(I’m semi-tempted to get pedantic about the views you’ve attributed to me there, but then I think John really would kill me, if I didn’t commit ritual suicide myself first.)

Allegedly racist ex-Tories:
What, are you now claiming that "violence" is a commonly used term for "verbal abuse"? News to me. There’s also a world of difference in the realms of forgivably-sloppiness between something someone says and something someone thinks very carefully before publishing and releasing to the media.

Allegedly racist ex-Tories: I’m all "look, this is what the term means"; you’re all "it has other connotations/meanings". This: I say forgiveably sloppy wording, you say deliberately misleading when the meaning of the word is clear.

I think there may have been a third, but I haven’t had coffee and I can’t remember.

In what way?

Okay. I don’t actually disagree with you that leaving is a better option than killing one’s partner, you know. I just think that if a partner has been abusive over a long period of time, and she hasn’t left for whatever reason, if she kills him after he’s been abusing her, that deserves to be treated more as a long-term provocation thing (as, I think, it is now) than a plain-and-simple murder.

"Why are you so loath to credit women with the ability to make decisions, by the way?"

Because I secretly hate all women and have penis envy, obviously. Alternatively, you could explain what you’re on about.

The fact that my life was being made a living hell and I was only barely avoiding suicide does not make it OK for me to kill anyone.

Eh. If it helps, and maybe makes me look slightly less ravingly anything-women-do-is-just-fine, I’d probably’ve called long-term provocation on that, too.

(Can I just point out that we’ve both argued the opposite of what we’ve argued at each other in the past? This amused me no end when I realised.)

I’ll say!

> Your wording makes it sound as though she decided killing him was a better option than leaving, which I find kind of unlikely.

It doesn’t matter whether she decides that killing him is better than leaving or fails to decide that leaving is more ethical than killing him. It’s the same either way. There are certain ways we’re supposed to act in a civilised society, and there are penalties for not doing so. What you’re talking about here is a legal defense of "I suppose I could have left, but it didn’t occur to me at the time, so I killed him instead." Bollocks. I hope you wouldn’t accept that from any other class of defendant.

Why are you so loath to credit women with the ability to make decisions, by the way?

> Someone was abusing her and he still is. … Less badly, but still is.

Yes, "less badly" here means "non-violently", which is what I said.

> the law is there to stop people verbally/emotionally abusing each other. We’re not allowed to harass/stalk people

Which is why I said "dangerous or realistically threatening". This just undermines your case, anyway. Yes, there are laws in place that can and should be used to keep abusive exes away from their victims. One more reason to leave and use the law instead of resorting to killing.

Look, I’ve been in a similar situation myself (not with a spouse; with the above-mentioned psychopath). I had no option of any type of escape for years. I could have killed the bastard; doing so would have made the world a better place to this day; I had the opportunity and probably could have got away with it; Lord knows I wanted to; sometimes I still regret not doing so. I was driven mentally unstable, which maybe could have been used as a defense in court. I’ve never fully escaped, as you so rightly predict, and his existence makes my life difficult — though less so with each passing year. He still gets at me every opportunity he gets. One of the reasons I’ve moved to a different country is to avoid him.

But, had I killed him, I recognise that the onus would have been on me to avoid capture and prosecution, not on the legal system to be lenient to me. The fact that my life was being made a living hell and I was only barely avoiding suicide does not make it OK for me to kill anyone. The fact that the human race would be better off without that person doesn’t give me the right to kill him. Sure, the ideal option from my point of view would have been to kill him and face no penalties for doing so, but, like I said, there’s more to civilised society than my, or anyone else’s, single point of view.

Sorry if I’ve piqued your curiosity, but I’m not going to say anything more about any of that now. Writing about it gave me the shakes.

Probably another place where we disagree irreconcilably. In my view, that ain’t escape. Someone was abusing her and he still is. (And I think it’s important that it’s someone who’s been violent to her in the past who is continuing the verbal abuse, which is probably going to have a different psychological affect from being harrassed by a complete stranger, and also I think gives the victim more grounds to suspect that the situation will get worse again.) Less badly, but still is.

And then there’s the fact that, in some cases, the law is there to stop people verbally/emotionally abusing each other. We’re not allowed to harass/stalk people, for instance.

she killed him instead of leaving in case he came after her.

That’s a bit simplistic, isn’t it? I don’t think she killed him instead of leaving. She stayed instead of leaving, for various reasons probably including her fear that the situation wouldn’t improve if she tried to leave, and then she killed him because he continued abusing her. Your wording makes it sound as though she decided killing him was a better option than leaving, which I find kind of unlikely.

Ever written a press release?

It’s not a press release, as far as I can tell. It’s the middle bit of a page of general information about domestic violence. The press information area of the site, with the actual press releases on it, is elsewhere.