Could you be empathetic / understanding of someone’s bad behaviour if you understand why they behave like that?

An example: my FIL is not a good person. He tries to degrade and belittle everyone and tries to dominate and be controlling over people.

However, his own father treats him that way and he is very much afraid of his own dad. So perhaps he treats other people like that to redeem his feelings of masculinity?

Just in general though, a person was abused as a child. This results in them being abusive towards others. Can you offer them empathy or have some forgiveness towards them?

I’m sure there’s a ton of other examples but I’m sure you get the idea.