How do you truly feel about people who were awful before in their lives, having good lives now even if they’ve changed for the better?

17 comments

1. Good people must be capable of evil, if someone has chosen a higher path then I’ll respect that. But I will always keep in mind what they are capable of and act accordingly.

2. Good on them for turning things around. Not an easy thing to do

3. I would hope it reflects well on them. I’m someone that went through a change like that. And I hope that people judge me for who I am now, who I am working to become, and not for who I was when I was bitter.

4. Credit to anyone who acknowledges they need to grow and change and then actually follows through.

   I mean trust is earned, so I might be skeptical at first, but I’d hear them out.

5. I have no issue with this provided they’re willing to openly discuss their previous life (with suitably tolerant people) and clearly disavow it.

   I wouldn’t expect them to constantly apologise over and over again, but I would need to be convinced that they clearly understood that what they did was wrong. Admittedly, it can be hard to be convinced of this when the person is a stranger to you.

6. A favourite saying,
   A Leopard can not change his spots

7. I don’t give a fuck because I’m worried about my life.

8. It won’t last. A shit stain is a shit stain.

9. Being one of those people you described I feel like I’m really a good person now. I know what I’ve done in the past and the lessons I learned from them and chose not to continue living that way. I was a fucking dipshit asshole until I was about 23, but then life humbled me and I decided to choose a better path.

10. Fine.

11. Fuck em. The biggest assholes in the world always get to live the best lives. It is the way of the world🤷🏽‍♂️

12. I’ll forgive you if you turn yourself around.

13. My father used to beat the shit out of my mother. Broke her ribs when I was 7. Almost killed her once. Hospital for her, jail for him. I never, ever believed he would change. He did, though; still drinks and is a little difficult to get along with, but he hasn’t laid a hand on her in close to 10 years now. I didn’t really believe what she told me until I moved back in with them for a few years and… holy shit, he’s different now.

    I don’t know what caused him to finally control his behavior, or why. They have a strained relationship at best because they still argue frequently and that broken trust is hard to rebuild; I don’t know if she will ever fully trust him again. She doesn’t have to – I understand why she feels the way she does and that she is trying regardless, which is a monumental task she is under no obligation to do in the first place.

    Don’t know if it even matters why he changed. It has affected the way I view people drastically. I used to think people were pretty fundamentally set in their ways and incapable of profound change. But he taught me that (while his personality is still largely the same) anyone can make better choices. We can choose to restrain our voices, our fists, our worst impulses; you will still feel emotions that reflect the darkest parts of humanity from time to time… but you have a choice.

14. Anyone can change for better or for worse. It’s always good to see personal growth in people.

15. A leopard cannot change its spots.

    I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could fart them out of my arse.

16. >turned themselves around to be a good person over a year or 2

    Kind of suspect that it just spontaneously happened in such a short period of time.

17. The turnaround from bad to good is always extremely suspect.

    Give it another decade or two and see what happens.