Father Bill, that is indeed a touching story. And yes, we do not know the history of folk. But WE can judge the present and if the present was him hitting his wife, then there is no excuse.
I have had more heartbreak and seen more horrors in my short life than a thousand people would see in a thousand years, but I have not even drank my sorrows away, let alone become violent and an alcoholic. I came out smiling because, life's too short to just waste away.
This can be likened to hard drug use. It is reported that a huge majority of heroin users come from an abusive household. Whilst I hold every sympathy for these, at times, only children, it was THEIR choice to inject that 10-bag of smack up their veins. Society may have given them have a sh!tty life, but it was their own volition that made them find the money for heroin, buy the heroin, inject the heroin and become a junkie.
Your story tells me what a good honest chap you are, but all the infrastructure was there for the man to help himself!!! It is like that religious story where a man refuses help when the floods come as he believed God will save him. When he finally drowned, God said "But I sent you a floating branch, I sent you a lifeboatman, I sent you a helicopter. What more can I have done???"
Is there any room in Christianity inthe notion some folk are just born bad, and the wife beater was just so. Surely, such actions will give him a one way ticket to Chez Satan, no?