Can an abusive person change after therapy or can the behaviour return?
I dated my husband for 3 years before marrying him. There was only one incident during dating when he held my hand and shouted into my face. He then apologized profusely and nothing of the sort happened again. In the third year of dating he was under a lot of stress and was starting to get verbally abusive during arguments.
After marriage things changed drastically. We had a major issue between us which would cause frequent fights. I was in between jobs and he was afraid that I was trying to become a housewife. Fights would become ugly. He would hold me and shout in my face, throw and break things, block my exit when I tried to leave, he once even slapped me, fights would go for hours and then he would apologise non stop and tell me it would never happen again. But of course it would happen often. At least three times a week this would happen. When I would stone wall him during his crazy violent behaviour, and would not react at all, he would break down and start crying, howling, and start hitting himself violently. It looked psychotic. It also felt like a form of control to get me to behave the way he wanted. But at the same time his behaviour looked more child-like than out of malice. He would get into a regressed state and shout at me to tell him that I loved him, shout at me to hug him. Afterwards he would apologise and tell me it would never happen again and that I was triggering him and was responsible for his behaviour. He never agreed to start therapy.
This went on for about 10 months after marriage. I left for my parents house with an excuse that my mother wasn't well. I didn't go back to him. I got a job in a different city.He realised I wasn't coming back, he understood. He agreed to try couples therapy online so that I didn't have to be around him. We spoke a lot and understood his trauma comes from his childhood. His dad was violent and abusive. His father's family has a history of abuse. I got a deeper understanding of the situation, that he would regress to a child-like state during our fights and felt very threatened during our fights.
I agreed to move back after 6 months of separation. I was still afraid, so I kept paying rent for my apartment in the other city. But with time I did notice the frequency and intensity of our fights were decreasing. I changed, he changed. I stopped stone walling him during arguments as it was a major trigger for him. He stopped blocking my exits and let us cool down in different rooms when flights escalated.
It has been five years since then. We have a baby together. We don't fight often. He is a great dad. We both are quite happy in life in general. But once in a while it does happen where he loses his cool during arguments and gets aggressive. Not as violent as throwing things around, but aggressively shouting. I still have this fear that those days could return again.
My question is do people change with therapy. Or is therapy needed on a continuous basis to avoid such violent behaviours from returning back? Is there a chance for things to regress after such a positive dramatic change?