Oh, let me count the ways!
1) "It's not that bad" -- after all, he wasn't beating me. If I could have seen clearly back then what I was doing! I was taking his personhood away from him. I was diminishing him, his abilities, and his responsibility for his own actions, by saying, "he's had such a difficult life" which leads straight into
2) "I believe he'll change" -- sure, because I. Am. Superwoman. And. My. Love. Can. Move. Mountains. Yeah, right.
3) I didn't want to fail. Especially since my friends and family all reacted with a united "Are You Out Of Your Cotton-Picking Mind?" when I met him. I had to continue to prove them wrong. I hadn't made a bad decision. Just wait and see! And then there's
4) Nobody else saw what was going on on the inside. I think my parents had a clue, but they never knew how bad it really was. If I had been honest with my friends and family about what my home life looked like, I don't think I would have lost myself as much as I did. Now it was like I was always facing in, and covering what was going on so that nobody could see it.
I think there's one thing Dr. Laura's missing -- in the blog, haven't read the long one. And that is "We think it's better for the kids to have two parents." That one was HUGE to me. If we had not had kids, I would have left at least 15 years earlier.