Have You Seen This? Photographer As Witness - A Portrait of Domestic Violence

[lapislzi]

22. Nobody gets punched in the nose on the first date.

I don't know how many people I've said this to, in answer to the question of "why did she take up with him in the first place?"

Often the controlling behavior is disguised as loving behavior. You think he's jealous because he loves you. He puts your friends down and discourages you from seeing them because he loves spending time with you and says they're "not good enough" (or something like that). He wants to take care of you (so he says), so he keeps all the money. As lunatica above points out, the dynamic is very complicated.

By the time the woman (usually, it's a woman) realizes what's going on, she's isolated, alone, frightened, and has had her self-esteem eroded to the point where she doubts her own judgment.

I've had women tell me that if they leave the relationship, their spouse would die. And they believe it, when the opposite is generally true: if you leave him, you could die.