Historic abuse never excuses repeating the abuse cycle?

[TheQueef]

Three recent events/ threads,
R Kelly and the abuse he suffered.
The murder and attempted murder of six children by their parents.
The recent thread about being groomed by a female friend who passed the OP around abusers.

My AIBU is all these stories have abused people going on to repeat the cycle and become abusers themself.
I'm not arguing that their abuse very likely led to them becoming abusers but I think it's completely unfair on the many abuse survivors who break the cycle and never commit abuse to allow historic abuse to mitigate their crimes.
Are we in danger of tacitly permitting a low level of abuse because we make allowances for the devastation historic abuse has?

AIBU to say it's never an excuse and being a victim of abuse doesn't minimise being abusive?

To explain is not to exonerate

If anything it’s worse to be a victim and go on to become an abuser because you know exactly what you are doing to you victim(s).

Re female abusers, my mother abused me. She (and her father) were abused by here mother. Women are just as capable.

I was abused as a child and honestly i realise now there was a point when i was about 11 when i could have gone on to repeat the cycle. I feel ashamed to admit this but there was this little boy i really hated and I wanted to hurt him. It was an overwhelming urge - I saw him as pathetic, worthless, etc (probably how my abuser saw me). I didn't, thank god! but something must have intervened to save me and save him from me and change my mindset at around that age. I don't know what it was - I wish I did because then i might have some answers that might help society.

RuffleCrow I think it's really brave of you to admit that.
The thing that I have observed, through working with victims and abusers in the past, is that victims try to relieve their pain inwardly or outwardly (although sometimes both). So someone might self harm or abuse substances, so it is technically only hurting them. Others will cause the pain to others as their "release". It appears to me that both bring a temporary easing of the persons own pain. Of course some people do manage by not going down either of these paths. But I think the key is to ease an abused childs internal pain. How do we do that? I'm not sure. I think even therapy can only go so far and doesn't work for everyone. The ideal would be to strive for a society where no child is abused, or left in an abusive household. But we need a lot more money and a far, far better care system to be able to achieve that.

I'm not saying anything of the sort Longdrive I'm saying because that is my life experience it feels (not a fact a feeling) worse when it's a female abuser. A bigger crime for want of a better word.

I think you've mixed up "excuse" and "reason".

This. Knowing the reason why something has happened means we should endeavour to prevent it happening again in the future. It doesn't mean we give people a get out of jail card.

Some people's chances of having anything resembling a successful life are clearly massively harmed by their upbringing and often seemingly exacerbated by the the care system. We must, as a society, be able to do better but we choose not to. It's been known for years that the care system is broken, but fixing it is, apparently, not a vote winner. Tragedies happen we all wring our hands, point the finger of blame then forget about it until the next time.

Thanks for the rec Inebriati ordered a copy.

YANBU OP. The evidence suggests that suffering abuse yourself does not make you more likely to be an abuser. That myth persists as a result of a discredited study (which I can’t remember but I’ll find to reference it).
People like neat explanations though, especially to explain unthinkable behaviour. The fact is that many people who weren’t abused go on to abuse and many who were abused do not go on to abuse. The whole abused so will become an abuser is trite bollocks. Highly unfair on those who are abused too.

What Keepyoursockson says.

There was a study which showed that the number of abused people who abused compared to the numbers who were not abused and did so was extremely small.

I can't remember the exact detail but the difference was something like 1.7%.

I believe it's difference in the case of children abusing other children. Which is why there needs to be prompt action in those cases to help both the victim and the perpetrator.

For adults like those recently in the news, it's very likely they both had multiple ACEs (the woman certainly did) and possibly no safe adult in their lives when growing up - it's having a supportive, reliable adult in a young persons life that can make all the difference even if everything else in their life is shit.

That's ringing very true for me @lightsinotherpeopleshouses. I was abused by two family members but i also had no real safe haven because my dad was an enabler who sometimes turned nasty himself (and my mum the abusive narcissist). I did have one grandparent i could trust but she was pretty old and frail by this point. I can't believe I'm the only person who nearly became an abuser in childhood but mercifully, somehow didn't. We've all read Lord of the Flies, I'm guessing.

To explain is not to exonerate

Except some are using it to try and lessen what her part and hint the man led her to it.

@TheQueef that might be what you meant. But thata not what you said. If people are less likely to believe someo e could abuse because of their sex, job, how nice they seem etc and the belief that people who match that characteristic must have had input from someone else, is making the abuse real.

It's also dangerous because, that's why abuse is often missed or people have suspicions and dont do anything because the person is above suspicion because they are (in the case a woman).

It's a touchy subject on here because I know several long term posters have out and out denied that abuse by women doesnt happen unless they are groomed into it by men. Despite people telling the poster it happened to them, it was flatly denied it ever happens.

Often kids abused by their mothers find it harder because people find it less believable a woman would abuse her kids. That is dangerous and leave kids, being abused by their mothers even more vulnerable.