Battered Spouse Europe

I’m assuming what’s underneath that and immanent in there is this understanding which has arisen, hopefully in those of us who have remained clear-eyed, that America as a secure, reliable security protector is dead and gone no matter how many times we’re lured back into the family home by promises that our wife or our husband will no longer hit us.

No matter how many times we’re told, they’ve turned over a new leaf. They’re no longer drinking. They’re putting the violence behind them. They’re just so sorry.

We’re not going back into this coercive control relationship. But we can’t… We can’t get out of it completely. We have to play the game.

Source: Coercive Control Techniques

The author extends the wife-beater metaphor from Russia-Ukraine to Europe-America. Europe is the battered spouse lured back by promises of reform — “they’ve turned over a new leaf, they’re no longer drinking” — only to be beaten again. The devastating admission is that even those who recognise the pattern cannot fully exit the relationship. This is the hallmark of Coercive Control at alliance level: you know the trap, and you still cannot escape it entirely. You “have to play the game.”

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