For those of you criticizing (victim-blaming) Janay Palmer for marrying Ray Rice:

[justiceischeap]

79. I'll share a story here that I shared in another thread

My father was physically, verbally and emotionally abusive as I was growing up. There was an incident when I was 15 over a cat where he almost broke my back and I told him if he ever touched me again, I'd call the police on him--he threw me out of the house after saying that and my mother told him if he didn't bring me back and apologize, she was leaving. I was brought home later that night (it was winter and I didn't have a coat or shoes when he threw me out). Anyway, he is still mentally and verbally abusive and my mothers' only caretaker (she has Parkinsons' and Emphysema) and complains that all she does is sleep and goodness only knows what else he does to her. We've urged her to leave (my sister in Washington state has offered her home to my mom) but my mom won't leave. It isn't because she thinks she deserves this behavior but because she feels sorry for my dad (if my Dad sounds awful, you should hear about the things his father did--which explains but doesn't excuse my fathers behavior) and is used to his behavior.

When I was little, kindergarten maybe, my mom threatened to leave my dad (she had a place to go and everything) and my dad's reply was if she left, he'd take me and run and she'd never see me again. She believed him then and I believe to this day he would have done that. My father is not a millionaire with powerful attorney's at his beck and call. He was a lower middle-class working guy who would have stolen me to spite my mother for having the audacity to leave his abusive ass. So she made the decision to stay so she could watch out for me and raise me to be as independent as she wasn't--so we both ended up being abused but my mom did her best to protect me from it until I turned 15 and I started protecting her from him. To this day I am the only one in the family that can "shout him down" without reprisal when he starts acting like an ass (which is often).

So, though my father never smacked my mother around (that was reserved for us kids who couldn't fight back), he still abused her emotionally and mentally. You don't know what goes on behind closed doors and you don't know what, if any, threats were leveled at Janay Palmer to make her marry him. If someone threatened to take your yet unborn child and you believed him or her, what would you do? I'm not suggesting this is the case here but it very well could be--it certainly is powerful leverage.