Can people who were jealous/abusive/controlling in previous relationships become nice partners with someone else?

[HotDogJumpingFrogAlburquerque]

I have a few exes from my younger days. First one was brought up in a very patriarchal family. Thought nothing of pushing me down the stairs or into a wall etc. To be fair, we split up at 19, so maybe he has grown up since then, but I see photos of him and his new GF on Facebook and I always wonder if she is putting up with that too.

Second ex was horribly cruel, manipulative, a real subtle-but-nasty guy. Did everything he could to put me down, make me feel like I was lucky if he decided to grace me with his presence, we'd break up, then if he thought I was moving on he'd want to get back together which I did, argh he would text other women while we were together etc. He is getting married soon and again I wonder if this is the same person that his almost-DW sees.

I was, (I think understandably!) very insecure in that relationship. Would constantly need reassurance, we would argue quite a bit, and I spent a lot of time hysterical upset. I have been with my DH for 8 years, he is perfect in every way. Our relationship is wonderful, I am nothing like the upset, insecure person I was in previous relationships, and never have been in the whole time we've been together.

So then I wonder, would an ex look at me and think "I wonder if she's still that upset, insecure person", and I'm not at all! When I look at my exes' new relationships, I like to think they've met someone it works with and they are nice people now.

So for men who treat their partners terribly, is it sometimes just a symptom of a bad relationship and a destructive dynamic in the relationship? It seems unfair for me to say I was upset/insecure as a result of the bad relationship, but their bad behaviour was just them. What do you think?

I think some people have a bullying/unpleasant streak and will do as much as they can get away with as long as it gets them what they want. If everyone's young, impulsive and insecure there might be no constraints to the behaviour. Some will be emboldened by the experience, get entrenched in the behaviour and carry on in the same vein or worse as they get older because it keeps giving them what they want. Others might opt to rein it in or modify it for various reasons. Like any other behaviour pattern it's a choice but I think they will always have the same tendency.

As for the behaviour of the victim. Many abusive men will target women who they believe to be weak or vulnerable but a lot of others will go for a woman who appears to be strong simply because they like the challenge of bringing her down and controlling her.

Yes, I think they can. Sometimes it's down to finding somebody they are more compatible with. Sometimes it's due to looking at their own behaviour and deciding to change it so that the next relationship isn't ruined. Sometimes a combination of both.

I know that it's an oft quoted opinion on MN that 'leopards don't change their spots' but it's a silly analogy. People are not leopards and behaviour is not always black and white and neither are relationships.

Relationships end at the behest of one partner, very rarely is it a mutual decision, I think, although this is often cited. The instigator can feel guilt and regret as much as the left partner can dwell in introspection Sometimes relationships just don't work out but people have hope for the next one and take steps to adjust themselves accordingly.

I think abusive and controlling behaviour is a deeply ingrained character-trait and therefore extremely difficult to change, even if the perpetrator wants to.

When someone is young and demonstrates these traits, I suppose it is possible that they could encounter someone who is not prepared to tolerate their shit, so might have them examine their attitude and make them want to change. But I'm not hopeful that that is anywhere near the case for a lot of people.

Can people change? Yes, I think they can. But in my experience, the majority DONT.

I see two violent exes of mine on Facebook, parading pictures of smiling wives and cute kids. I dont personally buy it. Remember - FB is a form of marketing for some. Their 'best bits', if you like.

I often think back to the person I was who swung between blissfully happy to hysterical crying mess depending on what the DP at the time was up to. I think "God, who was that person, in so not like that now".

But deep down, I wonder, if my now DH starting behaving like they did (not that he ever would), do I 100% trust myself not to revert to weak, crying mess who puts up with more shit than I should? I don't know.

So maybe people can't change completely, deep down, that behaviour is always there and will come out if the environment is the same.

It depends what's driving the bad behaviour. Someone who is, for instance, drinking or drugging too much and behaving badly may get clean and sober and sort him/herself out. Someone who is aggressive and volatile due to a recent trauma of some kind may get better, particularly if profesional help is obtained.

But an abusive man who fundamentally believes that women are inferior to men and exist for men's benefit? No, that won't change.

I agree with SGB. Environment and circumstances don't necessarily mean that behaviour - good or bad - is imprinted within you like a stick of rock. Inherent character is something else entirely.

I know my abusive ex won't change because he won't even admit to being abusive. Everything he has said and done has been denied/minimised/rewritten or blamed on me misunderstanding/having no sense of humour. People like that will never change imo.

I know personally of 2 relationships where there has been abuse, one where the man was seriously physically violent and one where the woman was highly controlling/emotionally abusive. Both perps are now in happy relationships with other people where there is none of the abusive behaviours.

I can only really speculate about why not but in the case of the violent man I think it may have something to do with the fact that he doesn't live with his new DP and she doesn't need him, would fuck him off if he behaved badly and he knows it!

The EA woman, I think she knows that her new DP wouldn't tolerate her manipulative bullshit and has more of the power in there relationship than she does by way of him being slightly less into her, so she doesn't bother to try it on. Because that's essentially what they're doing, trying it on.

I know you can't draw any generalisations from 2 cases but my feelings would be yes sometimes. But probably more often not.

My abusive ex had two further partners and I don't think he treated them the way he treated me.

People who are just unhappy with each other can, obviously, go on to happier relationships. This is normal. Otherwise we'd all be stuck.

People who think they have a right to push someone downstairs, or emotionally abuse them, seem to have serious problems with empathy and conscience. Their actions arise from their attitudes. Success rates on perpetrator programs tend to be low. So change is very hard.

They tend to look like very good partners at the start of a relationship, and to people outside the relationship.

It's hard to know though, isn't it, which behaviour was because of the relationship and which behaviour was just ingrained in them.

It seems very generous to attribute all my own less than desirable attributes to being treated poorly, and theirs to being nasty bastards!

I can't imagine my exes new partners putting up with the same, and they do look happy in photos, but yes they are obviously not going to put up terrible photos, or ones just after a fight etc!

I can only speak from experience, I was the emotional mess blubering idiot, low self esteem, when I ltsb I got counseling and it changed who it was and how I saw myself, I'm still slightly neurotic, but dh loves me and sees that personality coming out and helps me identify it and take corrective action,

My ex on the other hand didn't think he did anything wrong and has gone on to be a much more horrible violent excuse for a human being,

He has been done for gbh, i don't think a rocket up his arse would change him, losing his only child didn't, the courts ordered he have nothing to do with us ever again thank god, being locked up multiple times hasn't so someone like him will never change as he has spent half his life being a c*nt, so wouldn't know empathy and compassion or true love if it bit him in the arse,

If you simply didn't get on well, it would indeed be generous to attribute your problems to how you were treated, and theirs to personality. :-) But there is a huge difference between less desirable attributes, and abuse.

Everyone has less desirable attributes. Not many people are abusers though. If you become miserable and insecure with someone, only you are harmed; you haven't hurt anyone else. If an abuser pushes you down the stairs, that won't hurt the abuser: but it could kill you.

So we have perpetrator programmes for abusers, the Freedom Programme for abuse survivors, police DV units for people at risk, refuges etc. If people changed these behaviours easily, and just needed the right partner to make it OK, these initiatives would not exist - or would look very different.

I've thought about this. A lot. My upbringing was PA and EA and the majority of my subsequent relationships have been, so it's something I've lived with for much of my life.

I think that some people enjoy controlling and abusing people. It makes them feel strong and 'right' and in control (e.g. my mother).

I think that some people don't realise they're being abusive (e.g. my exH was only trying to get me to be a 'better woman' for my own good)

I think that some people are under stress and need an outlet and they don't have the emotional capacity to realise what they are doing (my dad - pressures at work and my mother)

In some cases, it's a clash of personalities where people bring out the worst in someone else. But then abuse isn't the right way to deal with it, you end the relationship and find someone more compatible.

I've seen my mother in other relationships and she's equally controlling and nasty to them.

My exH, well the OW dumped him but I don't know exactly why (I know why I think it was... I think she was also an independent woman and probably needed 'improving' just as much as I did, only she was stronger than me and ended it)

My dad went on to have a successful marriage and two more children and to live in a house/family of peace, love and support.

Yes, I think some people do enjoy controlling and abusing people, and I guess along that spectrum is thatsome like trying to manipulate others and get some pleasure at seeing their manipulation work.

Trying to manipulate other people is probably more an immaturity thing that people grow out of, I would think? Certainly, among my peers' relationships in the late teens, early 20s, there was a lot of it. Although sometimes you hear of people who never grow out of it, so at some point they must become abusive.

You know what? I don't know the answer but I hope to god it's possible for twinta to change. Seriously, I hope to god my ex won't make any other woman feel the way I did.... :(

Hmmm. I think I have changed a lot as I have grown up. I used to be very entitled, tire of people easily and cheated on almost all of my boyfriends without thinking very much of it tbh. I would be off at the first sign of trouble and didn't see the point in working through relationship problems when I could easily find someone new and exciting and start over.

I am completely different with my DH. We have worked hard at our relationship through good and bad times and I have become a more loyal and considerate person through knowing him. However, I think having children and the importance of keeping a family together is the factor that settled me. Enforced growing up.

Well my mother enjoyed controlling, manipulating and gaslighting the last time I saw her and she was 60, so I don't think she's going to grow out of it...

My family isn't a bed of roses either. That's probably no coincidence is it?

My grandmother is 103 and she's still controlling and abusive.

I guess what I (very clumsily put, but) was trying to say is that when you are just starting out in relationships, romantic or otherwise, is that there will be a much higher % of peyote who will be manipulative due to immaturity, but will grow out of it fairly quick.

Those who continue to be manipulative do so calculating, and are abusive.

I don't know which category my Exes would fit into, I would say that I would probably describe my behaviour at the time as attention-seeking, though I can tell it is because I was pretty lost back then, not secure in the relationship at all. I'm not like that now.

Looking back at my relationships from age 18-21, I did some shit things. Not violent things, and not verbally abusive either, but manipulation born out of massive insecurity. I was miserable. I obsessed about people, I turned up at events and stared at them the whole time, I casually-not-casually said that their perfectly justified behaviour had led me to self-harm. I once grabbed a girl who'd given me no indication of wanting to be grabbed, in a horrible drunken attempt to impress a bloke I was mad over. Basically sexually assaulted her. I am ashamed.

Teenagers and very young adults are genuinely still building their capacity for empathy. I can see a young person treating a partner badly through a lack of understanding - understanding of what a person in a relationship is entitled to, or of the other person's desires, or just thinking they can MAKE the other person give them the love/sex/approval they desperately want. It's why I think education beyond the mechanics of sex is so, so, so important. Just like we teach tiny children not to bite just because they're angry.

Physical violence or calculated, sustained emotional abuse is a step beyond. I don't know if someone like that can change but I wouldn't bloody stick around to find out.

I think family/social dynamics have a role to play in whether abusers can change.

I'm not taking responsibility away from abusers, but I think often enablers/goaders in their family can make or break them acting the way they do. Sometimes it's someone validating them and not setting them straight: sometimes it's literally transferrring the rage they CAN'T express at one interaction (often parents) onto others (their partner or wife).

Anyone read The Outcast? The way someone seems to go off the rails, but it's actually a symptom of the sickness of his family/society. The novel ends in triumph, as he goes off to join the army and escape the toxic dynamic.

My own experience: Guy X I dated who displayed very, very angry/controlling tendencies had some weird dysfunctional family, and one got the impression his father had EXACTLY the same issues as him.

I think Guy X had some ASD tendencies, and hadn't been able to make the social break from his father. Who one got the impression was both obsessed with his only son and very aggressive towards him.

And by the time we met -although a high flyer - Guy X had gone too far so no "normal" woman (self included) would want to be associated with him. And then he thought "I "deserve" an eligible woman" so that's where the controlling came in. After I got rid of him he went to the Phillipines to "get himself a holiday girlfriend", which I got the impression was a frequent thing for him.

It was like he saw his father acting like an animal, so he then thought "so I won't have to admit my father is an embarrassing piece of woman hating shit, I'll do as he does". And all the rage he was feeling at that interaction was spilling out into the "man" he had become.

He was 37 when we dated and a ball of resentment (directed against women - I got the impression he hated his mother for letting his father "take him over").

Who knows, maybe if he'd left that influence earlier and learned how a man SHOULD be, maybe moved abroad, found a partner there, and cut/minimised contact with his toxic parents, he'd have been able to break free? As it is, he'll just have to keep on being Daddy's little animal and never actually change.

To expand a bit, I don't think it's uncommon for people to have X issue in their life which they don't want to deal with, then manifest that as abuse towards others. It's all a projection of self-loathing.

If they can deal with that core issue, they're actually like a new person.

Example: I've known many women (my mother included) who were very aggressive towards other women.

Basically, it came down to fundamentally emotionally faking it in their marriage, and then taking it out on other women because they were too ashamed to face the Big Lie they were living, and it was easier to bitch at other women and hate them than admit they needed a D.I.V.O.R.C.E.