They did the worst thing imaginable, and now want you to stay in their life. Is it possible they can change? Should you give them a chance?

I received a deeply troubling question from a listener of my show. Someone wrote to me after completing The M.E.A.N. Workbook (which measures the level of control, manipulation, and abuse in relationships) with a score of 144 out of 200, which is very high.

They shared, “My ex admitted to me a couple of years ago about posting nude pictures of me on a website with stories about me. He also started a nasty dating profile of me to see what interest people had. He says he feels terrible about doing these things to me, and I’m wondering if, in your opinion, someone who does something like this could really change, or if these are signs of antisocial personality disorder.”

Sometimes there are things people do that you simply cannot recover from. Putting nude pictures of someone online without their consent creates a permanent situation – those images are now out there, potentially forever. You’re exposed to the world in a way you never consented to. The damage is profound.

There are different ways to process this violation. One perspective (and I’m not saying this is how you should think about it) is that you’re one of billions of nude photos online, and the chances of someone you know recognizing you might be relatively small.

That’s not an excuse for what happened – what he did was absolutely wrong. I’m just saying that if you’re struggling with personal negative feelings about this, most people who might see these images will forget them almost immediately.

In this particular instance, being forgotten is actually okay. The reality is that most people looking at images like this quickly move on to the next one and the next.

However, if these images were deliberately shared with friends or coworkers, that’s an even more severe violation. Don’t get me wrong, it’s damaging either way. But that level of targeted sharing is particularly malicious.

Another perspective is, of course, recognizing this for exactly what it is: a massive violation of your privacy, of how you want to show up in the world, and of your comfort in being who you are. Knowing there’s this exposure out there, I’m sure, makes you feel incredibly vulnerable.

Not everyone might feel the same way about this situation. Some people might agree that with billions of images online, the chances of being recognized are slim. But others will feel deeply violated regardless of who might or might not see the images. Both reactions are valid. When trust is violated in such a profound way, it’s important to consider how to move forward with some sense of sanity.

I’m definitely not trying to minimize what happened. I just want to help you find a path toward healing. The reality is that these images are out there. There’s nothing we can do about it now. And if one searched hard enough, they could probably find them. But what matters most is how you process this and heal.

This violation goes beyond just poor judgment.
First, it’s an incredibly immature act.
Second, it’s illegal in all fifty U.S. states.
Third, and most importantly, you did not consent to this exposure, which puts it in an entirely different category of violation.

For reference, this type of crime is called nonconsensual pornography (or Nonconsensual Intimate Imagery – NCII).

I’m going to say something that might be difficult to hear, but this is, in my view, similar to a digital form of rape. That might sound extreme to someone reading this, but when I consider what it means when someone takes your most vulnerable form and exposes it to the world without your permission, the term “digital rape” feels accurate to me. You experienced profound violations of bodily autonomy and consent.

I’m laying this foundation for you so that you can reconcile within yourself how you feel, how you want to feel, and whether you can move forward. This processing is essential before we can even address whether he can change or if this behavior indicates a deeper personality disorder.

Can You Move Forward From Such a Violation?

If you can’t heal from this, whatever remains unresolved will be carried into any continuing relationship you have with this person. Sometimes we can’t just “let things go” – and that’s okay. It’s like infidelity. Some terrible acts become part of the foundation of the relationship as it moves forward, but the memory of the act doesn’t simply disappear. That’s why there needs to be genuine healing if you’re considering continuing a relationship with this person.

Without healing, resentment will fester. I’m not saying you shouldn’t feel resentful – you have every right to. But if you want this relationship to work, those feelings need to be addressed openly.

Have direct conversations with him, like, “When you did this, it made me feel…” and “Knowing these images will always be out there makes me feel…” His responses to these conversations will reveal a lot about who he is and who he’s going to be going forward.

Age and maturity might be factors here (though not excuses). Younger men might be more likely to do something like this without fully comprehending the permanent consequences. Someone who has emotionally matured understands the consequences of their actions and has enough empathy to recognize how this could hurt someone forever.

When someone does something this harmful, it’s often intended to hurt you. It’s practically the ultimate form of punishment. They might be in that mindset because they’re young and immature, or they’re older but spiteful, or possibly, as you suggested, they have antisocial personality disorder.

Regarding that disorder, I can’t offer a diagnosis, but I can point out a few things to consider. Someone with antisocial personality disorder is unlikely to genuinely apologize because they typically don’t believe what they do is wrong. However, if they want to maintain something valuable in their life, like your relationship, they might pretend to be sorry.

That’s why I recommend continuing these conversations until you feel confident that his remorse is genuine. You can usually tell when someone truly feels bad because when you bring up the issue, they don’t say dismissive things like “You should be over it by now” or “Why are you still talking about this?” Those responses show a fundamental lack of understanding about the depth of the harm caused.

The person who has hurt you deeply should be prepared to address this every single time it comes up, understanding that you may never fully get over it and may need reassurance repeatedly. Someone who is truly apologetic and genuinely cares about you will feel bad every time they think about how they hurt you. It will weigh on their conscience. They won’t simply “get past it” themselves.

I say this from personal experience. Every time I think about something hurtful I did in my past relationships, I feel remorse. I used to be emotionally abusive, and it took many breakups and finally a divorce for me to learn that I was the common denominator in all my relationship problems. I had to recognize that I was selfish, controlling, and manipulative before I could begin healing.

I needed to develop deeper empathy. It’s not that I had none. I did. But my selfishness consistently overrode it. My selfish thoughts and desires took precedence over understanding how my actions affected others. I was empathetic sometimes, but not consistently enough.

I wanted to control who my partners were. Not constantly, but frequently enough that when they didn’t show up as the person I wanted them to be, I tried to change them. That made me selfish, controlling, and manipulative. I prioritized what I wanted regardless of what they wanted.

I don’t say this with any pride. I feel ashamed when I admit it, but that’s who I was. I share this because I want to emphasize that if anyone from my past appeared today and said, “You treated me terribly, and I’m still angry,” my immediate response would be, “You have every right to be. I feel awful about what I did. Whatever you need to say to me, you should say it, because you didn’t deserve that behavior. You are worthy of kindness and respect, and I failed to give you that. You did not deserve any of what I did to you. If you’re angry with me, you have every right to be.”

Fortunately, the people from my past have moved on to better relationships. I’ve even reconnected with a couple of them who were surprised by how much I had changed. They appreciated the changes they saw and were happy that I had learned and healed from who I used to be.

To the person who wrote to me what your ex did is something that immature and hurtful people do. Most people who do something like that are usually trying to control the other person, trying to make them do something they don’t want to do, or be someone they don’t want to be. When that doesn’t work, they lash out in terrible ways.

In my opinion, if someone has antisocial personality disorder or sociopathic tendencies, you’ll never feel their apology as genuine. You’ll never sense authentic remorse, and they will likely turn the situation back on you, making it your fault. i.e., “This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t said yes that day” or “This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t broken up with me.”

Whatever their reasoning, they’ll find a way to shift the spotlight back to you. They might even say something like, “I’m so sorry, I wish I had never done that, BUT…” – and there’s always that “but,” followed by some justification. This reminds me of my wife’s ex who said, “I might not have cheated on you had I known it was grounds for divorce.”

Every time I say that statement out loud, it sounds ridiculous. But he actually said it. As you can see, there’s no compassion there. It’s an entirely self-centered comment.

A person without empathy might be able to fake remorse temporarily, but they can’t maintain it. Eventually, they’ll reach a point where they can’t stand being held accountable for something they did that continues to hurt you. They’ll grow frustrated that the spotlight remains on them, and they’ll eventually say something like “you need to get over it already.”

Now, there are exceptions. Let’s say they’ve apologized repeatedly, and their remorse seems genuine, but it’s been a year, and you continue bringing it up. They’re still apologizing but don’t know what else to say or do to make you feel better.

I’m not blaming you for that if that’s you. Some people cannot let go of their anger. Some people won’t heal from certain violations. Some may stay upset indefinitely. And if you still feel this unresolvable anger or resentment after a significant period of time (I like to use the timeline of a year), and you can’t let it go, and you keep bringing it up and putting it in their face, you may need to consider that you won’t be able to heal while this person is still in your life.

That’s an unfortunate reality. Sometimes we want to maintain a relationship, but we simply cannot get past what they did. If it’s been a year and you’re still angry and bringing it up in conversations, and you’re making sure they know you’re still angry, the situation may be unresolvable within this relationship. When that’s the case, you may need to make a choice to move on.

I’ve seen this happen with people in my Healed Being program which helps people heal and stop their emotionally abusive behaviors. There are those who’ve joined and have changed in profound ways. So much so that the person they hurt in the past barely recognizes them anymore, which is a good thing. But, even though there is no more emotional abuse, some victims can’t get past what was done to them. They can’t believe the changes they see in the other person even when there is no more abusive behavior.

Those who have stopped the behaviors and are healing in many ways have told me that their partner simply cannot and will not get past how they were treated, even long after a year has passed. The healed and healing emotional abusers eventually had to leave the relationship because nothing they did seemed to matter to the person they used to hurt. They decided, “There’s nothing more I can do. I’ve changed. I’m a different person now, but no matter what I do, they still can’t move forward.”

I’m definitely not blaming the victim of these behaviors here. I’m acknowledging that some people who were hurt will stay upset and never get past certain violations. And they have every right to feel that way. I would never take that away from them. When that happens, the relationship may not have any chance of reconciliation. And when one or both people cannot move past the hurt, it’s probably best to move apart from each other, at least to get enough time without the other person in their life so they can think clearly.

After all, when the relationship is a constant trigger and you can’t look at the other person’s face without thinking of what they did to you, and that never changes, that’s a sign you probably need to spend more time apart. If you think you can’t move forward with this person without thinking badly of them, or if you do have nice feelings but those feelings will always be mixed with resentment or anger, moving away from each other might be a lot better than staying while negative emotions contaminate the relationship.

Sometimes you just to move forward without the person who hurt you so that you can move forward at all.

Coming back to the person who asked the question about whether someone who posts private photos can really change or if this indicates a personality disorder – I think the answer to this question will become clearer if you look at whether their other behaviors align with what they’ve done.

If this was a one-off action and they don’t normally do things so hurtful and hateful, then maybe it’s not indicative of a disorder. I can’t diagnose that, but I do try to find patterns in behavior to point me in the right direction.

If someone has ASPD (antisocial personality disorder), you’ll see it in other things they do as well. You’ll notice it in how they treat other people. A sociopath might park their vehicle diagonally across two spaces and not care what people think. (Though, someone who’s just protective of their nice car might do the same thing, but I imaging they’d say, “I do care what people think, but I don’t want my car scratched” – there’s a difference in motivation.)

A person with antisocial tendencies might say something cruel to a waiter and not care about the impact. Or they might treat their mother disrespectfully when she doesn’t deserve it. I look for patterns, not isolated incidents. Sometimes people get angry or triggered and do stupid things.

To the person asking the question, if you feel you can heal from this violation and move forward, and if he truly has changed and commits to never doing anything like this again (which must be a non-negotiable condition for continuing the relationship), then maybe there’s a path forward. But if he does anything even remotely close to betraying you like that again, in my opinion, that’s a deal breaker.

If he is truly apologetic, you’ll feel it. You’ll sense that he genuinely feels bad. But if his apology feels more like a deflection where he puts the spotlight back on you, or if you sense there’s a “but” in his apology (“I’m so sorry, BUT this wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t so angry at me that day”), then it’s not a genuine apology. I might call that an offensive apology.

An offensive apology is self-protective. It’s like someone saying, “I’m sorry I did this to you, but I need to protect myself, so don’t look at me. It’s not really my fault. I’m upset at you for making me have to do that.” In other words, they’re essentially blaming you: “I wouldn’t have done that had you not done that other thing to me!”

There’s no value in that kind of apology. No substance. It’s just a placating statement so they can say what they think you need to hear.

You will recognize a real apology when you feel it. You won’t be reaching out to me saying, “My partner apologized but it doesn’t feel right” or “I feel like there’s still something missing.” There are signs and feelings you’ll have that will tell you whether an apology is genuine.

The only exception to that is if you have anger or resentment that you simply can’t let go of, even after a significant amount of time has passed. If you’ve been holding onto these feelings for a long time and you’re still at the same emotional level you were months ago, then the situation probably won’t improve. Typically, when you’re healing from a wrong someone has committed against you, the negative energy you feel decreases over time. When it doesn’t decrease at all, that’s a sign.

So while you will recognize a genuine apology, you might be at a point where you can’t move past what happened regardless of how sincere they are. If that’s the case, we’re back to considering whether this relationship can continue.

A real apology feels like the person would move mountains for you or take a bullet for you. They find it difficult to have a good day because they feel so terrible about what they’ve done.

Can The Emotionally Abusive Person Actually Change?

The person who wrote to me wants to know if her partner has the ability to change. Let’s assume their partner is not a sociopath. I’ve seen significant changes in the people I’ve worked with. I’ve witnessed even physical abusers become completely non-abusive.

When real change happens, it’s often because that person has healed from whatever triggered their harmful behavior in the past.

If you really want to determine if someone has truly changed, observe how they respond when they are re-triggered. That means do they still get triggered and react from what used to trigger them?

When they are triggered, what coping mechanism do they default to now? Someone who has healed their old, unhealthy coping mechanisms won’t get triggered like they used to. And/or, if they do become triggered, they have a new way of coping with it.

An example of that might be when you talked to your ex in the past and they used to get jealous. But now they don’t. Now they don’t glare at you or make you feel bad for talking to your ex. That might mean they are healed from that trigger or have found new ways to cope when they feel that trigger coming on. Either way, you talking to your ex is no longer a problem in the relationship.

If, however, when you talk to your ex today, do they react the same way they did in the past? If not, perhaps there has been some healing on their part. Maybe that’s a good sign that they really are changing.

Emotionally abusive people use old, unhealthy coping mechanisms in order to deal with the challenges in life. For example, one might try to control you so they don’t have to deal with their own emotional state (if they control you, they don’t have to reveal their insecurities, for example). Healing for an emotionally abusive person might look like someone letting go of control, perhaps, and accepting what happens instead of trying to control what happens.

So the bottom line when it comes to see if someone has truly changed is to watch how they deal with what used to trigger them. If you see them getting emotionally triggered by something that they believed they healed from, you could ask, “Why does this still trigger you? What’s going on?” If they’re triggered and respond with the same abusive behavior as before, they haven’t healed.

To the person who asked me the question, if their partner or ex-partner responds the same way to the same triggers they experienced before, or in this person’s case, if someone posted private photos of you online once, they may do it again. I hate to say that, but it’s the reality. When their fight-or-flight response kicks in, they act impulsively in the same harmful ways.

If someone hasn’t done the healing work on what emotionally triggers them, and they still become triggered just as they used to and act the same way when triggered, then the likelihood they’ll repeat their past behavior is high. That’s something that absolutely needs to be addressed. In the case of the person who wrote, if those patterns are still present in him, there’s a real chance he could do it again.

Don’t get me wrong: Change is possible. I’ve seen very abusive people transform into kind, caring, supportive individuals. That capacity for kindness, care, support, empathy, and compassion exists in most people. What happens, however, is that unhealthy coping mechanisms create layers of protection, causing them to act in ways that push others away so they don’t have to deal with their own emotional issues.

When they’re hurtful, controlling, and manipulative toward you, it protects them from their own vulnerabilities. So if those old triggers haven’t been addressed and you can still trigger them in the same ways, be careful. The capability to hurt you as they did before remains present. Always pick your battles wisely.

Now, to address the second question: “Does the verbal abuser want me to leave? How do I know if this is the case? What does it look like depending on the stage of the relationship – dating versus marriage?”

In my perspective, someone who genuinely wants you to leave will typically tell you to leave. If they’re yelling and screaming, saying “You need to leave” or “Get out of my face,” then yes, in that moment, they want you to leave. Take that at face value.

However, if they don’t explicitly say something like that, if they’re just being angry, abusive, and calling you names, they’re typically trying to maintain power over you. Someone who is aggressive, verbally abusive, and intimidating to be around almost always wants power over you. If they can maintain that power, they can continue getting what they want from you.

Most abusive people don’t want you to leave because they want to continue controlling you.

By diminishing, intimidating, and invalidating you, they weaken your confidence so you won’t stand up for yourself or leave. They want you to feel unworthy and unlovable without them.

Phrases like “No one will ever love you like I do” are manipulative tools rooted in fear, anger, and desperation. These tactics aim to keep you submissive and afraid of being alone, feeding the abuser’s fear of abandonment.

Ironically, their controlling behavior only pushes others further away, sabotaging the very connection they’re trying to hold onto.

I’m generalizing here – not everyone fits this pattern, and there are different motivations behind different behaviors. But in most cases, this is what happens: Someone wants to maintain power over you, so they become abusive in various ways, using aggression, intimidation, and bullying.

Through these tactics, they gradually diminish your power while building theirs. Their power is built on fear, desperation, and sometimes anger. The angry ones are typically scarier because you don’t know what’s coming next. You don’t know if they’ll throw something or hit you. It’s unpredictable and dangerous.

So to answer the question, “Does the verbal abuser want me to leave?” – probably not. They usually want you to stay because they are so insecure without you. If they can keep their power over you, it helps them avoid dealing with their insecurities. Many abusive people have no reason to heal and change as long as the victim to their behavior never leaves. It’s a vicious, codependent cycle.

However, there are circumstances where someone becomes abusive specifically hoping you’ll leave. One would do this because they don’t want to take responsibility for ending the relationship themselves. They don’t want to be “the bad guy” who makes that decision. That way, they can look back later, after the relationship ends, and say, “You left me. You abandoned us. You destroyed our family. It was all You.”

The more aggressive and abusive an abusive person becomes, the more likely you’ll want to escape. They know this to be true. And after you leave, most abusive people will blame you for destroying the reelationship or not giving it another chance, while they take little or no personal responsibility for their role in the downfall of the relationship.

If you’re labeled “the bad guy,” they’re in the clear! That means they can always point their finger at you and never take responsibility for their own behavior. They’ll never admit, “My behavior caused you to reach a point where you had to leave because it was too dangerous to stay.” It’s easier for them to blame you. i.e., “You left. You didn’t want to try. You didn’t want to go to therapy,” or “We went to therapy but you didn’t try hard enough.” Their goal is to make you the one who breaks up the family so they can blame you later.

How can you tell if someone is like this? Look for patterns of avoiding responsibility throughout the relationship. If there’s a decision to be made and they consistently avoid making it, it might be because they don’t want to be blamed if things go wrong.

The avoidant type who doesn’t like making decisions, especially commitment-related ones, will show this pattern repeatedly. For example, if you suggest, “Let’s take a vacation next year,” they might never mention it again. They don’t want to take steps toward making that decision so that if it doesn’t work out, they can say, “Well, it wasn’t my fault.”

You’ll see patterns like them refusing to commit to future events. “Let’s get married” might sound great to them, but ten years later, you’re still not married. This person doesn’t want to be responsible for making such decisions in case things go wrong, allowing them to say, “You were the one who wanted this. Look what happened.”

So if you really want to know whether someone wants you to leave, look for non-commitment and avoidance. They don’t commit to things, they avoid difficult conversations, and they shirk responsibility for making decisions, especially significant ones.

If they show these avoidant, non-committal patterns AND they’re verbally or otherwise abusive toward you in a relentless way, they’re very likely wanting you to make the decision to leave. This allows them to be “free and clear” of blame for anything that happens afterward. They can simply say, “Well, you left. That’s why I’m in this situation now. You broke us up.”

Conversely, if they can make decisions, plan ahead, and don’t mind taking responsibility, but they’re still verbally abusive, bullying you, and making you feel bad about yourself – then it’s all about power. They want power over you and definitely want you to stay, because your presence allows them to get what they want.

I want to thank the person who wrote and wish them much strength through this. I hope my words have been helpful to you.