I’m leaning toward the scenario that they both pushed each other’s buttons, and possibly also really cared for each other at the same time. DV is not always one way with a meek person on one side taking all the abuse. He doesn’t seem to gloss over incidents that occurred between them, or stay mum. He even said, as you pointed out, that she gets worked up and he tries to distance himself to let her calm down. And he admitted he raised his voice. We don’t know what caused her to get worked up, of course, and never will, and we don’t know anything else that took place between them over the years, but I agree that those officers did the best they could in the situation. They spent quite a long time there and took it very seriously. It’s complicated!!
I found a site the other day that talks about “mutual combat domestic violence” and references immature ways to deal with anger and that includes slapping. The author of the site is an attorney named Gregory Forman. I don’t know if inserting a link to his page on the topic is allowed here but here’s a quote from it I found interesting.
“The law really doesn’t know how to treat such “mutual combat” domestic violence. It’s clearly a problem–both for the couple involved and for the children who witness it. However, I’m not certain it needs to be a criminal law problem or a problem in which the law searches for a victim and a perpetrator. The current practice of arresting both parties when law enforcement comes to a scene in which both partners have gotten physical but neither is injured is of questionable benefit. I’ve defended a
handful of protection of domestic abuse cases in which a woman claimed to be abused by her male partner in which her own version of events indicated she was the instigator of the domestic violence and that her partner’s response left her with no injury that required medical treatment–often no injury that even left a bruise.
Such couples might need intervention in the form of counseling, but I don’t see much if any benefit from criminal law intervention. These physical altercations are the adult equivalent of fighting pre-schoolers who need to learn to “use your words.” Their dispute resolution method is partially due to immaturity and partially due to a failure to teach dispute resolution in grade school. Telling children to “use your words” may be a prophylactic but isn’t really a method of dispute resolution. Couples whose arguments sometimes devolve into pushing, slapping, or throwing objects can be taught how to better handle conflict. Such lessons can create a calmer family dynamic and break the cycle in which children see adults in intimate relationships resorting to low-level violence when angered and then do the same when they get older.”