From reading and observing and thinking about this after dealing with an abuser who would DARVO at all times: They might actually believe it.

Possibly, at least.

Like, they think you have to be perfect. It is their right that you are perfect. They are entitled to your perfection. You are supposed to see to their needs and exist for them. You are not supposed to have needs of your own, or complicated feelings, or opinions, or other such nuisances that make you less than perfect for their purposes.

And if you stray from this, they have no choice but to do what it takes to correct you. Violence is wrong, they know that, and they'd never hurt an innocent. They hate abusers with a passion, those horrible people who come home and beat their perfect, submissive wife for no reason or whatever. They'd never do that. But for them it's different. You gave them no choice. And that makes you the bad guy because unless they are full blown psychopaths, they still feel guilt and that sucks. So they have to suppress that guilt and for what? Because *you* made them do those things.

Maybe. I'm not saying this is all true for all of them, but maybe for some?

I've struggled with understanding why people would so strongly condemn others for doing things they do themselves, but this helps explain that too. They can see their own justifications, but not the other person's. (For example my father condemning my ex and saying he can't understand how my ex could do that, while he himself battered at least two of his wives.)

I don't remember having those talks so much with my abusive mother, but when it happened, it was clear. 20 years later, for example, she said that of course she had to try to chop her way through my locked door with an axe at night, because I had a CD in the room that was several weeks late for returning to the library. Nvm that the door had been unlocked during daytime for all of those weeks, or that the reason I locked the door was to stop her habit of standing over my bed and beating me at night when I tried to sleep. No, it was all justified by the CD.

With my abusive ex, it has been much more obvious. He (and our son, influenced by him) sees all fights between us as 100% my fault, because if I didn't go against him, if I just put up with mistreatment, if I just obeyed and did everything like he wanted it and never complained, then there would be no fights. And he just couldn't understand why I'd keep "starting fights" when he was fine with "peace". He also turned everything around. Like, when I told him I had found a word for that thing where I try to talk about something that happened and he's so forceful about telling me it didn't happen that I eventually start doubting my own memories, and he jumped on it immediately - "Ah, I see! When someone accuses you of gaslighting, you can know for sure that they are trying to gaslight you. I've been wondering.". And after that, he'd include accusations of gaslighting in his efforts to change my memories or make me seem unreliable or just generally verbally abuse me. Same with everything else I was dumb enough to let him know that I saw him doing to me. I don't know whether or not he believed all of it, but he sure seemed to think he had the right to do what he did in order to maintain control.