do abusive people really ever change?

Question

i was married and my wife was wonderful in the beginning, then she was telling me how abusive her mother was. i believed her because....when life started getting a little stressful she full on started abusing me. i kicked her out once and told her to watch her mouth. she came back crying and told me it was how she was raised and she didn't want to repeat the cycle for her daughter's sake. about six months later, she got close to her abusive mother again and guess what happened...she started abusing the crap out of me and then telling me nothing is wrong with her after admitting it early on. from there on it went down hill rapidly. the abuse escalated until now a nasty divorce where she is accusing me of abuse. i believed she loved me to death at one point but discarded me after believing her disfuntional family. is there any hope for abusive people like her? i guess after thirty years it's hard for her to change even though in the beginning she wanted to.

Answer 1

It's really difficult for an abusive person to change that pattern. It runs generation to generation. Unless your wife really wants to break that cycle and get under counseling, in order to preserve the marriage. Also, she has to acknowledge that there is a problem to be addressed. But, at the end, she is the one who must want to change.Probably she loved you, but that problem makes any marital relationship so difficult to handle, that it almost always ends in divorce. I hope everything turns fine for both of you.

Answer 2

Being raised in an abusive family make's it hard to change to change the cycle , if your strong enough you can do it but if your to hurt emotionally it is almost impossible not totally out of the question.

She tried by the sound's of it to be different to her family but some how managed to slip back , ask yourself what was going on for this to change , did she suffer from post natal depression of any sort after your children were born and you just didnt see it? , was there a trigger to it at all?.

I am not suggesting you had anything to do with it but it is hard I have lived it , and I have raised my kid's outside of the cycle even though my ex husband was emotionally and verbally abusive and it took 4 year's after the divorce for me to realise how like my father he really was even though he didnt drink (maybe he should have he was always so loving after a few drink's) anyway I am sorry this has happened to you and I hope you raise your daughter to know this sort of attention grabbing is NOT acceptable.

Answer 3

Abusive people never change.

Sadly, most of them are like they are because of abusive childhood. After two marriages where I let sympathy allow me to risk everything for 2 men. I now check for the red flag signs before even getting close. Just a mention of abuse as a child, by an GF or ex-wife or even an accusation of abuse by a former partner, and I know better. I end it REAL FAST.

Life is too short. I am not going to be killed by an abusive spouse. I will not take my chances on someone who hasn't had enough counseling to know how to keep reliving the past.

There is no love strong enough to fix the other person, they have to fix themselves...

Answer 4

Some people believe abusers can be changed by years of therapy, I believe they change when they are kept locked up.
I hope you ensure the daughter is protected from this behavior so the cycle will stop.

Answer 5

after being in abusive relationship my thoughts on the matter is no not with that person, l dont think they change with you and if they do its only temperaly, and as you stay they slip back in to bad habits as they know you except it to a certain degree, l do how ever believe that they might not be like that with someone else, father in law was abusive to mother inlaw, and his next wife were happily married for 30 odd years

Answer 6

Yeah she can change. She just needs help and compassion from you and even without you she needs counseling. I am a woman like her or was I should say. My mother was murdered when I was 4 and I had to go live with my dad and step-mom. My step-mom hated me and resented me. Was very abusive mentally and pysically........i dealt with it for 16 years until I couldn't take it anymore...I wanted to commit suicide but then i told myself that i would just be satisfying her.....finally i got married to the love of my life...but because i had all of that anger inside of me for so many years and had never recieved help that once I was FREE i could no longer control myself. I was very jealous because i couldn't bare the thought of loosing the one person that i loved and loved me...when we would fight i would feel desperate and confrontational and when he didn't respond i would punch holes in the walls or push and hit him....it all wasn't me, i have a medeling MIL and she caused us alot of problems but i went about it the wrong way...4yrs into the marriage we had our first child and he left me 2mo later for a co-worker but it was instigated by his mother cause she would tell him i was a horrible person and alot of BS..........that just killed me.......but once my son was born, I handle things very differently...i am still very strong minded and determined but now when he make me mad i just ignore him and go into another room....i don't want my children to see us or hear us arguing.... I suggest counseling for the both of you if its not too late.

Answer 7

I've never known any to change. My father was abusive, never changed, I was in an abusive relationship in my early 20s, after I was able to get out of that relationship he married and abused his 2nd wife before she left him, then he married again and beat his third wife to death, ne is now in prison and his children are scattered throughout foster homes.

Answer 8

once they are abusive they will never change and its bad so if you can't stand it get out. its sad but they won't change just like someone will not change how they are when they say they wil it is very hard to change a person. its life that they are used ot.

Answer 9

If she realize she has a problem and willing to fix it, and if you are willing to be patient, loving and genuinely care for her to be not abusive, take her to counseling. That would improve it for the better. Good luck!

Answer 10

She can change, but only if she wants to and only with a lot of counselling!