How Do You Know If An Abuser Has Really Changed?
Why apologies, tears, therapy, and grand gestures aren't enough, and what real change actually looks like.
“This shock was what I needed. I know what to correct. Now I’m just asking you to trust me that I’ve changed and make a small sacrifice to try again, and you won’t regret it. I promise to God and I promise on my life. My goal is now to improve internally through our family. I know I can do it. I am not assuming it. It is a certainty and that’s why the change will be instant.”
These were the words my husband sent me after I left him following over a decade of abuse. Along with dozens of messages declaring his love for me and promising a new and improved future, I received bunches of flowers, jewelry, a cake with a message of love in the icing, a nine-hour video montage of our life together, and a song he had written about me and paid someone to perform. He cried and begged and told me he couldn’t live without me. He suggested couples therapy and showed me a list of top therapists in the country he was prepared to go and see.
His words and gifts were designed to evoke memories of good times and create hope for a better future. He sounded convincing and desperate to ‘make things right’. His tears and pleading left me riddled with guilt and self-doubt. But I’d heard promises many times before. After two weeks of chaos, confusion, and uncertainty, I told him my decision was final and I would not be trying again. He replied:
“Please fight your anger and despair and think of the significant consequences of an alternative future without trying one more time. The future if we try will be much better. I will send you my plan if you choose not to try, because then I will have to fight for my survival.”
He Promised Me Everything While Threatening “Consequences”
This second message revealed far more about his mindset than all of the promises that came before it. He wasn’t asking what I needed to feel safe, or acknowledging the years of harm he had caused, or accepting that I might never want to return. Instead, he was urging me to “fight” my own feelings, warning me about the “consequences” of leaving, and positioning reconciliation as the only acceptable outcome.
What struck me most was the sentence: “I will have to fight for my survival.” It wasn’t my wellbeing he was focused on. It wasn’t the damage done to me or our child. The message beneath his words was that my decision to leave was something happening to him, a threat to his future that needed to be reversed.
There was something else hidden in those words too. The phrase “I will send you my plan” carried an unmistakable undertone of threat. What exactly did he mean by his “plan”? What would he do to fight for his survival? He never said. And perhaps that was the point.
Healthy people don’t frame another person’s decision to leave as a threat to their survival. Nor do they hint at consequences waiting in the wings if they don’t get what they want.
Looking back, I can see how that sentence was designed to create unease and uncertainty. It invited me to imagine what might come next. Would he fight me over money? Over our child? Would he try to turn people against me? Would he make leaving harder than it already was? As it turned out, he did all those things and more.
At the time I didn’t know. But I did know him. I knew how he behaved when he felt rejected, criticised, or out of control. I knew his need to win, his sense of entitlement, and his willingness to punish me when things didn’t go his way. So when he spoke of fighting for his survival, it didn’t sound like a man taking responsibility for his actions. It sounded like a man preparing for battle.
One of the clearest signs an abuser has not changed is when their efforts are directed towards restoring the relationship rather than understanding and taking responsibility for the abuse. Genuine change is not driven by panic at losing control. It is driven by accountability, empathy, and a willingness to change even if the person they harmed never returns.
His message showed me that, beneath the flowers, the gifts, and the promises, his mindset remained exactly the same. And in the days that followed, I was proven right. After I reiterated that my decision was final, he immediately returned to being as abusive, threatening, and intimidating as ever. The promises of change disappeared the moment he realised he could not persuade me to come back. It was all the proof I needed that his focus had never been on changing himself. It had been on changing my mind.
