Loren_Ipsum
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2018
Legally, yes. This is why Dylan is unlikely to receive any real legal comeuppance. He never put a gun to their heads, and he stopped strictly at coercing. His force was strictly manipulation.
That said, people seriously underestimate how abuse works, and how deeply it roots itself. People like Dylan don't just walk in and say "You're shit, but you're my shit, so you'll do whatever I say." It starts out, as said, with love bombing. Inundating your target with love, affection, tokens, gestures, showing the target that you love them more than life itself. They build the relationship in this point to near fairy tale proportions. It's bliss. It's EUPHORIC. And then...the cracks start to show. Everything is perfect to them...almost. It's so close if you'd just...do this. This one thing. Maybe two. Little things. But little things that keep making things more and more uncomfortable. Still not out and out confrontation levels, just...moodiness. But the longer you're there, the more you start to think that maybe he's right...maybe you just need to change to make things work. Just a little...I mean relationships are about compromise. You're so off kilter, you don't really realize that you're the only one compromising. But it's still not enough. You're still not right enough...perfect enough. In fact you're far fromn perfect, too far. This is when they start to erode your self worth. You're stupid, you're clumsy, you're just...a wreck. You're lucky anyone loves you...and it just happens that someone is him. Again, joined with a maelstrom of drama and gaslighting that just works to keep you enough off balance that you just can't think straight, so again, you just start to accept that he's right. You're garbage that is lucky that anyone cares, and really, if you're miserable...you deserve it. And by that point in time, your life just...warps around your abuser. You will literally do anything to make them happy. Not because it makes them happy necessarily, but because it makes your life easier. He reams you out if you wear blue? You stop wearing blue. He wants supper at 5:30 SHARP, you are waiting with a meal at 5:29 in hand to sweep it onto the table when he sits. And if he tells you it'd make him happy if you pump your balls up to the size of a basketball, it's a small sacrifice for peace. It's shitty manipulation exerted over time, and to say that they have free will at this point is entirely missing the point of the relationship he cultivates.
Honestly, given the shadiness of his behaviour around Jack's passing, I am seriously wondering what EXACTLY went on, but sadly, anything in that vein is entirely circumstantial.
