A depressing song - which is why people should act against domestic violence
Sorry 'bout this, but a certain arboricide has been on his usual denialist shtick.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Life has a way of changing us. Usually a bit at a time. IMHO those who can't love are most in need of others love and understanding. There's a proverb: "Charity sees the need not the cause."
All the while it's a difficult balance to help another when that help involves suffering yourself. You can't let the needs of others consume you. Your own hurt will prevent you from helping because hurting people generally hurt others. If beatings and heavy abuse are there from a wedding day or before, I think many more would leave the abuser than do now. Often the abuse is progressive, growing worse and more frequent over years. It's like a lobster being cooked. If you throw him into boiling water he will fight to get out but put him in a few gallons of tepid water and turn the heat on. He doesn't notice the heat rising and doesn't fight. My daughter had a relationship for a few years with a guy who had an anger problem. She said he was like 2 different people. It never became physical. We're happy she has a strong will. 
My apologies to Jefferson for the paraphrase: "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that relationships long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that people are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing relationships to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to end the abuse and enslavement, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
The rest of us have a duty to help those folks. We fundamentally OWE each other respect. People who don't basically respect you from the start of any relationship and don't expand that respect as time goes on are not worth your time or effort. It's disgusting to hear someone use the words "earn" and "respect" together.
It has been said many different ways that love differentiates humans from many other species. It's also been said that giving of ourselves and knowing we've made a difference is the very best feeling.
