This anonymous self-screening test is meant to help you understand your own personality style relative to your functioning in intimate relationships. It was normed on a sample group of men who were attending a batterer intervention program. For best results, take this assessment if you think you have already engaged in abusive and/or controlling behaviors toward your partner. It will help you recognize your triggers for abusive and controlling behaviors and identify self-management strategies. It is not meant to diagnose, in any way, whether someone is or is not abusive or controlling, the risk of a person engaging in such behavior, or of that person becoming an abusive and/or controlling individual.

© 2006 by Randy Flood, Charlie Donaldson, Elaine Eldridge. From Stop Hurting the Woman You Love: Breaking the Cycle of Abusive Behavior.

Instructions

Below each question, identify to what degree the item describes you. Please respond to each item and answer honestly.

After submitting the assessment, please refer to the on-screen results for more information about your personality style.

Assessment

1. I worry that my partner will leave me.
2. I demand my partner’s undying attention.
3. My partner complains that I interfere with his/her social relationships.
4. People say I don’t talk much and I’m hard to get to know.
5. People have told me that I’m paranoid.
6. My partner has complained that I don’t talk very much.
7. I hate it when my partner surprises me with a change in plans.
8. It drives me crazy to wait for dinner when my partner said we’d eat at six.
9. I prefer to do things around the house rather than being with people in the house.
10. When people don’t do what I want, I get angry and let them know how I feel.
11. There are lots of crazy and dangerous people in the world and you have to watch out.
12. I like to be in control of things and in charge of people: it’s safe that way.
13. It makes me uncomfortable when my partner gets emotional.
14. People have told me that I’m too uptight.
15. It upsets me when my partner seems to want to be with other people more than me.
16. My partner has complained that I’m a perfectionist.
17. My partner doesn’t understand how important I am.
18. My partner keeps things from me.
19. I long for my partner’s undying attention.
20. I have been in trouble with the law.
21. Whether I’m in a relationship or not, I feel lonely a lot of the time.
22. The home is a happier place to be when children are orderly and obedient.
23. Sometimes I feel really great and other times I feel crummy, and most of it is my partner’s fault.
24. I’ve gotten into fights and had to use violence to protect myself.
25. I’m always suspicious of people’s motives.
26. It upsets me that my partner can’t seem to be organized.
27. When I’m out with my partner, it feels good to see other men looking at her.
28. You shouldn’t trust other people; they’ll just take advantage of you.
29. I sometimes think that people are talking about me behind my back.
30. When I’m angry with my partner, I shut her out as a way of communicating how I feel.
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

I Felt Awful

A discussion that started great, about making love, quickly digressed into verbal abuse, fighting, talks of divorce, and physical violence on my part. I had numerous opportunities to flee, take a time out or choose any other avenue but physical violence but I made bad choices and did not control myself. I chose, that night, to react with anger and decided I was going to take control. Once I hit her, I felt awful.

Mark S