The oldest excuse in the book to pretend there's no abuse is "I fell down" or "I ran into a door."
There are other types of abuse besides physical. Sometimes indifference and disdain can be abusive.
What's that famous quote? "The opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference."
I worked in DV for many years, and this is very true. Some abused women will not acknowledge that even the most severe of injuries came from having been physically abused.
Usually, however, there is more than one report from others about unexplained, or nebulously explained, injuries.
On the weekend that Gail had the black eye, Arlene said that Gail was her normal self. It would be unusual for a woman to be punched in the eye, and be her normal self.
We just don't know on the physical abuse. I'd like to know if there were any other physical injuries seen that were unexplained or nebulously explained.
The black eye shouldn't be ignored! But sometimes people do walk into things.
I'll probably get trashed for saying all this, but let me say again - I worked in DV for years, helping abused women directly in shelters, helping them personally, going with a team of other women to rescue them, and am so vehemently against it, that I began working, and continued working, for many years at the political level to bring attention to it, get laws changed, get LE to have a better understanding and response, etc.
Okay, now y'all can trash me all you want.
On the other types of abuse - emotional, verbal, sexual - we have reports from Arlene that Matt was saying abusive things to the children, such as that Gail was 'poison' and a 'bad mother'. That's not only abusive to Gail, but to the children too IMO.
