Moe DeLoughan wrote:
>jmcquown wrote:
>>Kalmia wrote:
>>>Brooklyn1 wrote:
>>> I lost a best friend
>>>> sister-in-law like that, her husband would beat the shit out of her
>>>> and her two teen aged sons abused her unmercilessly.
>>>
>>> Why didn't someone intervene and phsycially get her out of that
>>> hell? No one KNEW?
>>>
>> It's a sad story. All I can say is sometimes there isn't anything you
>> can do. I can't speak to the specifics of Sheldon's SIL, obviously.
>> But we've all heard over the years about cops hauling off an abusive
>> husband only to find the wife refuses to press charges out of fear of
>> retaliation. He's going to be released and he's going to come home.
>> Then what?
>>
>> All too often the accompanying mental abuse has them convinced they
>> brought it on themselves or somehow deserved it. Abuse, both physical
>> and mental, is about having control and power over that other person.
>> It's not a simple issue.
>>
>
>One of my sisters used to work for a lawyer in private practice whose
>own version of hell was cases of spousal abuse. He had so many
>families coming to him looking for legal intervention to help
>(sometimes force) victims of abuse out of their bad situation. Problem
>is, most of them didn't want help, had refused help - and that's why
>their families found the lawyer. They were desperate to stop the abuse
>*somehow*, even when the victim refused to end the relationship.
>Trouble is, legally there's nothing anyone can do when the victim
>insists on returning to the abuser and continuing the relationship.
>Oftentimes, when the victim ended up in the hospital, she would
>eagerly agree to divorce and press charges. Once she recovered, she'd
>go back to her abuser and refuse to cooperate further with her family
>and lawyer. So the cycle of victimization continued.
>
>No one can stop it when the victim persists in continuing to partner
>the abuser in the toxic relationship dance. Some of them die without
>ever having decided to end the relationship. Others make the decision
>and die trying, when their abusive partner won't let them go.

Without getting into details most often people tend to marry someone
like their own parents, women are attracted to someone like their
father and men are attracted to someone like their mother...
regardless their mother/father was a dependant wuss/abusive beast who
they emulate... then history repeats itself. It can take years of
therapy delving into family dynamics for a professional to expose the
problems and offer solutions, often too late.