Paul had divorced his wife and was now seeing Laura. Laura felt terrible for Paul because he was such a sweet man and his ex wife was accusing him of having abused her. Laura was determined to "Be there" for Paul, and even hoping to help him win custody because his ex wife was "out of control". Dozens of ex partners of my clients have described how the abusive mans new partner takes on a role similar to Laura's: "His girlfriend is worse than he is. She talks to me like I'm dirt and she spreads bad things about me. Id almost rather deal with him. I think she outs him up to some of the stuff he does. Shes a itch."
Perhaps his new partner really is a mean, hostile woman, but there is a equally good chance that she isnt. Look through her eyes for a moment. The abuser is re creating the same dynamic he set up with you, beginning with loving, attentive treatment in the early months of the of dating. He speaks to her with downcast eyes that well up with tears as he recounts how mean and unreasonable you were and how you called him abusive whenever he refused to boy to your control. If you have children with him, his girlfriends heart is bleeding because he cries in front of her about how much he misses them and says that you are keeping them away from him out of pure vindictiveness or out of a desire to turn them over to another man to be their dad. I currently have a case, for example, where the abusive father decided not to see his son for 6 mos, he even put his decision in writing, in a document that I read, and then complained publicly that he was being denied visits. Paul has probably misled Laura in some similar ways. His girlfriend sees a kind, loving parent whose desire to maintain a relationship with his children is being thwarted, how could she not hate you?
He may remain on good behavior with his new girlfriend even longer than he did with you because he is motivated by his campaign AGAINST YOU. Of course, his other side will slip out sooner or later, but by that time he can blame it all on how badly you have hurt him. His girlfriend thus gets sucked into breaking her back trying to prove that shes a good woman, UNLIKE YOU. She hopes that if she demonstrates her loyalty to him, hell become loving and available to her once again, as he was at the beginning. So she wants to show him she is really there for him by JOINING WITH OR EVEN OUTDOING his hostility and blaming of you.
By the time his selfish and abusive side finally gets so bad that his new girlfriend cant rationalize it away any more, shes in pretty deep. She may even have married him by that time. For her to accept that he is an abuser, she would have to face what a terrible wrong she did to you, and that would be quite a bitter pill to swallow. So what tends to happen instead is that the new partner BECOMES ANGRIER AND ANGRIER AT YOU FOR THE WAY SHE IS BEING TREATED BY HIM, BELIEVING THAT YOU "MADE HIM THIS WAY" BY HURTING HIM SO BADLY.
A couple of years ago I worked with a woman who said to me "I really hated his ex, but now I'm realizing he must have done the same stuff to her hes doing to me" Her guilt weighed heavily upon her. Women need a long time before they can accept having been used in this way.
In the story of Paul and Laura we never meet Paul's ex wife, but I have talked to 2 dozen or more women in her position among the partners of my clients. It is difficult to capture the pain I hear in the voices of women who's abusive ex partners are attempting to take their children away from them through the legal system, and the fact that they have a female ally helping them carry out that nefarious plan is almost too much to bear. The mothers ask me "Does she realize what she is doing? Has she bothered to think about what its like for a mother to be threatened with losing her children? What if he turns around years from now and does the same thing to her?"
At the same time, I believe it is important not to judge the new partner too harshly. I sometimes say to women, "You know manipulative he can be, and he is sure to be feeding her carefully crafted distortions. I'm not saying you should excuse her actions, I'm just reminding you that the one behind it all is HIM, not her. If you pour your energy into HATING HER, you are INADVERTENTLY SERVING HIS INTEREST." We do, however, need to create a social ethic that makes it clear that anyone who chooses to go to bat for a man accused o abuse has a responsibility to get ALL the facts and not just the view that he promotes. The abuse of women is simply to rampant for anyone to assume that an allegation is false or exaggerated without checking it out, very carefully.
From "Why Does He Do That?" By Lundy Bancroft