Do abusers ever realise what they do is wrong?

[tellmesomethingtrue]

I've just read through all my old notes describing incidents of verbal abuse and controlling behaviour from my STBEXH.
It goes back 5 years and I'm finally divorcing him. He has never read any of this and won't remember the incidents. He claims that I've always been moody and horrible to him. Will he always think he's done nothing wrong? He doesn't achknowledge that he's abused me. He claims that any bad behaviour from him to me was justified and therefore deserved. I wish I could make him listen to me read it all out so he can see just how awful it has been for me. Will he live the rest of his life just thinking I'm a bitch and will never understand how his behaviour has impacted me?

I think it takes time to find acceptance of what has happened. It is hard to accept as we would never treat anyone like that and so struggle to accept that others do. .

@GreyCarpet how do you feel about his re marriage? Presumably now that he can reflect on his own behaviour he is a better husband/father? Which is good obviously but I think I would have difficult feelings if my ex went on to be a good husband to someone else. I make myself feel better about our failed relationship by saying it’s not personal he can’t maintain relationships with anyone….

Wish44

I think I'm quite pragmatic about things.

I dont think I ever wondered what was wrong with me or took it personally. Essentially, she and I are very different people. Neither one of us is 'better' we are just very different and clearly the person she is is far better suited to him than the person I was.

Part of the problem in our relationship was that he wanted me to be more like the sort of woman she was and that's where a lot of the emotional abuse stemmed from.

They are just far more compatible. If you take the view of a relationship existing in the space between people it's a lot easier to see.

Ultimately, my exh tried to control me and many aspects of my personality, my interests, my life to turn me into the person he wanted to be with and I resisted. He perceived me as wrong because if I was like 'other women' he wouldn't have needed to do that. He perceived my resistance to that as abuse towards him and me deliberately trying to make him unhappy (why he sought therapy).

His second wife just is that woman naturally.

OP, I hope my posts help. But also, I would stop reading and ruminating on your notes. I know why you made them but they're not helping you now.

Find a way of drawing a line under the past and focusing on the fact that your life is infinitely better without him in it.

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter if he never accepts his part in it. And it doesn't matter what his version of the past is - he's entitled to hold that.

All that matters to you is that you are free of it and he's not in your life anymore. He can't say those things to you again. He doesn't matter.

Don't waste your precious life by focusing on him.

This is a very helpful, and confronting, thread. Thank you for your wisdom

I think this is very very accurate and a great way of understanding how good people can be abusive. I agree with everything you have said here but will add an additional element which is that sometimes the behaviour is almost learned. Dh, for example, absolutely had the potential to be abusive and certainly, his last serious relationship before me was borderline.

I don't know what he has said to her but they are friendly and get on well now. But I know that dh had to do the work. That started because when he behaved in the entitled and spoiled way his parents had not discouraged, i refused to accept it. Because he IS a good person, he put the effort in to thinking about what was happening.

Unfortunately his ex is a much more passive woman who struggled to push back. That is NOT her fault, but the reality is that long term with her, dh would have been a very different person. And yes, i 100% blame PIL. 🤣🤣 DH was the favourite and even now they tell stories about, for example, him having a tantrum and they all think it's hilarious.

I don't think every abuser is a conscious abuser.
It's still abuse nonetheless and a victim is still a victim, even if the abuser doesn't know he's abusing them.

I think there's a difference between people who get pleasure from causing other people pain or suffering, and people with their own (childhood) trauma who are using abusive strategies to preserve their fragile self images from eroding even further.

I think a small minority of people fall into the first category. Most of us don't like to cause people pain and suffering. We don't enjoy seeing others in pain. We feel guilty when we know we've done something wrong and hurt someone.

But I think most of people could or will at some point fall into the second category. We all have our own trauma, and we all have our ways of dealing with that trauma. And in order to protect ourselves, we all sometimes (unintentionally) hurt others. The goal here is not to hurt them. The goal is to avoid getting hurt ourselves. So we lash out, we criticize, we control, we get defensive, we shut down, we disregard the needs of others, we invalidate their feelings, we gaslight, we lie, we get jealous, ...
Most people do or have done this at some point in our lives. We may not feel like an abuser per se, but that doesn't mean people haven't experienced this as abusive. And they would be justified to feel that way.
Most problems arise when people are systematically using these strategies and feeling justified to do so because their trauma response has been triggered. When you ask anyone whether any of these abusive strategies is acceptable, most people would say no. However, providing the right context and the right threat to their self esteem (a percieved attack), people might suddenly say they have every right to react.

This makes abuse a grey matter (when actually it's not). As long as people keep thinking that certain situations justify abusive responses, people are going to deny being abusive when they clearly are. And those people aren't going to feel remorse.

Trouble with this is it sounds like you are saying that people who are abused are passive… and somehow allowing it…. But your husband didn’t abuse you because you are strong and stood up to him.

No, not at all. I was adding to @GreyCarpet 's post about how abusers don't necessarily mean to abuse, but do so anyway. Her example was that she didn't live up to what he thought was normal and acceptable, so he tried to force her to be different, which was abusive. He was in the wrong but he had to learn that. She also, I think, talked about how her ex's new wife is more compatible with him.

Mine was that DH had never been told no, so he had no idea what that really felt like. That meant htat when he continued to not be told no, he was potentially abusive. HE was 100% in the wrong, but he had to learn that. If there was ANY suggestion it was his ex's fault if he'd been abusive, that was absolutely NOT my intention. And he woudl be the first to acknowledge that. He did not have the skills or self awareness to realise that his reactions could be making her feel or behave in ways that were uncomfortable for her. He does now. Either way, HE was in the wrong, not her.

Thank you. Good advice.
Thank you all x