Looking at both sides of the argument I can fully understand how some people have come to the conclusion Amber was the imperfect victim. We know how abuse works and how the perpatraitor can 'appear' to look innocent. The men that abuse, control and then wonder why women react and plead for better treatment of them.
It's a form of covert narcisim and many men are guilty of this, public persona great, on paper they do all the right things but inside the home it's control central.
If you turn that on it's head, that Amber has taken the full advantage of being a woman in this scenario and understand that this case must be viewed not as some statistic but an isolated case with no pre conceptions.
There are a number of indicators, to me (and I know I'm not a professional) just an armchair diagnosis which everyone on here hates then I would clasify Amber as having very strong narcisistic traits. Tiddy pointed out the humour earlier.
It's very true, many victims use humour to cope with 'unbelievable' trauma, Johnny cannot 'believe' the situation he has been through and Amber true to form has no understanding of humour, narcs don't. Their humour consists of finding humour in another person's pain and I could see the smirking she did when Johnny was describing being humiliated or being hurt, she enjoyed it.
Remember narcs hate weakness and they think others do too, she would not understand why others would find this distasteful, she's laughing because it's the truth that he was weak and she was stronger.
Thats how it goes, the story, Amber was weak then emerged triumphant and strong, but she never was weak, it's a story concocted to help her real self, the winner, the strong Amber, she believes she is better and stronger than others, everybody. For all Johnny's power I see him as quite insecure, much of it bravado, hiding behind drink and drugs, he is nowhere near as strong as Amber, in nature.
I can tell with Johnny's humour, he was laughing at the absurdity of some of the witnesses and professional testimonies, he understands irony and sarcasm, Amber is one dimesional and it's nothing to do with age or sex.
I was listening to the recent audio of the San Francisco tape, where Amber initially berates him about the ammount of coke he has just bought. At one point she's shouting the word 'hypocrite',
God that threw me back. Just repeating the exact same word over and over again, getting louder and louder, shutting down any flow of dialougue, it's impossible to converse with a narc and keep it civil.