These are terrible truths, which absolutely ring true to my own experience.
These half-developed, emotionally-stunted, often (or always?) narcissistic men, who so frequently attack women when the latter are at their most vulnerable (in pregnancy or early motherhood when stress levels are higher) - Surely an early red flag - Are we REALLY supposed to forgive and forget, brush it under the carpet, pretend all is well? Look at the history, the degree of calculation and planning here: how often are these men routinely using the woman's weaknesses/vulnerabilities against her? Undermining her confidence, sense of self, knowledge of her own rights? I have experienced some of that. Poor brave Emma, working so hard over the years to hold it all together, to maintain the illusion, supporting and tolerating in her home this pathetic ticking time bomb who chose to exercise the ultimate control, exert maximum pain on others and finally escape facing up to his actions too.
In Shakespeare's Othello, one character (the unimaginably sinister Iago, I think) says of Cassio (a delightful, whole, infinitely better person) something like: ' He has a daily beauty in his life/ That makes me ugly'.
I've never forgotten the insight of those lines. My abuser was never happy on the occasions when others were affirming or celebrating anything about me. Surely a red flag, when I should have trusted my gut....
These family annihilators/woman killers are basically incels who should never have got a partner or child in the first place. If only there were effective ways to ascertain which partners might have this psychological profile, before a trusting, empathetic person (usually a woman) gets too involved with them - perhaps even out of initial misplaced sympathy for their emotional inadequacy.