Can abusers change?

It is not common for abusers to change. According to one study, only five percent of abusers really changed, in the sense of really stopping both the emotional and physical abuse and began treating the victim with respect: and even then change is unlikely unless his life sustains some major impact -- a large number of people "intervene", or he's arrested or fired, or the survivor leaves. And even those changes are still external to him: it doesn't mean he wants to change -- he just wants to put on a sufficient appearance of change to get his old life back.


The situation will not change unless the abuser changes: it is he, not the survivor or any external factor or any problem in his history, who makes the choice to be an abuser, a controller. And nothing a woman can do will change a man: he does what he does because he chooses to. And for change to happen, he must want to change, and he must respect the survivor, neither of which are unlikely. Ask him nicely to change and he will refuse; ask him not so nicely and he will become angry; trying to make him feel better about himself will only feed his ego and validate his behavior. If he ever had enough respect for you to make the changes, he wouldn’t have abused you in the first place.

All survivors must remember that the "Nice" husband who shows up occasionally was the act he staged for you and your family: the "Nasty" husband who showed up a few months after the honeymoon is the real man, with his mask off. The "Nice" guy is the myth; the "Nasty" guy is the one you're really married to. So waiting for "Nice" to return is like waiting for your favorite cancelled show to return to the air: all that is fiction, not fact.

And what if you force the issue, threaten to leave, get outside help from family or the courts? Abusers are manipulators, and even if he admits there’s a problem, he will still try to game the system. He will try, as always, to rewrite the rules of the game: you must forgive him, on his timetable, when he feels he’s done enough to change (in fact, it may be that you never forgive him no matter how hard he tries, and that is your right no matter what he says). He will try to steer responsibility back on you: “I can only change if you change too, you must help me, you must show more appreciation for how much I’ve changed already!” He may shift from more obvious abuse and toward more sophisticated manipulation. He will try to bargain: “I will give up this abusive pattern if you let me keep this other one – I’ll stop hitting you if you stop hanging around with those friends who keep badmouthing me” (which is a bit like negotiating with a terrorist, and you should never have to trade one form of abuse for another). He will evade and dodge, and if he can’t get what he wants with you, he may just give up and seek an even more pliant victim so he can go back to using all his abuse tools as before.

Some women believe that drugs and alcohol are causing the abuse, and that getting him clean and sober will solve the problem. This doesn’t work either: intoxication doesn’t cause the abuse – although it can make the violence worse – so getting him clean won’t fix the abuse. An abuser in recovery may reduce his abuse temporarily because he’s too busy focusing on his recovery, or he may even ramp up the abuse, but they don’t stop abusing when they’re clean. At best they may curtail the physical violence while keeping up the emotional abuse which can be even more damaging. An abuser will also exploit his recovery, making himself and his recovery effort the center of your lives at the expense of everything else, claiming that he should get a free pass on abuse that happened before he sobered up, or using recovery as a bargaining chip – “by challenging me on my abuse, you’re threatening my sobriety!” -- playing off the abuse against the recovery or vice versa.

He may claim that child abuse causes him to abuse as an adult, but that is not a valid excuse, any more than the "Sorry, I was drunk" excuse. Although some kids who were abused grow up to be abusers, 75 percent of them do not. Being an abuser is a choice.

Remorse, even genuine remorse, doesn’t change the behavior, and remorse itself fades away as he gets used to tuning out your feelings; backsliding is the rule, not the exception, even when they make progress. As long as you’re with him, he believes you’re there because you can’t leave no matter what, and if you leave and then come back, the abuse may actually increase because you’ve just persuaded him that you have no choice. If you leave for good, which is he more likely to do: admit he was wrong all along and change his ways, now that it’s pointless since you’ve left, or find a new victim so he can have life back the way he wants again?

Genuine reform is very unlikely in abusers who are self-centered, which describes most of them. And reform is even less likely as time goes on – as the years go by, it is harder for you to pull out and he knows it, as he slowly wears down your self-esteem, drains your energy, separates you from friends and relatives who can support you….an abuser is following a plan that can take years. Longterm batterers are less likely to change.

Once a relationship starts moving toward violence, generally it is permanently damaged. Abusers who are not yet violent will probably become physically frightening even if they don’t shift to outright violence, and the few times a violent abuser does reduce the frequency and severity of the attacks, it’s because the victim is so terrorized that all he needs to do is growl and she cowers. And unsurprisingly, abusers who batter their partners even before marriage don’t stop after they’re married.

There is a small minority of abuser who only abuse on isolated occasions under great stress, but the commoner variety is the “career” abuser, wherein abuse is part of his personality. And significantly, the better-trained a family evaluator is, the more likely they are to diagnose a batterer as a career abuser rather than a one-timer.

Therapists have tried teach couples to signal each other when they feel tension rising, then take a timeout or two, or write out their frustrations, or call a therapist or other player to intervene; they have tried strengthening the positives, role playing, playing back tapes of arguments. But even when abusers get into therapy or other programs to change their behavior, it seldom makes a difference. Generally it is not common for therapy to make progress unless there is long-term therapy (which abusers resist) and/or when there is jail time or the threat of it; inevitably there will be backsliding, efforts to put the responsibility on the victim to make it all work, and efforts to game the system.

Couples counseling – to include marriage counseling and mediation – is extremely problematic because (a) it reinforces the abuser’s argument that it’s partly the victim’s fault, and (b) it give the abuser information which the abuser can use against the victim. Another form of therapy that can backfire, is the therapist who encourages the abuser to vent his feelings, thus validating the idea that giving free rein to his anger is acceptable.

As with everything else, abusers use therapy and batterer programs to game the system: they seldom change their behavior even after completing the programs, and the abuser often tries to use the program to continue control over the victim, asserting that the program is all about how she needs to support him, and trying to use the program to con her into returning home.

IF YOU REALLY WANT TO TRY TO CHANGE AN ABUSER

NEEDS
There are things needed in a relationship: love, affection, kindness, respect, the free expression of views and feelings, choices, safe intimacy, equality, treating the partner as a priority, taking responsibility, caring about the impact of what you do to the other.

THIS IS HIS JOB
Healthy relationships can be fixed with teamwork, but abusive relationships must be fixed by the abuser. She should be working on building herself up, while he fixes his own problems. The abuser must accept that he has a problem, take responsibility for his choices, and accept that it is his job to fix it. He must make a specific plan himself, describing what he will do and stop doing, who he will get help from, what he will do every day. He must do the long, hard work, so he and she can get to the better life on the other side. Among the things he needs to do: control himself, empathize, be reliable, care about her feelings, accept that he’s hurting her, describe what he did and how it hurt her, give a meaningful apology and accept her right to be angry, stop from doing it again, make good choices, meet responsibilities, and support her effort to grow and to be herself.

RULES
Things he doesn’t get to do:
Evading responsibility for his actions.
Straw-man arguments – “so what you’re saying is…”
Trying to put issues out of bounds for discussion.
Backsliding.
Expecting her to spend her energy on fixing him – it’s his job. She should be working on herself, not him.
Retaliating when she complains – throwing hissy fits, anger, withdrawal, passive-aggressive behavior etc.
Bargaining – quitting his bad behavior but only partly, quitting only if she gives him something in return; he must change unconditionally because it’s the right thing to do, he doesn’t get a reward for it.

COMMUNICATION
Abusers need to find new ways to communicate, and new tools to manage their behavior.
When he begins to feel angry, he needs to slow down, stop, or even leave the house. Slow deep breaths, slow the heart rate. Get himself back on an even keel before communicating, even if it means setting an issue aside for a day, or sitting and writing what he thinks and feels.
He should be surrounded by positive not negative influences, friends, women, religious and professional people.
He must learn to feel empathy and praise her.
He must see how much better his life will be if he communicates constructively.

He must learn to communicate a new way.
Begin by seeing the facts of what bothers him – facts, not opinions; and only the facts of that incident – don’t turn “the house is a mess today” to “the house is always a mess”.
Then think about how that makes him feel.
Then think about what he really needs specifically – not everything he wants.
And then ask, not demand, what he wants.
When he does these things, he is observing facts, not judging a person.
He is more likely to get what he needs.
And he must let her do the same – ask for what she needs, without attacking her for it.
When he goes wild, he should stop and put it in reverse and try to express himself a second time, properly; paraphrase.
He should work with her to find ways for them both to be happy.
And he should remember why he loves her in the first place.

He must learn not to see communication as a contest he wants to win over an opponent or enemy.
He must give up judgmental communication, judging both her actions and the woman herself – judgmental communication is what happens just before the violence.
He must stop looking at communication in terms of reward and punishment.
He must stop comparing her unfavorably to others.
He must not game the system, turning expressions of feelings into attacks – “I feel that you are being unfair, I feel you’re neglecting me” etc.
He must not use communication and therapy as a way to dump more blame on her, for his actions.
He must not turn a request into a demand, by implying that judgment and guilt trips are coming if he doesn’t get what he wants.
He must not turn a feeling, or an expression of a need, or disappoint in someone’s act, into a judgment of a person, or a demand for obedience.
He must listen to her feelings and needs, and really listen rather than using that time to prepare the next salvo; listening does not mean “topping” her statement, trying to advise or teach her, interrogate or correct or analyze, or shut her down, or console her in a dismissive way.
The first few times, he will need to let her vent her pent-up feelings.
He must respect her, and share her with others.
He must accept responsibility instead of shifting the blame to her, to others, outside forces, authorities, societal expectations, peer pressure, uncontrollable mental problems and impulses etc.

He should understand basic human needs, for food, shelter, clothing, rest, sex; for fun and play; for spiritual inspiration, peace and harmony, beauty; for love, support, empathy, acceptance, respect, a good listener; for a feeling of self-worth; for joy and celebration; for choices.

And she has some rules to follow also.
She should try to get her own nonsense tidied up, ideally, before tackling the relationship.
She needs to gently but firmly push him out of his comfort zone.
She needs to watch him, give him feedback, and know what to do when he strays from the plan.
She shouldn’t judge herself.
She should express her feelings and pain without judging.
She should express her needs and ask him to acknowledge and respond.
She must listen too, respond to his feelings.
She should praise his positive actions.
She should not prop him up, give him money, accept excuses, forgive too quickly.
She should take time apart so he knows the relationship is at stake.
She must not beg him, cajole him, reassure him that she’ll be there no matter what.
She should expect some of his likely reactions: he may feel a sense of loss, he may believe he’s “losing” and you’re “winning”, he may feel urges to break the rules, he may not “feel like a man”, and he may try to persuade you that his behavior is your fault.
She must remember to be realistic, because no single person can give her everything she needs, or make you better if you’re not working on it yourself, or love everything about you, or fulfill you by spending time with you – you and others need to play your roles too.

HAS HE DONE ENOUGH?
How does she decide if he’s changed enough? She is the only one who gets to decide whether he’s done enough, whether she can trust him. She alone, not him, not outsiders. And just because he’s a little less of a jerk than before, doesn’t mean it’s enough. Some outsiders may argue that if he has completed a batter program, he’s done all he needs to do – which is dead wrong. In the end, a woman may need to accept that even if he’s trying with all his might, sincerely, it may never be enough to make her happy with the relationship again – and he will need to accept that too.

HOW LONG TO WAIT?
How much time to you give him, to fix himself? There are many reasons not to wait: waiting costs you time in your own life, time you need to find yourself and seek your own goals; over time you lower your expectations for the relationship, you miss opportunities, you miss connections to your friends and family. There are few strong reasons to give him much more time: time lets you cool down, assess him and the relationship, it may be better for the kids, leaving is a lot of work etc. Some of the arguments I’ve heard for waiting, actually describe a dead relationship – waiting so you can come up with a safe escape plan, get stronger so you can leave etc.

SIGNS THAT IT’S NOT WORKING
The effort to fix the relationship isn’t working if he doesn’t change his thinking; if he minimizes his past misbehavior; if he makes minor changes and declares victory; if you and he avoid each other in order to avoid more fighting; if he doesn’t listen; if he hangs around with friends who are making things worse; if he plays the victim; if he ignores the goals you need to achieve. The guy who won’t change is often afraid, or lazy, or feels no guilt, or doesn’t respect women in general, or hides in the world of addiction when things get too serious, or has enablers who validate his bad behavior. They guy who is less likely to change is the one with other relatives or immature friends running his life, the guy who is older, who abuses drugs and alcohol.


SIGNS THAT IT WILL NEVER EVER WORK
It’s time to give up if you’re only staying out of obligation; if you’re only staying until the loving feeling fades away; if you no longer recognize yourself; if you feel no love or attraction to him; if he still threatens or attacks or rapes you; if you just don’t want to work on it anymore; if he refuses to change, refuses to fix problems, or breaks the rules, especially the rules you said were deal-breakers; if he refuses to even talk about the problems, refuses to be confronted.

A good resource for the women who really do want to fix things, is “Should I Stay Or Should I Go?” by Lundy Bancroft and Jac Patrissi. The book is aimed at men who are not just abusers – it also addresses men who are addicts, immature, mentally ill etc. But Lundy Bancroft specializes in abusers, and throughout the book he reminds women that it is the abusers who often can’t change – and it may actually be dangerous to try.