my clients, not only are they afraid, which is a big, huge secret that they don't like to admit, but once admitted they feel so much freer.

00:32:53:13 - 00:33:19:15
Steven Ing
They don't know what to do. So they're afraid. They don't know what to do, and they really don't know. They don't even have the concept in their head. There's not even a model for an idea that I refer to as an abuse free relationship based on equality. And I'll ask them the question, would you ever be interested in an abuse free relationship based on equality?

00:33:19:17 - 00:33:45:16
Steven Ing
And 32 years ago, it's what I asked my current wife. My now wife. I asked her that question and there was this long pause over the telephone. We were talking on the phone and she thought about it long and hard, and she said, you know, I think I would, but she had never. She was 31 at the time and I was 40, and she had never considered that either.

00:33:45:16 - 00:34:05:18
Steven Ing
It's not a sentence that we use in our culture. We need to change that because that has to become part, you know, as we all look in the mirror and we ask ourselves, how in the world did I get into this? How did I ever pick this? What how what is it about me that made me stay as long as I did?

00:34:05:19 - 00:34:29:06
Steven Ing
Yeah. You know, for all those years? Yes. So. Okay, I need to figure that. But I need to figure out the answers to those questions. And some of it is my own ignorance. Some of it is a lack of examples of how to cope with abuse. But even the idea, you know, I've had I've had thousands of people correct me saying, well, there's going to be some abuse in every relationship.

00:34:29:06 - 00:34:30:12
Steven Ing
Steve and.

00:34:30:12 - 00:34:31:10
Lisa Sonni
I disagree.

00:34:31:12 - 00:34:57:14
Steven Ing
I always laugh that because I've been in the marriage for 32 years now with like no abuse again, to say no, because she's giving me some stern looks here and there. And so there's been a time or two and I've had to apologize, I think at least 3 to 4 times about my my tone of voice that said in all but words, you stupid, that's abuse to write.

00:34:57:14 - 00:35:21:00
Steven Ing
And I've had to apologize for that. And that's what in the abuse free life, it doesn't mean that I'm going to be perfect, but it means I'm going to always take responsibility for what it is I've said and what it is I have done, because it doesn't matter how badly the other person behaves alone am 100% responsible for everything I say and everything I do.

00:35:21:04 - 00:35:28:17
Steven Ing
So even if they got abusive and I've heard this from so many men, well, I never would have if she hadn't of right.

00:35:28:17 - 00:35:29:09
Lisa Sonni
It's her fault.

00:35:29:09 - 00:35:50:17
Steven Ing
And yeah. And okay, she was screaming at you, I get that. But even if she was, you still have choices. You know, you can become like the thing you are hating in the moment. Or you could take a time out and walk around the block, or you could look in the mirror and say, this is not what I signed up for, I want out.

00:35:50:17 - 00:35:52:02
Steven Ing
This isn't working for me.

00:35:52:02 - 00:36:07:22
Lisa Sonni
I say that all the time, like when women are like, you know. But he said that he only screamed at me because I wasn't listening. And I'm like, okay, so let's take that at face value. He was speaking and you were not listening. And that's a you problem, right? Your communication broke down. You were not using your listening skills.

00:36:07:22 - 00:36:27:20
Lisa Sonni
So I can slap my wife across the face. I can scream at my wife, or I can calmly ask to be listened to. And if it becomes a pattern, I can leave. I can break up with her. I can get a divorce. Hitting your wife and screaming at your wife. These are not normal people options. These are crazy people options.

00:36:27:20 - 00:36:47:19
Lisa Sonni
Except I know they're not actually crazy. That's. You know, we think even with I don't want to go off into a tangent about personality disorders, but a lot of people I know and I talk about this a lot. We could go on for hours. Right. But people think, you know, well, a narcissist can't make different choices. Any human with a heartbeat can make a different choice.

00:36:47:19 - 00:37:12:12
Steven Ing
This is not that complicated of a problem, but what it is is a lack of imagination to consider the idea of all of us living in an abuse free society. Now, in baseball, I'm not an athlete, but in baseball, when you hit home plate, you're safe. And I think when we come home at the end of the day, we should all feel safe.

00:37:12:12 - 00:37:30:22
Steven Ing
It should be the one place in our entire existence where we know we are not going to be abused. We're not going to be yelled at. That guy on the freeway who's so mad because we cut him off accidentally. We're not going to be flipping each other off at home. We're not going to be saying vulgar things to each other.

00:37:31:00 - 00:37:53:05
Steven Ing
We're going to be loving and kind and supportive and all of that. If the goal is to not be an abusive man, I want to be an abuse free man who doesn't abuse anybody. And I, I've I've asked thousands of men over my career. When you were a little boy, did you dream of growing up to become big and strong and abusive?

00:37:53:07 - 00:38:22:00
Steven Ing
And they all say, no, didn't want to do that. So it's true, then, that you've lost your way. Men were wonderful little boys. They were born adorable little babies, and they've grown up and lost their way. Men with problems with abuse in the home have profound intimacy, skill deficits, and that's on us. As parents, we are supposed to be teaching our children how to do that.

00:38:22:00 - 00:38:25:20
Steven Ing
But what if we don't know how? Find someone who can help you, right?

00:38:25:21 - 00:38:45:07
Lisa Sonni
Like get it done. It's so important to to do this. I know, I mean, I have two kids, a daughter and a son, seven and nine. They're different people. I parent them differently, but I'm very hyper aware of my son being raised in the patriarchy and, you know, feeling like, you know, if a girl says no to you, what do you do?

00:38:45:08 - 00:39:03:00
Lisa Sonni
You know, and how are you? Obviously, I can't tell them how to feel, but I just mean be like to take it as a rejection, right? If you say, hey, would you like to go to the movies or do you want to, you know, can I have your phone number? Obviously not at nine older, but if she says, no, you're not being rejected, you know, and you're she's just not interested.

00:39:03:00 - 00:39:22:01
Lisa Sonni
And that's okay. It doesn't say anything about you. It's just not a good fit. Move on. It's an easy thing. I'm trying to sort of say these things because I see this need in when my clients are describing their partners and my own experience like this need to like you have to do it my way. So they really do want that control.

00:39:22:01 - 00:39:43:01
Lisa Sonni
And I don't think that they see that there are other choices. It feels justified, like I said. But when women try to leave these men and they say, no, no, you can't leave, or they beg or they get angry when we talk about can they change? I'm I mean, perhaps you might see me say, no, I'll be one of those people that say no.

00:39:43:01 - 00:40:03:00
Lisa Sonni
But what I actually mean, if you want me to give them a more fleshed out answer, is it's the wrong question. Can they change? Sure. Most people can change. Will they change? That's where I see a huge lack of interest. What I see are that they don't want to change. They just want to keep you when they get to you.

00:40:03:01 - 00:40:07:23
Lisa Sonni
Maybe they want to change, but they don't want to change when they're in the relationship.

00:40:08:03 - 00:40:30:02
Steven Ing
Well, you know, your perspective is so right on. And and of course, it's based on your working with the women you've worked with for so long. Men don't show up in my office saying I've missed. So lost. Can you help me? I need somebody to help me. Because admitting that you're flawed is something men have been trained not to do.

00:40:30:03 - 00:41:03:10
Steven Ing
Right? But ideally, and not for me. It's always I will not work with someone who's abusive unless I can put him in a group, because the, the, the group strength is that we come to a consensus of what is masculinity, what is true courage, what is the life worth living? And under no circumstances does anyone in my group ever get some sort of tacit approval or overt approval for abusive behavior.

00:41:03:15 - 00:41:31:04
Steven Ing
Many men have come to me and said, yeah, but she didn't say no in a nice way. She said, no. Why would somebody like me ever want to go out with somebody like you? And I laugh, as I often do. I've been accused of laughing inappropriately, but I laugh to be dismissive of of the so-called insult or slight, because she's doing you a favor, man.

00:41:31:05 - 00:41:55:17
Steven Ing
She is letting you know that she has absolutely no regard for you whatsoever. And in that case, you might share this with your little boy. If a girl is that clear about not liking, would you ever want such a girl in your life? Right? Of course not. You don't have to spend money on dating her. You don't have to lose time trying to pursue a relationship or she doesn't care about you.

00:41:55:19 - 00:41:58:00
Steven Ing
You get to move on. She told me in the.

00:41:58:00 - 00:41:59:21
Lisa Sonni
Same way as right up front.

00:42:00:01 - 00:42:30:06
Steven Ing
Well, at least regarding you, maybe she'll be a great partner for some other guy, but definitely not for you. And that's okay, because I don't need all the women on the planet to approve of Stephen. I just need a few. And I say that to other men. They all. Yeah. That's right. I don't need everybody to like. And they've never had the proposition pose to them in that way that because they do take it as rejection and they do feel hurt and now they're enraged.

00:42:30:06 - 00:43:03:21
Steven Ing
And just like if some guy said something to them, they'd want to get in a fight. And so one of my favorites since I stepped away from religion is Baruch Spinoza, who was excommunicated from his synagogue in the 1700s, 1600s, somewhere back there. And he said, to understand is to be free. I feel that, and I think of that every day, because when I see someone behaving in an insanely abusive, crazy, self-defeating pattern of behavior.

00:43:04:01 - 00:43:30:00
Steven Ing
I really want to understand. And usually evil and other similar diagnoses are utterly unhelpful. And instead they generally men want the same things that I want that you want. They want love. They want respect. They like to have a happy, peaceful home, that kind of thing. But they just really don't know how to do it. And it's not helping that he turned to drinking to deal with his feelings.

00:43:30:00 - 00:43:59:08
Steven Ing
It doesn't help that he turned to drugs. It doesn't help that he gambles away all of his paychecks. It doesn't. We have all these self-defeating patterns of behavior to cope with our pain. For some of us, it's compulsive overeating. For some of us, it's compulsively avoiding food altogether, and we starve ourselves. And there are just so many compulsive behaviors that so long as we're engaged in those, we know that we're really not dealing with our feelings.

00:43:59:08 - 00:44:25:00
Steven Ing
And a takeaway I think I really wanted to share this, you know, with the women listening, when you're interviewing a new prospect who's applying for a leading role in that epic motion picture called Your Life, you really want to ask them about their past relationships and why they failed or how they failed, what didn't work out, what was good about it, all of that.

00:44:25:03 - 00:44:50:02
Steven Ing
But at the end, after collecting data, data, data, you know, you might even say, oh, so she was abusive. Oh, so you guys were mutually abusive or or was it was she's the only one who was abusive or did you yell back and forth at each other and to get a start introducing that word, abuse, and then to close the sale by asking, would you ever be interested if you're still interested, that is, after the first, second or third date.

00:44:50:07 - 00:45:13:03
Steven Ing
Would you ever be interested in an abuse free relationship based on a quality? And if you get anything but a full throated, wholehearted yes, then you you can enjoy the rest of the date and you can banter. But that is not a prospect for the future. And instead of red flagging everybody around us, you know, if you've got this, avoid him.

00:45:13:03 - 00:45:41:07
Steven Ing
If he's got let's I mean, we're not trying to look for potholes in the road so we can avoid potholes. We're looking for the good parts of the road so we can get by safely. And in the same way, we just need to look for partners who are capable of being loving. And you know already, because you study personality disorders, 19% of every population in North America has a personality disorder and diagnosable personality disorder 19% one out of every five.

00:45:41:08 - 00:46:04:05
Steven Ing
That doesn't include alcoholics, drug addicts. It doesn't include the people who have other serious mental health problems. So about one out of every three people is really not ready today for a relationship. They're really ready for a therapist. They don't need a girlfriend. They need a counselor. They need a mental health professional to help them out. And it's true of women just as just as much else.

00:46:04:06 - 00:46:12:09
Steven Ing
And if they say, oh yes, I would be interested in a relationship based on the quality that was truly abuse free, then you have to take that for checking, right?

00:46:12:10 - 00:46:12:19
Lisa Sonni
Yeah.

00:46:12:20 - 00:46:16:02
Steven Ing
Vet that. Reagan said. Yes. Many would say.

00:46:16:04 - 00:46:27:00
Lisa Sonni
Yeah, I can. I mean, my own would have said, yeah, absolutely. But no, clearly not like abuse free. Yeah, sure. Of course, as long as you comply we're equal. As long as you agree with me.

00:46:27:01 - 00:46:28:08
Steven Ing
Or do what I tell you to do.

00:46:28:09 - 00:46:35:21
Lisa Sonni
Exactly. Don't step out of line and we're all good. What do you see in terms of the indicators of who is unlikely to change?

00:46:36:01 - 00:47:02:09
Steven Ing
Well, you know the thing I just said not to repeat it, but if you get any pushback on that, like like the guys in the madness fear. Right. And that's to me a group of, I'm going to say it, sexual predators who are preying on our young boys, trying to seduce them into a misogynistic lifestyle. And the payoff for these men is the money that they get from the boys who are following them on their, on their websites.

00:47:02:09 - 00:47:24:23
Steven Ing
And I think anything that's like that or of that ilk that says, oh no, I loved, I love Andrew Tate or and I've had guys say that to me like just straight up, yeah, I love Andrew Tate. That's not a guy I would dude, we'd need to talk because that is never going to work because annotate does not respect women.

00:47:25:00 - 00:47:55:07
Lisa Sonni
The women that I talk to, you know, this sort of you see a huge resistance to accountability, like almost a friggin allergy to accountability and the externalization of blame. And as I sort of look at the socialization of men, men are far more likely to externalize blame, and women are far more likely to internalize it. So if something happens in a relationship, he is more likely to be like, you did this, you cause this, and she's more likely to go, what did I do that made him do that?

00:47:55:07 - 00:48:18:20
Lisa Sonni
So it's kind of almost like the perfect or perhaps not perfect storm that when men and women get together, if he's got abusive tendencies or is straight up abusive, she's going to be perfect for that because she's going to wonder what she did and that's what he wants. But when you see this, almost like chronic lack of accountability, every possible direction you go in, he's just it's you.

00:48:18:20 - 00:48:44:10
Lisa Sonni
I had no choice. But she this and lies and promises change and this. It's just an ongoing pattern. Do you think those men would benefit from programs like what you run and groups? Do you think that would actually get them to change? Because I just see like women spend years bang in their head against a wall hoping that they change, wasting their lives, thinking he might change.

00:48:44:13 - 00:49:22:17
Steven Ing
The short answer is yes, and it sounds horribly so. I get so cringey at any idea of self-congratulation, but it's really, I think it's about men helping men. And that's why, again, I, you know, I'm I'm not looking for followers on my social media. I'm looking for for partners because we need to be properly socializing young boys. And if we are not doing that, we're not giving them the tools to handle the terrific challenges ahead of them as adults in a relationship, for example, the the parent who's a control freak.

00:49:22:21 - 00:49:47:23
Steven Ing
And I can say that as a recovering control freak, the parent who never lets the child talk, never lets the child talk about his feelings, never lets the child try to reason with the parent about why that restriction isn't really fair and doesn't make sense. We don't. Our children need these practice sessions with us because someday they're going to need to talk to somebody.

00:49:47:23 - 00:50:12:16
Steven Ing
And if they don't have that, I think, you know, we do them a huge disservice. So, you know, my mom, I was raised by a single mom. And we can all say, well, especially in America with I was in that first wave of so many divorces in America, now 50% or more. Well, much more than 50%. If you count second and third and fourth marriages, the there's enough blame to go around for everybody.

00:50:12:16 - 00:50:29:13
Steven Ing
And I think for men to be men, there's something spiritual that has to happen where, you know, we walk by a room full of men and I can say, how many men, Lisa, how many men are in that room? And you can count them and say, okay, 13 but if I say, how many of them are real men?

00:50:29:15 - 00:50:57:22
Steven Ing
Well, neither one of us know the answer to that, because that's something on the inside. Right? And teaching our boys what is a real man is going to have to mean something spiritual, cultural that we're not doing a good job of teaching. We're just not. And so I hate to blame those little boys who grow up to become the young men who become abusive because they're gravitating to the manosphere, because we're not talking to them about what manhood is all about.

00:50:57:22 - 00:51:20:21
Steven Ing
And in my groups. I just I think there's so much hope for a men's group in a men's group, but it has to be with the therapist who's willing to buck the tide, be the bad guy where he's not looking for some sort of appraise or affirmation from the guys he's supposed to be helping. That would be very counterproductive.

00:51:20:21 - 00:51:43:11
Steven Ing
Instead, it's more like the lion tamer walking into the cage with the whip and the chair, but from a motive of love. I'm not here to rub their noses in their abuse, but if some guy does the minimization of his abuse, the denial of his abuse, I didn't even hit her. Or I the the blaming will I only hit her because she blah blah blah.

00:51:43:15 - 00:52:10:21
Steven Ing
You know, I think for me as a man, I said, and you just explained why no woman in her right mind would ever want to be with you. What do you mean? Well, your solution to every problem that overwhelms you is to become abusive. You know, that's the thing. I even had a client who's very much bigger than I am and younger, and he was confronting me.

00:52:10:22 - 00:52:33:06
Steven Ing
I said, it's your turn to do this exercise. And he said, go on to somebody else. And I said, no, it's your turn. And I said, go on to somebody else. And I said, oh, okay. So you're trying to intimidate me, to keep me from having you participate. I get that, but yeah, that's not going to work for me.

00:52:33:06 - 00:52:58:23
Steven Ing
You still have to go. And he said, oh, you're intimidated. He said, oh yeah, but you still got to do this. And he shook his head because he was utterly confused. And I would never expect a woman in a relationship with him to respond that way. This it's just not safe. But the truth is, by the you know, by the time a guy is in my group, I already have all the other group members there to back me up.

00:52:59:00 - 00:53:14:08
Steven Ing
They they're not going to let him attack me, right? And so it's back to that thing. Where could I be a good therapist for a woman who'd been sexually assaulted? I don't think so. Can a wife be a good counselor to a husband who's abusive?

00:53:14:09 - 00:53:14:23
Lisa Sonni
No.

00:53:15:00 - 00:53:15:16
Steven Ing
I don't think.

00:53:15:18 - 00:53:32:14
Lisa Sonni
Nor should she try. You know, that's the thing is, I mean, I have clients who are therapist, right? And they're like, I don't know, how did I miss this? You know, I can fix them. Listen. Right. Like, it's not our job. We're not women are not rehab centers for broken men. You can go ahead and do that. But the wives, the girlfriends, the women.

00:53:32:16 - 00:53:52:14
Lisa Sonni
This is why I think it's such an interesting conversation. Because what they admit to you, what they admit to their wives and girlfriends and, you know, having spoken with plenty of people, men, in fact, who host batteries, programs and things like that. I've interviewed Chuck dairy. I think it's so interesting on what they'll admit in a room full of men.

00:53:52:15 - 00:54:13:04
Lisa Sonni
So I think one of the biggest takeaways is that if there's any chance of their change, it's not therapy. It's not marriage therapy. It's men's groups, in your opinion. Now my question is here. Is that court ordered to see you? Because I feel like you're going to get a lot of leads from this, a lot of husband referrals from from my audience.

00:54:13:04 - 00:54:21:14
Lisa Sonni
But how do people get in to work with you? Are they choosing this? Because that also concerns me that they're not choosing it. They're being forced.

00:54:21:17 - 00:54:45:12
Steven Ing
Yeah. Now they've they've changed things. And I've moved in a different direction with my. Because now I'm working with people convicted of sex crimes. Also, I'm not doing any of this social media to get more clients. I've got too many clients as it is. So what I'm what I'm looking for is a conversation like we're having right now to talk about how can we solve this problem?

00:54:45:12 - 00:55:23:14
Steven Ing
Because we can do this. We can figure this out. We can make a better society. I you reminded me just now talking about psychotherapists, psychologists who have been abused. And, you know, it's just not the right relationship. I was out walking my dog and I was going through a lovely county park and but just getting started. And a man pulls up in his van, he jumps out of his van, and a woman gets out of the passenger seat and he slaps her upside the head like 30 yards from me, maybe 20 yards from me.

00:55:23:16 - 00:55:50:12
Steven Ing
And I. I have a feeling that most of us turn and walk away, but I didn't. I forced myself to stare at him and he looked at me, kind of threatening. And then I kept staring at him. And then he told her to get in the car, and he got in the other side and drove away. And while I was good Boy Scout that I am, I was writing his license plate number down in the dirt with a stick.

00:55:50:14 - 00:56:13:03
Steven Ing
At just that moment, a park ranger came by and I flagged him down and I said, please call 911. He did, and the guy was arrested within like 15 minutes and put in jail. And the court case unfolded, and I was a witness and all that, and it worked out fine. He was, you know, he he didn't plead guilty until the very last second.

00:56:13:03 - 00:56:44:01
Steven Ing
He waited until I showed up in court before he changed his plea from innocent to from not guilty to guilty. But it was a month later that I got a letter in the mail from his girlfriend, who was a PhD psychologist, and thanking me and talking about how confused she was and how much she had to process. Because when I go to my office and I meet with you or someone else for 15 minute session, I'm on for a whole 50 minutes.

00:56:44:05 - 00:57:10:12
Steven Ing
We're not really relating as to friends or certainly not as two romantic partners, and it's a different relationship at the end of a shift. I've worked in mental hospitals, and at the end of the shift, the shift goes home and the next shift comes in and we tag team our patients. Because you can't live with a person you perceive as being a patient.

00:57:10:14 - 00:57:36:22
Steven Ing
It's overwhelming. It's just too much. This work takes so much out of all of us, all of us. So that I mean, and it's, you know, and I can say this to you and I already know you'll agree whether we talk about it or not, we to become traumatized because we can't do our work without empathy. And we hear story after story after story.

00:57:36:22 - 00:58:02:07
Steven Ing
And I can tell you at the end of 35 years, some days I come home feeling like I'm wrung out like a dish rag. I just have nothing left because I just feel so bad for all the people. Every day in my office, men are crying. I don't even want to tell you what the suicide rate is. There's more than enough pain out there for all of us to be helpers, for all of us to participate.

00:58:02:07 - 00:58:28:17
Steven Ing
And I think, you know, it's really God's own work that you're doing with your children, training them how to have great relationships. And I say that to every mother out there. My mother saved me. And I think mothers can do so much by themselves to have great homes. My mother could never be a great male role model. I don't think I needed a great male role model.

00:58:28:19 - 00:58:30:16
Steven Ing
I just needed a great role model.

00:58:30:16 - 00:58:50:08
Lisa Sonni
And I think a lot of boys don't have that. You know, when I talk about where abuse seems to come from, which, you know, there's a lot whole topic on its own, but you can kind of attribute it back to a massive oversimplification. But like the patriarchy, there's not enough good men, truly good men, or you're calling real men.

00:58:50:08 - 00:59:08:07
Lisa Sonni
I never liked that phrase because it always implies that there's you have to act a certain way, and I feel like it's used in the wrong direction. Usually write your real man has no feelings. A real man has feelings. So. But all that to say, it's it's we're just teaching boys that it's okay to behave this way. And it's so performative.

00:59:08:07 - 00:59:31:07
Lisa Sonni
I think a lot of times they're performing for other men to, like, perform the goodness for other men in groups. But there are so few groups. And when they're court ordered and the guys sitting there like, fine, I'll be here. But he doesn't really want to be here. I don't know that they're getting anything out of it. Like, I know women who's like, my husband took an assault response program or I once spoke with a Canadian prosecutor.

00:59:31:07 - 00:59:48:14
Lisa Sonni
We call it something else here, but a prosecutor who said to me, I'm going to put him in partner assault response. And the good news is it's really effective. I was in no headspace to be told that that would be effective. But I said to her, I'm curious. When you say effective, how is it that you measure that?

00:59:48:14 - 01:00:13:02
Lisa Sonni
And she said, well, what do you mean? Like they they don't re-offend? And I said, but listen, by your own definition, he didn't offend yet because you're saying convictions. She said, we can prove that they don't re-offend because they don't go on to be convicted. And I said, well, you're not convicting my abuser. You have just expressed to me that you are giving him a plea deal to get him on a failure to comply charge.

01:00:13:02 - 01:00:33:14
Lisa Sonni
So you get your guilty charge and you release a domestic abuser who PS went on to beat the crap out of the woman he cheated with. So thanks for that, right? But it's this. But oh don't worry, he won't go on to re-offend. Well, she didn't charge him either, so I guess he didn't re-offend. But he also didn't offend me.

01:00:33:14 - 01:00:42:21
Lisa Sonni
And it happened in both cases. So the measurement is just bananas to me to say that they don't go on to re-offend. I could flip my desk upside down. That's crazy to me.

01:00:43:02 - 01:01:04:10
Steven Ing
Well, I'm in the same boat as you, and this is one area where you and I have so much in common again, and that is the criminal justice system. Oh my God, it's just, like, so utterly unhelpful sometimes and so very much part of the problem. In fact, I think for a lot of families the cure is worse than the disease.

01:01:04:11 - 01:01:32:22
Steven Ing
It's just so frustrating because they are not measuring the crimes affectively in the behavior. For my clients, I don't know. Again, I am not wanting more referrals to my office, but because I think that that is really just a drop in the bucket. I have a I was on a, I was helping a neighbor at a photo shoot, and she was the neighbor was getting her makeup done because it was about her medical practice.

01:01:32:22 - 01:01:55:01
Steven Ing
She was filming a commercial, and she needed a very old white man with no hair to be her patient. And the makeup gal said something about, well, what does he do for a living? And my neighbor, she said, oh, he's a sex therapist. And I said, well, I'm not really. I work with people convicted of sexual crimes. And she.

01:01:55:05 - 01:01:56:09
Lisa Sonni
Different, by the way.

01:01:56:14 - 01:02:25:17
Steven Ing
Yeah. Very different. For those listening, the lady made the makeup artist made a face of disgust. And then by way of explaining, she said she was the victim of sex abuse when she was a child. And I said, well, that's that's a terrible thing that happened to you. I like to focus on the men because, for example, I had one man who was a peeper, liked peering in women's windows, and we calculated that since he was 13 years old, he had approximately 30,000 victims.

01:02:25:19 - 01:02:51:07
Steven Ing
If I help him put an end to that, just imagine how many women I have helped. And it was that different shift in the perspective. And I just don't think there's enough Stephen Ingo around. Yeah, I think it needs all of us. We all have to participate. And, you know, I watched and you probably remember at least I don't know how old year, but reading about Oprah.

01:02:51:08 - 01:03:23:07
Steven Ing
Yeah. And every day she was having television shows and mostly a women's audience. And what was going on there is she was shifting the culture by having an audience that was big enough to start talking about the issues that mattered to them. And when women do that as a collective, men are listening because men, even if they don't watch Oprah, men are still influenced by that cultural shift and that discussion.

01:03:23:07 - 01:03:30:14
Steven Ing
And that's what I think you and I need to be doing. We need to be moving the needle on the whole damn culture.

01:03:30:15 - 01:03:53:09
Lisa Sonni
See, I get men who don't listen on my page. And and to be fair, I'm not speaking to men. So, in fact, I think of this creator. Her name's Nat Legume, and she speaks pretty exclusively about sexual coercion in marriage. So obviously very sensitive topic, but was so interesting is that a lot of people get upset with her content as they get upset with mine.

01:03:53:09 - 01:04:11:13
Lisa Sonni
And she has been told a million times, you know, if you want to help men, you need to speak differently. And she's like, who said, I'm helping men? She has changed her content a bit, but I still feel that, like, I'm not here trying to convince men to not abuse their wives. In fairness, my work isn't getting women to leave these men.

01:04:11:15 - 01:04:30:16
Lisa Sonni
And that's that's just that's what I do. And I will never stop, no matter how much they could change if they went. And I just the amount of women that are spending too much time trying to get him to change. I think we can agree that change has to be self-motivated, whether it's whether you get forced into a program or not.

01:04:30:17 - 01:04:45:07
Lisa Sonni
My point is, you have to end up at some point going, I want to be different. And what my clients are seeing are men saying, I'm never going to be different, even if they are claiming to be. But what I'm saying is their behavior, their action is I am never going to be different.

01:04:45:13 - 01:05:27:21
Steven Ing
Well, your work is an absolutely vital part of my work, and I hope we can work hand in glove that way. Because if more women. I don't want to sound like I'm blaming. But if more women were clear on the bright line, that is abuse, and if they talked about it before falling in love, before going steady or moving in, or getting engaged or getting married, if more women were talking about this as an absolute, absolute ethos that you can divorce me, you can dump me, but you can never, ever abuse me, that will never be okay.

01:05:27:21 - 01:05:49:15
Steven Ing
And if you think I'm abusing you, I want you to talk about it with me. I want to I want there to be an exchange of conversation here about our feelings and what's going on. And I think if we're if we're not successful on that again, you'll see thousands of what they call managers. This is woman years spent in horrible relationships being miserable.

01:05:49:15 - 01:06:17:00
Steven Ing
And this is what therapists call a drama, the needless escalation of a problem. The problem is, how could I have a happy life? Okay, well, that's a legit problem. Let's solve that. Oh, but you married somebody without finding out if they can argue fairly. If they can fight fairly with you. Because if a man can't fight fairly, that means eventually he's going to start fighting unfairly.

01:06:17:01 - 01:06:21:01
Steven Ing
And that's abuse. So yeah, we qualify.

01:06:21:02 - 01:06:36:23
Lisa Sonni
People I know, and I know what you mean. I know I can, I promise you, there's going to be a comment that says, like, hey, he's blaming victims, but I want people to understand we are responsible for ourselves. We are not responsible for the abuse that someone else inflicts on us. Because as we said, abuse is a choice.

01:06:36:23 - 01:06:54:20
Lisa Sonni
That's not what either of us are saying. But if more women learn what abuse is, learn what the signs are. Learn to not move too quickly. Learn what love bombing is. I know it's a pop culture term, but when you're being idealized by someone who is lying to you, liars can lie for a long time, don't get me wrong.

01:06:54:20 - 01:07:00:10
Lisa Sonni
But yes, and they can lie very convincingly. And you know, it could be three four years, but they're not perfect.

01:07:00:10 - 01:07:01:07
Steven Ing
They charmingly.

01:07:01:08 - 01:07:29:07
Lisa Sonni
They are. Right? I mean, most abusive men are not actually what we think of as the stereotype. They're the nice, convincing guy. Right? But there are moments where you're like, in hindsight, you know, knowing what you know now, you can look back with hindsight, I get that. We didn't know then, but that's part of my, you know, preventative measures, is teaching women what that looks like, how to trust that feeling of discomfort in your body so that you're kind of like, you know, that is kind of a red, I don't know.

01:07:29:07 - 01:07:42:05
Lisa Sonni
And then you might walk away earlier. So it's not your fault. It's, you know, it's not any victims fault, gender aside. But there are things we can do to kind of slow things down and protect ourselves by knowing more.

01:07:42:08 - 01:08:11:16
Steven Ing
I'm responsible for the romantic choices I make. So, like the woman who came into my office and she was an older woman who'd been married, I'm not exaggerating seven times. And I said, well, what seems to be the problem? I just all the all the men out there are such alcoholics. I said, really? And she explained that every one of her husband's had had a drinking problem, and I, I said, well, I don't have a drinking problem.

01:08:11:16 - 01:08:31:20
Steven Ing
So I know it's not all men, and I know lots of men like my friends. They don't have a drinking problem or any of them single. And she she wanted to know, well, where was she meeting men? And I asked her she was meeting them bars and nightclubs and. Well, you might want to look elsewhere. What would I do?

01:08:32:00 - 01:08:59:01
Steven Ing
I said, well, you would develop a life worth living by doing the things you want to do with your life. Maybe you want to take a dance class. Maybe you want to go back to school. Maybe you'd like to study yoga for a while. I don't know what you'd like to do because we all have different tastes, but if you hang out in bars, you're going to be men who are really pretty into drinking, and that's just the way of it.

01:08:59:02 - 01:09:23:04
Steven Ing
She fired me, I think, after that first session because she didn't want to hear that. And that's okay. You know, I wish her the best. But at some point, you know, we all have to again, take responsibility. As James Baldwin said, we still have responsibility for what it is we're doing with our lives. And I'm not saying that to blame anybody.

01:09:23:04 - 01:09:42:02
Steven Ing
I think everyone out there who hit a woman is responsible for hitting a woman and or yelling at a woman. I know a lot of times we talk, at least here in the States, we talk about zero tolerance for different things. But when it comes to abuse, I think we can have zero tolerance.

01:09:42:02 - 01:09:42:20
Lisa Sonni
I do now.

01:09:42:21 - 01:10:06:16
Steven Ing
I think, yeah, I think that's a doable achievement in a life. Yes. And if you know your partner, male or female, looks at you and makes a disrespectful gesture or phase in or says something, you know, mildly abusive, if we can say mildly, that's not physically abusive, I think we get to confront them. We get to talk. Hey, you said you wanted an abuse free relationship.

01:10:06:16 - 01:10:27:21
Steven Ing
Did you change your mind and then have a discussion about that? Because I would much rather terminate the relationship there. Someone not willing to take responsibility for an unkind insult, then wait years to find out? No, that was just the tip of the iceberg. It gets a lot worse than that.

01:10:27:22 - 01:10:46:18
Lisa Sonni
You know, leaving isn't easy, so it's easy to say, you know, at the first sign of. That's when you leave the first sign of abuse or disrespect. That's when you leave. I like I've done it. I know it's hard, but I also would urge women to not seek what's easy and do what's hard. Yes, it's hard to leave your husband.

01:10:46:19 - 01:11:08:09
Lisa Sonni
Hard is probably not even the word like. It feels impossible. Sometimes these men create, you know, huge financial dependency and threatened to take your children, threatened to kill you. Like, I know I actually have been through all of that, so I really know. But we need to take the responsibility of just finding a way. Is it a long term strategic plan that takes you three years to get out?

01:11:08:10 - 01:11:26:00
Lisa Sonni
Fine. But we need to get out of these relationships and then more importantly, after the fact, become a person, if you weren't already, who has a zero tolerance policy. I am a woman now. Then it was this little sarcastic, but like, I wish a man would yell at me. I wish you would see what happens. I will lose my mind.

01:11:26:01 - 01:11:32:05
Lisa Sonni
There is nobody in a relationship with me going to raise his voice to me. Get out of my face! Absolutely not. It's over immediately.

01:11:32:06 - 01:11:53:00
Steven Ing
Yeah yeah yeah, yeah, I completely agree with that. And I and I think it needs to go both ways where, you know, because part of leading an abuse free life, it's as they say in the movies, a two pronged process. I have to terminate all of my abuse and I have to refuse to accept the abuse of others.

01:11:53:00 - 01:12:15:23
Steven Ing
But if I do the one but not the other, I'm still leading an abusive life. So it's it's absolute zero tolerance. And there's a simple remedy. If I'm human enough to make an impulsive statement that I should not have made, and I can't put those words back in my mouth, I need to apologize to my partner. I need to do what I can do to make it right.

01:12:16:02 - 01:12:35:19
Steven Ing
And that's really. And it has to be sincere. It can't be one of those sorry, can't be one of those, you know, it's got to be the real deal where, you know, somebody who hears that goes, oh, he really meant that. He really meant that. And that that if we're not getting that, we're doing something really wrong.

01:12:35:20 - 01:12:56:00
Lisa Sonni
I so agree this has been such a good conversation. You know, I think one of the hardest things for women to come to terms with is that, you know, ten he changed. Well, why is he doing this? And if we love him enough and support him enough the right way, then something's going to click. Change is self-motivated. He has to want to be different.

01:12:56:00 - 01:13:17:22
Lisa Sonni
And if you're not seeing any signs of him being different, it's just not your problem, right? It becomes someone else's problem. If you leave him in one day, he goes to a group and gets better. Great. But he treated you terribly. He treated you abusively and we need to let go of that. The behavior is typically working for him.

01:13:17:22 - 01:13:39:04
Lisa Sonni
It's benefiting him. So without any real accountability, staying and hoping is not love and it's not a good plan. So I really want people to to leave with that message. Knowing all the nuance of this conversation, I am confident my audience is going to be like, did he just say things that she normally would not agree with? But again, like, can they.

01:13:39:05 - 01:13:45:19
Lisa Sonni
Yeah, sure. Do they? Only if they are totally self-motivated. Change takes a lot of work.

01:13:45:23 - 01:14:08:02
Steven Ing
You know I that's the mic drop right there. You know when you say that because I couldn't agree more. It's absolutely true and it's nuance. There's there's a little bit more than just one issue. And part of this I think we all need to have the standard of no abuse. I mean, the guy may drive by me and flip me off because he thinks I cut him off.

01:14:08:07 - 01:14:27:18
Steven Ing
I don't need to chase him down and make that right. You know, with him he's a stranger. But in my intimate relationships, this zero tolerance for abusive behavior is the only possible way. And it starts with our children. You know, you're you have a seven and a nine year old at home or they ever abusive with each other.

01:14:27:18 - 01:14:55:08
Steven Ing
I would bet dollars to donuts. Yes yes of course. But that and that word abuse is so powerful but so helpful to be able to say to your son or your daughter. You know what? Our home is an abuse free place and that kind of behavior is abusive. We don't do that with each other. And to start teaching them, it'll only take a couple hundred times for you to say that before it finally gets in.

01:14:55:08 - 01:15:06:12
Steven Ing
But I can guarantee you by the time they're dating, they will have it really clearly in their head. And it makes a huge difference. It makes a huge difference.

01:15:06:13 - 01:15:07:06
Lisa Sonni
I so agree.

01:15:07:08 - 01:15:09:02
Steven Ing
Yeah, I've loved this teaching. Thank you. Lisa.

01:15:09:03 - 01:15:11:22
Lisa Sonni
My pleasure. Where can people find you?

01:15:12:00 - 01:15:32:08
Steven Ing
Well, everything is under Steven Ng MFT so marriage family therapist. So Instagram, TikTok. My website, Steven has all the links to everything. Psychology today articles, books I've written, that kind of thing. But I just want to thank you again for the work you do.

01:15:32:09 - 01:15:38:22
Lisa Sonni
Thank you. I'm glad someone out there is doing the work that you do. So we're good pair. But yeah, thank you so much for being here.

01:15:39:02 - 01:15:40:14
Steven Ing
My pleasure.

01:15:40:16 - 01:15:50:04
Lisa Sonni
If this episode gave you clarity. Share it with someone who needs it. Thanks for being here and for being honest with yourself. And remember, you're stronger than before.

01:15:50:06 - 01:15:53:07
Music
Stronger than before.