Are you starting to understand that a person cannot change another person? Change is certainly possible, but the person must want to make the change. My ex-husband never wanted to make any changes, despite what he repeatedly said, and so he didn’t. He didn’t think he had a problem. It was us wimmen making him unhappy until we left him. Yes, he eventually died, but again, that was a change that no outside person made for him. He got that way all by himself.
The roommate example is the same. If he didn’t think there was a problem on his end, he wouldn’t have wanted to change [the volume]. If he never made the change, because he himself had wanted to, he wouldn’t have, even if you threatened to move out and even if you really moved out. He wouldn’t have changed unless he wanted to. See how it works?
From what I’ve read about batterer intervention programs, it appears that some abusers are not aware of the distress they are causing the other person. Most of the program is spent convincing them that their behavior is actually harmful.
If an abuser goes through such a program, and changes his behavior because the program made him more aware of his abuse, would you consider that change from within or without?
It seems like you’re making a schematic, but unpractical distinction in the meaning of “change”. I can agree that someone will only change if they want to change, but that does not mean they are not open to influence. It does not mean that my actions will have no effect on how others decide to behave. And if my actions do change how others behave, then I think it’s pointless to make the distinction that I’m not really changing them, and they are only changing themselves.
Unless an abuser is mentally deficient or literally blind, they are aware they are harming someone when they strike someone. They are not uninformed. They are in denial about their personal responsibility to be a decent human being. It’s classic abusive behavior - blame the victim, and deny the harm. Programs intended to treat abusers spend much of their time dismantling this defense and getting the abuser to admit that they are causing harm and to take responsibility for it, not realize they are causing harm.
An abuser who does not want to change won’t cooperate with their counselor, won’t be honest with themselves about their actions, and won’t admit to their responsibility. An abuser who does want to change - perhaps because they’ve finally realized it’s the only way to keep their spouse/job/freedom - will cooperate with the counselor, will be honest with themself, and will accept responsibility for their behavior.
So, in that manner, yes, change is internally motivated. The problem for the people on the outside is that you not only can’t make someone change, you can’t even make them want to change. Considering that many abuse victims end up dying at their abuser’s hands, that’s a losing proposition no matter how much you may love the person doing the abuse.
I don’t think that striking someone necessarily means that you know the extent of the harm you’ve caused.
If an abuser strikes his or her partner with his fist, and then denies striking them, then I would agree that they are refusing to admit the abuse.
However, what usually happens is that abusers will admit to striking someone, but they’ll minimize the damage cause by their actions. In that case, I don’t see clear cut evidence that they realize what their behavior is doing.
I agree that you can try to provide motivation for someone to elect to change, but often, changing to make someone else happy, rather than because he/she really wants to, seldom makes for a long-term solution.
But heck, if you’re looking for encouragement to try to motivate someone to stop being an abuser or “inadequate” (whatever that means), go ahead. You sure don’t need the Straight Dope’s permission. Have you not mentioned your unhappiness before? What was the result? What else would you promise or threaten if a change was/was not forthcoming? If you have something new to try, go for it, if you want to. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. But don’t be too disappointed if “change or I’ll leave” results in “you leave.” The odds are not on your side.
I guess my take on this is that people can be encouraged to change but almost always the amount needed is more than one person can do, and more comprehensive systems are needed to achieve it. For a start the person trying to help the person change may not really know whats needed - its one thing to know not to do something yourself, and often quite another to help someone else work out how not to do it.
People referred to male family violence programs often change more when the referral is court mandated than when its voluntary, which kind of disagrees with the idea that ‘wanting to change’ is the most important part of the equation. The current thinking is the more important factors are generally a clear systemic response, reasonable lengths of involvement to get change in habits etc. Gondolfs research used to be the major reference, but I have been out of that area for a while.
His argument is that a more important issue than ‘wanting’ is more whether they seem unable to, which applies to about 10% of referrals, and jail is pretty much the only option for them at this stage.
What does inadequate mean in the sense of this topic?
If we are talking about stuff like excessive gambling, smoking, drinking, drugging, shopping etc. Well sure I’ve seen plenty of people cool down with age and kids and reign in formally excessive behaviour. But they are still the same people basically, just more mature and restrained. So if you expect your heroin addict girlfriend to clean up and not even drink beer in a week…well you’e setting yourself up for dissapointment(common thing though!). If on the other hand you expect her to slowly stop using, or reduce it, over the course of years but still indulge occasionally yea sure thats very common(but not a sure thing either).
As a rule people do change, but slowly and logically. People don’t make wild leaps of nonsensical transformation, which is what many “changers” expect and demand.
Not nastiness at all - Eve had brunch with ODH (Olivia de Havilland), which is the subject of another thread, and is free of a bad relationship. I read it as big ups for Eve on the ODH thing.
There are different kinds and contexts of person to person abuse, per the point I was making upthread, in many scenarios it’s really not quite like alcoholism or drug abuse where you have person with this overiding impulse to do “X” (ie beat up or yell at people) which they cannot resist. Abusers can be shut down in a heart beat if the victims refuse to cooperate or retaliate with such force the abuser is taking real risks to indulge themselves in this behavior.
I’ve seen this as well, bus suspect its an internal maturity thing rather than an external ‘someone influenced me to change’ thing.
So if your 21 year old significant other drinks a little too much and cheats on you, it’s possible that when s/he is forty s/he will be a happily married responsible suburban soccer parent. But I’ve never seen it work out with the same set of people, it’s like the maturity has to come with a change in partners to really be effective.
It’s very funny to see my irresponsible boyfriend of thirty years ago be a responsible adult…but it isn’t me he is married to. And thirty years would have been too long to wait for him to grow up (even had he been willing to put up with me).
Excessive gambling, smoking, drinking, drugging, shopping etc according to who?
If I enjoy gambling, smoking, drinking, drugging, shopping, etc than maybe I’d rather be with someone who enjoys those qualities along with everything else about me rather than someone who wants to remake me to suit their ideals.
I apologize for making an assumption, but there was certainly no attack. Just hoped to spare you some unnecessary pain. I hope you eventually get the answer you want.
But true change really needs to be driven from within. Change in character, not change in tv volume.
When you attempt to change another person with your actions, you are moving to a ‘parent teacher’ dynamic. Which is okay, if you’re aiming to parent or teach. But if you’re looking to partner, this shift is the kiss of death.
You may find it’s impossible to be both partner and parent. You may, in fact, create change, but the cost may be partnering.
