1. Trauma-bonding
2. Mutual convenience
3. Mutual addiction
4. Transference
5. Countertransference
6. Grooming behaviour (or ‘training’, if you like that word better)
7. Groomed behaviour (or ‘doing what you were trained to do’)
8. Compliance with cultural norms
9. Submission to economic necessity
10. Hope

So, these things happen, and there are plenty of cultures in the world in which they are considered a perfectly acceptable basis for marriage and raising children. Fine, whatever. Can we at least be honest, though, about what they are?

***

At last, I’m on placement. The agency I’m with specialises in counselling mandated clients, as well as taking on self-referred clients for domestic violence, grief counselling, and addictions counselling. Tell you what – I thought I knew something about dv (not from my family, I hasten to add!). Turns out, I knew barely anything about it, and male trauma is a whole new abyss of misery. I have ‘green flu’ – that is, the newbie-shock which is, in the interests of mental self-preservation, immediately transferred to the immune system already compromised by office air-conditioning and the grossness of public transport. It will pass. Until then, look out for the woman wiping down the whole of Sydney with disinfectant cloths.

***

Umbrella Academy. Cliff-hanger ending. Boo!