Can Abusive People Change?

It is easy to find online assertions of some sort of asinine fatalism holding that if someone naturally gravitates towards abusive inclinations on a mental level or if they act abusively once, they are doomed to commit abusive actions for the rest of their life.  But if someone was truly rational, they would never think such a thing.  Change is not necessarily positive, so even if someone changed, they might only become worse.  Sometimes people do claim abuse is bound to increase in severity or frequency.  However, a rational—that is, rationalistic—person does not conflate claims or consensus with logical truth and proof.

Even if someone who thinks abusers never/cannot chance has personally received abuse from a person who never changed or has seen it inflicted on others from similarly consistent abusers, they are wrong because they would have to be assuming, misunderstanding subjective experience instead of looking to reason itself.  One abuser is not another abuser; that one remains steadfast in their harmful practices or becomes even more abusive does not mean another one will do either.  And comparison between hypothetical or real people is unnecessary to know that abusers can change, since it is logically untrue that a given person will stay as they are or have been.  Ultimately, of course, the fact that an abuser changing in a positive manner does not contradict logical axioms is what all of this hinges on.  It clearly is logically possible for them to change for this reason alone.

Possibility alone does not mean something is true or will occur, however.  An abusive person having the capacity to change for the better unfortunately does not necessitate that they will choose to.  Still, they could.  There is nothing about being an abuser that logically requires otherwise.  Anyone who holds a contrary belief is an illogical thinker planted in emotionalism or assumptions.  For abusive people who do not change, though, why would this be the case?  Their staunchness is certainly not an inevitable outcome.

In some cases, the status quo of the relationship serves the abusive party's own irrational or evil intentions—perhaps they just want someone to exercise power over arbitrarily, or perhaps they like hurting people for the sake of hurting people.  For romantic relationships, perhaps the abuser is afraid that their partner will end the relationship and seek another partner.  Lashing out verbally or physically is intended to deter them from this course of action, whether or not they were even considering it beforehand, and whether or not they already had valid reasons to.  The former's behavior is self-sabotaging, of course, because they are only giving their partner a genuine reason to leave.

Perhaps they think they are so worthy of attention and submission that they deserve literally unconditional loyalty, so they intentionally or unintentionally toy with their partner to feel empowered or important.  If the partner stands up to them, even on a purely rationalistic basis without engaging in mistreatment in the other direction, they might think they are the one being abused.  Some form of emotionalistic arrogance or egoism is almost an intrinsic part of this, if not on the level of philosophical belief, than on the level of mental indulgence and behavioral practice.  Or, the abuser assumes that pain from past relationships (romantic or nonromantic) justifies him or her in their mistreatment because they are driven by the desire to overcome or redirect their own anguish.

No, abuse will not necessarily continue or get worse.  All the same, if someone is already a non-rationalist, there is little hope for them to ever become rational and righteous anyway.  When irrational people do change—particularly with people who are truly irrationalistic as opposed to merely rationalists who avoidably fall short of perfection—it is probably going to be for the worse.  They are not rational, and it takes effort to initially let go of assumptions or identify logical truths without confusing them with any irrelevant thing like personal intuition or preference.  That effort is unlikely to be given by people who are just in the grip of assumptions.  This is not true strictly or especially about abusive people/non-rationalists, however.  Could they change?  Absolutely.  Will they?  That depends on their rationality, willingness, and other factors, all of which have to do with their individual standing, not that of another abuser.