I don’t think that’s entirely fair. The “you made me do it” trope is based on scenarios where an abuser blames the victim for provoking them by making them upset – in other words, it’s a form of gaslighting. What makes it so disingenuous is that hurting someone’s feelings is not the same as controlling that person; in…

We will have to agree to disagree here. I think the proportion of the defense is absolutely critical to the situation and can’t be evaluated independently. I’ll give you that her feelings don’t undermine a right to a defense—that’s a point I hadn’t considered. If she had, however, stabbed him with a fork or a knife,…

To be fair, while she very well could have smacked him with a ceramic plate full of piping-hot pasta covered in piping-hot sauce, it’s also possible that the pasta wasn’t quite hot enough to burn and/or there wasn’t much sauce,* and the plate may have been some form of sturdy plastic that wouldn’t break or leave…

She didn’t just “want him to stop and was the weaker party”, she had told him repeatedly to stop, tried to get away from him, been physically restrained by him and been told that she’d be physically restrained again if she tried to get away again. Anger rather than fear is a completely normal emotion in that situation…

Yep, as the marriage counselor told my ex-husband, when he prevented me from leaving, that was abuse. My ex never hit me, but he would back me into corners and stand over me, would wake me up out of a sound sleep, and would prevent me from leaving the room or the house. Along with lots and lots of gaslighting, those…

Wow, I’m so sorry you had to go through that. You have every right to be angry!

I disagree. If a dude wants to violate my boundaries, then hold me down so I can’t leave, all bets are off. I will do what I need to so he gets off me. It’s not like she could get up to get a glass of water to tip over his head

Yeah, like I totally get being frustrated and angry about a partner not respecting your space, but throwing hot food in their face is a scary response. I would have liked to have seen more discussion there.

My abusive ex loved animals (particularly cats) and animals loved him. :(

I think a discussion about how hitting a partner in the face with a hot plate—which could’ve seriously injured him—is also abusive is missing from this article....

This is interesting but what I really need is an open discussion on how to talk to a brilliant four year old autistic girl about the only dog shes ever had dying from a horribly aggresive cancer. Hes middle aged so we were not prepared for this, on any level.

Finally, an explanation on gaslighting. Yeah - guilty of this, and also on the receiving end.

A writer who’s decided that being a cross of Helen Gurley Brown and A Riot Grrrl is a good thing.

Yeah, I thought it was kind of interesting and strange that she just accepted that letter writer’s framing of erectile dysfunction as being something that is someone’s “fault”. It might just be wording, but I really think it’s a mistake to push off something medical as just being one party’s responsibility. It’s not…

Listen y’all, the most important advice on here is that if you craft you need that JoAnn’s app. The coupons are off the chain and I don’t buy anything full price at that bitch no mo’!

Last off, his wife probably told him to stop hanging out with you, duh.

I totally can relate. I feel like most people don’t understand it at all, because they’ve never experienced anyone like that. People don’t understand that you can’t reason with these kind of people and they will destroy you and blame you for the trouble of it all.

I just finished reading the book “Andy Warhol Was a Hoarder” by Claudia Kalb, and there’s a section in there about Frank Lloyd Wright and his presumed NPD.

It’s not something I came up with independently; this is the classical pathology for Destructive Narcissists, as per the DSM. If you don’t believe me, here’s the Mayo Clinic’s summary from the DSM:

Not... necessarily. Because of their pathology true narcissists don’t seek treatment for their behaviors, so it’s difficult for clinicians to get a good grasp on their population, but it’s generally accepted that they’re about 1% of the population, like psychopaths. However, their behavior can cause generational…