Redirecting anger is an amazing talent the spouses of abusers develop.
If an abuser is angry, they are angry. It rarely has anything to do with you. Well, sometimes it does, if you violate their absolute power in the slightest way, it will anger them. But sometimes doing what's right requires not following their dictates.
Anyway, most partners learn quickly to redirect and appease the anger of an abuser. They may initiate sex with them. They may give them a massage to calm their nerves.
If the children are the target, the spouse may immediately direct the anger of the abuser away to themselves to protect the children.
Most teenage boys, by the time they are 14 have intervened with the father and had a physical altercation to protect their mother, and "redirected" the anger back to themselves.
A step parent or new partner, faced with the abusers anger in the presence of the abusers children, as the children are not her/his own, may redirect the abusers anger to the abusers children in their own attempt to emotionally survive.
Well, some step parents, not all or most. But some do.
Yes that is a particularly frightening thought.
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