I don’t know her specific situation, but it isn’t always for such a shallow reason. I know because I’ve been there. It’s been more than 20 years ago but my hands are starting to shake as I type this.
Most men like this are extremely charming and kind and thoughtful. In the beginning. They don’t start out being abusive and it happens so gradually!
One of the first things they do is isolate you. That’s for two reasons, to make it easier to hide the abuse and also to change and mold your perceptions of yourself, the abuser and the relationship. Being isolated, you have no one offering a positive view of yourself. All you have are the abusers negative views of you and over time, you start to believe it. “You’re too fat/skinny/ugly/useless/worthless.” “You’re lucky I’m still here because no one else would have you.” “If you were more like so-and-so, I’d treat you better.” “I only treat you like you deserve to be treated.”
I was so very lucky to have a best friend who refused to be chased off. When begged him not to come around anymore because I always ended up paying for his presence in my life, he said he was sorry about that but pointed out that everyone else being chased off hadn’t made my husband any less abusive. He saved my life.
You spend all your time trying to find the right combination to bring back the charming, thoughtful, kind, caring person you fell in love with. You think this behaviour is some kind of anomaly and if you just do and say the right things, it will be like it was at the beginning. You can’t fathom that THAT was the anomaly! They prey on the naive and gullible (usually the young) who will believe all their BS. I was 16 when I met him and had no idea people like him existed.
Thanks to my best friend, I got up the courage to leave him. He had told me for years I could never make it without him and, like everything else, I believed it but I did it anyway.
I just ask that you try to be less condescending. I know it’s a world most men can’t begin to understand. Most men have never had to be afraid. Most men have never had someone look them in the eye and say, “I will kill you if you leave me.” And mean every word of it.
I know this is long and won’t blame you if you don’t read it but I needed to say it.
I want to validate your story and your courage to tell it. Mine is very similar. Thankfully, I am in a much better place, now, as well. You have thoroughly detailed how these types of things can develop and how these predators operate. Thank you for sharing.
I had an abusive girlfriend who liked to get drunk all the time, and every three months or so she'd hit.
Put up with it for 18 months, then called the county police on her drunk a&&.