Dian,
Thank you for filling in for Lynn there and explaining how someone can *make* someone else do things. People who know me, know I don't put up with much. I'm agressive and strong, yet I was abused, too. I'd like to say, too, that you don't have to be beaten to be abused. Good manipulators can get you to do things without saying a word!! Isolated? After a few rounds of the sniffs, the snorts, the grunts, the sighs, the 'why do you want to run off over there? you just got home,' blah, blah, blah; and the silent treatment as punishment for not *doing* whatever it was they wanted you to do, you learn to anticipate because the ugliness, the downright ugliness of behavior that you have to live with is WORSE than the isolation. It becomes SELF isolation for self defense. It's crazy and it sounds really crazy to someone who hasn't lived it. I knew better. I knew what it was, saw it for what it was and recognized it, but was still semi-powerless to get out of it -- until -- Like you said, sometimes it's an outside motivating force that precipitates the change -- a sort of "last straw" so to speak. What bugs me most is a statement like this . . . and this was a quote from our local sheriff (whom I do actually admire, BUT..) he said, "...She waited too long to get out..." She waited...like she was wrong and stuck around til she got murdered. She was the bloody victim but it pointed the blame back at her like it was her fault she got murdered!! He didn't know then and he may not know now, and we, her friends, can only surmise after the fact, but threats to not only her, but her family were very real and frightening, I'm sure. None of us can know 100% why she didn't bail sooner, but to blame her for 'waiting too long' is ridiculous and societies'attitudes will never change as long as people keep blaming the victim. I don't mean to rant - but if a person hasn't seen it up close and personal - it IS hard to understand - that's also what makes it so difficult for victims and helps the abusers to get away with it. That behavior is almost unfathomable to *normal* people.