Silent One:
You said it. An abusive person is a person who has developed their bad middos instead of their good ones. We must put the mussar and self-improvement back into our chinuch.
As a side point, I believe part of the reason there are more abusive spouses today is due to the modern technology (internet, ipods, etc) of our times. This technology exposes many (if not most) of our boys to highly inappropriate materials that tend to have the attitude that women are to be treated as things, not people. Once a man has this atitude implanted within him, it’s very, very hard to get it out. This problem is far widespread than most believe, and I believe it is a primary cause of the rising abuse/divorce rates.