Do you believe that physical abusers can change?
Alright heres my story..
I am 24yrs old and i have 12siblings and 4 of whice are all younger than me. When i was 13yrs old my dad was abusive physically and emotionally. He beat me several times and once i had to be hospitalized and he told the doctors that i got jumped by 2boys from school. When i was 15yrs old my mom threw me out of the house because i got a girl pregnant. When i was 17yrs old i picked up my little brothers from school (my youngest sibs are 12yrs younger than me) and brought them back to their house. Now my dad was only abusive to me and my older siblings, he never laid a hand on my younger siblings, he may have been a little emotionally harsh on them but he never hit them so i knew they were okay with him. When i got to his house me and him got into a verbal fight and i told him he was a hearless jerk, and i told him how i felt unloved and hated by him growing up and then stormed out of his house. He called me two days later appologizing and crying telling me he wished he knew that what he was doing was wrong and that he loved me dearly and stuff like that. My grandpa (my dads dad) was a cop and he was looked highly upon and everyone thought he was some super hero, but he was physically abusive to my dad and my grandpa never got in trouble for beating his kids so my dad grew up thinking that it was okay to use your fists as a punishment to your kids.
I have suffered through a lot of pain from my dad but he seems to have changed as a parent. My younger siblings are 1girl 16yrs old and 3boys 14yrs and twin 12yr olds. And my 16yr old sister is a daddy’s litte girl, they are very close and my brothers also are very close with him they do all sorts of things as a family now. My mom overdosed when i was 18yrs old so my dad has been a single father for 6yrs. My little siblings have promised me that my dad has changed, and they woundnt lie to me, and i even believe my dad has changed a lot.
My question to you is: Do you believe a man that physically and emotionally abuses his kids can change into a great father?
People can change if they want to bad enough! Sometimes it is a matter of learning new parenting skills and ways to deal with there own stress and anxiety in a healthy way and healing up there wounds from there own childhood.
You should read the book, The Secret Life of Men: A Practical Guide to Helping Men Discover Health, Happiness, and Deeper Personal Relationships by Steve Biddulph The relationship you have with your father is one of the most important ones of your life. It might not seem like it but it will effect the rest of your life. Your father seems to have been the one that has hurt you the most but it does not have to be like that anymore. You both can learn and grow from this and move on. It might take time to forgive him, to Trust him or feel safe around him, that is normal and understandable. Go at your own pace not his, This is very important, as a child he was the one with the power over you, now you are an adult and you are the one with the power.
Good luck.
January 21st, 2010 at 1:38 pm
Anyone can change if they want it enough.
It is possible your father saw the error of his ways and made the decision to change.
It sounds like you have unresolved issues with your father and if you have forgiven him for the past, you should try to make amends,
Sorry to hear how rough you had it growing up
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January 21st, 2010 at 1:57 pm
i really don’t think so, i think that you should just take this and learn from it, break the cycle of abuse and become great.
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January 21st, 2010 at 2:36 pm
i believe that anyone can change, even profoundly.
but i also believe that most people don’t change much.
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January 21st, 2010 at 2:55 pm
No not really. 100% no for sexual abusers.
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January 21st, 2010 at 3:09 pm
I am not sure what I would make of that situation. My father is a bully in every sense, and terrorised my brother and I growing up whenever he had us. He had a lot of insane religious beliefs and that fuelled or probably cause his instability and treatment of us, as far as I know his parents were very normal and not abusive. I haven’t seen him in person in 10 years and we have not been on anything but Christmas card terms for 20 years. I will never believe he can change because he fed us and my poor mum that line a hundred time, changed his behaviour for a little while. Until he got what he wanted. Money, control over us, then he’d go right back to being crazy.
You are too young for him not to have understood that striking and beating was not okay way to do to children even though it was done to him, even in backwards places that cling to tradition, they are connected enough to the rest of the world, to understand what they do is wrong and those who raised people your age certainly had this information. There are always maniacs who claim it’s okay, that it’s their legal right, that the bible tells them to do, but in their minds they know it is wrong and not okay. They just want to do it and don’t care about the morality.
Even if you truly believe he has changed, even if he truly has, that does not mean he can be trusted not to slip and do it again. For a person who can justify hitting children to begin with, they can never be fully trusted not to go back to that in a moment of frustration. You should watch him and keep posted on the caring of your siblings, so that if he does slip you have better chance of seeing it.
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January 21st, 2010 at 3:24 pm
People can change if they want to bad enough! Sometimes it is a matter of learning new parenting skills and ways to deal with there own stress and anxiety in a healthy way and healing up there wounds from there own childhood.
You should read the book, The Secret Life of Men: A Practical Guide to Helping Men Discover Health, Happiness, and Deeper Personal Relationships by Steve Biddulph The relationship you have with your father is one of the most important ones of your life. It might not seem like it but it will effect the rest of your life. Your father seems to have been the one that has hurt you the most but it does not have to be like that anymore. You both can learn and grow from this and move on. It might take time to forgive him, to Trust him or feel safe around him, that is normal and understandable. Go at your own pace not his, This is very important, as a child he was the one with the power over you, now you are an adult and you are the one with the power.
Good luck.
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January 21st, 2010 at 3:50 pm
No! But that’s because I have 0 tolerance for abusers.( sexual, emotional, or any other ones)
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