As to how I became the abuser, he believes that I stood by and allowed his father to brutalize him when he was a child. (there is some truth to this, because on a few occasions when he was in his teens, my husband got physical with him and I was not able to stop that. Both me and my DH have apologized numerous times for that and taken ownership of it.
How did he react to these? Any more validating that needs to be done to soothe his pain? Perhaps just validating and then moving on to shift the attention to present/future versus past?
as far as what do I want to get out of the situation, that is a really good question. I would like to live in a world where my son does not get violent in my presence. I have told him that I cannot tolerate this, but when he gets riled up, and out of control there is no stopping him .
Ok, this is probably something workable... . With time and practice, you can see when things are spiraling out of control - and there might be some options for boundaries to prevent things getting even more out of control into the physical realm. Kind of catching it before it gets too far with appropriate boundaries.
I know he wants to patch things up with us, probably in part because his gf really likes us and wants to bond with us (they are planning to get married). I just feel like I continue to put our family at risk when he is permitted to be around us.
If you don't think meeting would work for now, do you think that e-mailing might deescalate things a bit?
his gf told my dd22 that he seems to always need someone to be mad at. I have seen this too over the years, no sooner does he patch it up with one person, he finds the next one to get into a problem with.
Hm... . I have seen it too at times w/ my step-daughter, she usually uses the blow-up story to gain the next person's favor, and support that she did the right thing as a way to gain closeness with the next person. It must be painful to live that way.
I saw the red flags when he told me Dd9 was being abused and I said I don't want to talk about that. looking back, that was a big mistake, but it feels like I am the one who has to take responsibility for making the wrong response, and he never takes responsibility for his over the top responses of becoming physically violent and verbally abusive.
Yes, that about sums it up... . Until they get help, they are not likely to take responsibility for their actions.
We get lots of do-overs, and we get better at spotting problems and responding in a less triggering way... .