Many victims of narcissism, manipulation and abuse desperately want to know if their abusive partner can change.
This is very normal. You are likely an empathetic person who would make changes if you were hurting someone you care about. This is not true for manipulative people.
If you are truly wondering this question, I invite you to read Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men
Yes, abusive men can absolutely change, but as Bancroft explains: true, lasting change is a deeply transformative process requiring “deep work” and committing to living amends for a lifetime.
Few men choose to take this road. Staying in your relationship because he might be changing or has committed to change may not be the best option for you.
Instead, taking a step back and setting firm boundaries to keep yourself separate from abuse may be the right course.
Detecting actual change can be extremely difficult, because for most abusers make promises they can’t keep. For example, they may make commitments to never do it again, partially or fully admitting to what theyve done, or even starting therapy.
This may seem like they want to change, but unfortunatley, most of the time it’s just the abuser “grooming” his victim to believe that he is changing enough that she chooses to stay.
Lundy Bancroft’s ’13 signs of change’ are extremely helpful to victims who are caught up in the abuse cycle and may have difficulty discerning reality due to gaslighting and constant devaluation.
1. Admit fully to his history of psychological, sexual, and physical abusiveness toward any current or past partners who he has abused. Denial and minimizing need to stop, including discrediting your memory of what happened. He can’t change if he is continuing to cover up, to others or himself, important parts of what he has done.
2. Acknowledge that abuse was wrong, unconditionally. He needs to identify the justifications he used, including the various ways that he may have blamed you, and to talk in detail about why his behaviors were unacceptable without slipping back into defending them.
3. Acknowledge that his behavior was a choice, not a loss of control. For example, he needs to recognize that there is a moment during each incident at which he gives himself permission to become abusive and that he chooses how far to let himself go (most abusers do not progress past #3).
4. Recognize the effect his abuse had had on you and your children, and show empathy for those. He needs to talk in detail about the short and long – term impact his abuse had had, including fear, loss of trust, anger . . . And he needs to do this without reverting to feeling sorry for himself or talking about how hard the experience has been for him.
5. Identify in detail his pattern of controlling behaviors and entitled attitudes. He needs to speak in detail about the day-to-day tactics of abuse he has used. Equally important, he must be able to identify his underlying beliefs and values that have driven those behaviors, such as considering himself entitled to constant attention, looking down on you as inferior, or believing that men aren’t responsible for their actions if “provoked” by a partner.
6. Develop respectful behaviors and attitudes to replace the abusive ones he’s stopping. You can look for examples such as improving how well he listens to you during conflicts and at other times. He has to demonstrate that he has come to accept the face that you have rights and they are equal to his.
7. Re-evaluate his distorted image of you, replacing it with a more positive and empathic view. He has to recognize that he has had mental habits of focusing on and exaggerating his grievances against you and his perceptions of your weaknesses to begin instead to compliment you and pay attention to your strengths and abilities.
8. Make amends for the damage he has done. He has to develop a sense that he has a debt to you and to your children as a result of his abusiveness. He can start to make up somewhat for his actions by being consistently kind and supportive, putting his own needs on the back burner for a couple of years, talking with people who he has misled in regard to the abuse and admitting to them that he lied, paying for objects that he has damaged, and many other steps related to cleaning up the emotional and literal messes that his behaviors have caused.
9. Accept the consequences of his actions. he should stop whining about, or blaming you for, problems that are the result of his abuse, such as your loss of desire to be sexual with him, the children’s tendency to prefer you, or the fact that he is on probation.
10. Commit to not repeating his abusive behaviors and honor that commitment. He should not place any conditions on his improvement, such as saying that he won’t . . . [swear] long as you don’t raise your voice to him. If he does backslide, he cannot justify his abusive behaviors by saying, “But I’ve done great for five months; you can’t expect me to be perfect,” as if a good period earned him chips to spend on occasional abuse.
11. Accept the need to give up his privileges and do so. This means saying good-bye to double standards, to flirting with other women, to taking off . . . while you look after the children, and to being allowed to express anger while you are not.
12. Accept that overcoming abusiveness is likely to be a life-long process. He at not time can claim that his work is done by saying to you, “I’ve changed but you haven’t,” or complain that he is sick of hearing about his abuse . . . and that “it’s time to get past all that.” He needs to come to terms with the fact that he will probably need to be working on his issues for good and that you may feel the effects of what he has done for many years.
13. Be willing to be accountable for his actions, both past and future. His attitude that he is above reproach has to be replaced with a willingness to accept feedback and criticism, to be honest about any backsliding, and to be answerable for what he does and how it affects you and your children.
Overall, an abusive person would need to give up their sense of entitlement. Bancroft asserts that, “Abusive men don’t make lasting changes if they skip any of the above steps, and some are easier than others. Most of my clients find it fairly easy to apologize, for example. In fact, an abuser may weave apologies into his pattern of abuse, so that when he says “I’m sorry” it becomes another tool.
His unspoken rule may be that once he has apologized, no matter what he did, you must be satsisfied. His partner therefore is not to make any further efforts to show her feelings about his mistreatment. If she tries to say anything more about the incident, he jumps right back into abuse mode, saying such things as, “I already told you I was sorry. What more do you want me to say?!”
Mr. Bancroft gives a list of things that indicate for certain that the abuser is not changing:
- He says he can only change if you change too.
- He says he can change only if you “help” him change, by giving him emotional support, reassurance, forgiveness, by spending a lot of time with him.
- He criticizes you for not realizing how much he has changed.
- He criticizes you for not trusting that his change will last.
- He criticizes you for considering him capable of behaving abusively even though he has in fact done
- so in the past as if you should know that he “would never do something like that”, even though he has.
- He reminds you about the bad things he would have done in the past, but isn’t doing anymore, which amounts to a subtle threat.
- He tells you that you are taking too long to make up your mind, that he can’t “wait forever,” as a way to pressure you not to take the time you need to collect yourself and to assess how much he’s really willing to change.
- He blames his behavior, the situation or his choices on you.
- He says, “I’m changing. I’m changing.” but you don’t feel it.
I can support you even if you’re not ready for Coaching right now. Use the Clarity Session link to set up a call. We will move at your pace.
You can also listen to my podcast on this topic here.
