Not directed at you, and this falls at random because I have seen it a lot in this thread…. It doesn’t sit right with me that women are getting blamed for letting these men into their lives. These men are GOOD at what they do. They love bomb and mirror and manipulate. They lie about every detail of their pasts and make themselves the victim. By the time their targets begin to see cracks… it is way too late.
Professional con artists, narcissists, abusers… men who need women to take care of them financially— that’s who is to blame. Not the women who choose to trust and have open hearts.
Not saying Rebecca is 100% a victim because she did some deplorable things too. But I truly believe Jake lied about his past and conned her.
I agree with this premise, except for one thing.
It’s entirely possible that the husband told RH some roaring fibs about what happened to his son and daughter with his other wives. The blame would in fact be on the mother of the boy with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and he could’ve persuaded RH that he was unjustly accused and imprisoned and never hurt his ten-week old daughter, and she believed him.
My caveat, though, is once this happened to her OWN son, Emmanuel, she should not be covering up for him, if that’s the case. Or of course since they were both arrested for murder, that’s now a moot point as she seems to have partnered in this atrocity.
My daughter’s first husband was horrible, (not violent though) and we all begged her not to marry him, but she believed him about everything. Two years later, when she had a 5-month old daughter, she left him and they moved in with me for three years.
It took becoming a mother to see that she needed to get herself and my granddaughter away from him.
I truly wish, no matter how RH succumbed to his blandishment and tricks, she would’ve taken Emmanuel anywhere else, even if it was to a shelter or placing him in a group home.
I would give her some grace but only up until she saw he was abusing her own little baby. Which IMO is what happened. We’ve yet to discover who did what, but two murder charges is a big clue.
ETA: I wonder if having a brother who murdered his wife desensitized RH to violence in some way? Sort of acclimated to family violence?
Yet I still maintain that she needed to remove Emmanuel from that situation. I know it’s difficult and dangerous, but that tiny boy should have been her main priority.
JMO