In fact, for victims of domestic abuse, resistance is even harder than for other captives. A hostage, for example, often knows nothing of their captor, and generally regards them as an enemy. As Herman explains, a victim of domestic abuse doesn’t have this advantage. She is ‘taken prisoner gradually, by courtship’. Before she feels trapped by fear and control, it is love that first binds her to her abuser, and it’s love that makes her forgive him when he says he won’t abuse her again. Abusers are rarely simple thugs or sadists – if they were, they’d be far easier to avoid or apprehend.
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