Paul George says stupid things in defense of Ray Rice

[Neurotic Guy]

I used to have a very similar conversion with my wife about 'at some point you need to let people make their own choices and cut them off'. It seems so logical. But there are pieces missing.

Abusers typically have some traits in common. They're almost always a gifted manipulator. They take, they give, they spin the women around. They frequently methodically eliminate a woman's support structure, cutting them off from friends, family, so that their whole world revolves around the abuser. They're also frequently very charismatic, they're likable when they need to be, the women don't stay with them because they're stupid.

Battered women's syndrome has been thrown around a few times, and I kind of hate the term, because it allows people who are talking about the topic in general to attribute a woman sustaining repeated abuse to some kind of short coming, like some kind of flaw within them allows this. Me personally, I honestly used to attribute it to stupidity. Because Id look at myself, or strong women in my life and think, 'there is no scenario where I/they would ever put up with that, and I don't see how a person with an ounce of sense would do it'. That is wrong, plain and simple.

For me, and Im not a definitive authority by any means, I see it much more in common with the relationship between a cult leader and a follower. The cult systemically isolates the follower, tying everything in their life to the cult. It becomes so extreme that 'just leaving' is about as feasible as 'just climbing mount Everest'. It seems like an impossible and overwhelming task. Other things factor in; codependency, depression, fear that by attempting to leave that will be the thing that pushes the abuser over the edge.

And that's for the women that can recognize leaving is an option. The thought that 'at some point you have to cut them loose, show some tough love' is very out of touch with the actual problem to me. It can be true, if by keeping the woman in support services like safe houses, counseling, etc, you're putting other people in danger because the woman won't stop contact with the abuser, but those are outliers. It can take a woman years to work up to the notion that they even CAN leave, and years to actually act on it, and it's not because of any other shortcoming other than that they're human.

Great post!  Thanks for that.  I agree, and I regret using the term battered woman syndrome in a previous post.  I  think you are correct that it alludes to a weakness and that is not an accurate reflection.   

With acceptance of all you said so well, I do want to only point out that it is also true that not all men who perpetrate abuse are serial perpetrators, nor do they all fit the profile of a power abuser.  Sometimes people are poorly skilled in self-regulating their emotions and rather than power as the primary motivator, the underlying issue is a lack of mature social or emotional skills.  I don't mean for this to sound like an excuse or even a mitigating factor -- it's more to suggest that some men may be more able than others to learn skills that will decrease the likelihood that they will repeat the abuse.