There are good reasons to include men in this discussion:

1. There are good men. No kidding!

2. There are men who can change.

3. Men do get battered by women.

4. Although, it is it not nearly as frequent as the opposite, men are sometimes killed by their spouses.

5. People are hurt by violence and they wish to express that hurt. Sometimes they must express it many, many times to get better. Both men and women find it hard to get past having been somebody's punching bag.

6. There is also violence in some gay and lesbian relationships.

However, the fact remains that men are more violent than women and the world's fate hinges upon being able to solve that problem.

One man can batter one woman. One dangerous idiot with his finger on the nuclear button can destroy us all.

For some reason the image that first came to my mind was Jon Benet Ramsay, all tarted-up for a beauty contest.

Someday, maybe children will get to be children again.

You do not say how old his daughters are. If they are not adults, it is possible that he simply does not want to confuse his daughters who may make assumptions that he has plans for you that he simply does not yet have.

If the daughters are adults, it could be that he simply does not want them to assume he has plans for you, and then they start nagging him about things like prenups.

It could be he is married and you will never meet his daughters. How long have you been waiting now since he agreed to introduce you to them?

What I do not understand is why you are asking Cary to read your boyfriend's mind with benefit of only the scant information you have provided. In his caricature, Cary is not wearing a turban and peering into a crystal ball.

I don't have a turban either. I don't have a crystal ball. I do have some old tarot cards laying around somewhere if you would like me to try to find them.

". . .even to much of the movement dedicated to helping battered women"

I wonder if you might expand on your statement above. How has a movement dedicated to helping abused women also sometimes used coercive control?

Also, if you don't mind expanding a bit, is coercive control a bit like Stockholm Syndrome in that the controlled (kidnapped) become unnaturally dependant upon their controllers (kidnappers)?

Thank you for offering to address our questions

This is good information, and I like your caveats.

My first thought was Hello Kitty. Why not? I have a daughter in her early twenties. When she tired of Marilyn Manson and all black and took out the tongue piercing, she went through a Hello Kitty phase. She went from dyeing her hair cobalt to dyeing her hair pink. She now wears fluffy things. Ruffles and stuff.

I felt curious. I went on line looking for the actual/possible t-shirt. No luck. I did find a site about how to make sure one's cat makes a good transition when one moves. I saw lots of actual cat photos of unhappy cats. I recommend this one:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/babykailan/207093714/

(You really have to view the above photo folks. I promise it is not dirty!)

I just did a basic Google. I don't have any filters on my searches. I could land anywhere. I have, in the past, landed some places accidentally that I never want to view again, like the site with the written incest porn. Yuk! My point is that by doing a search with the words "Kitty Not Happy" I did not get anything suggestive.

I understand that men think about sex more often than women. I understand that for some men a photo of a faucet washer would make them think about sex. However, most of them have the good grace not to make young women feel uncomfortable by openly reading all sorts of titilating (pun intended!) things into their clothing. The LW's a jerk and a rude jerk at that.

Whether or not he is an actual wife beater or just a clothing fascist to his wife, who knows? The point is that he does not get to be a clothing fascist to other women.

The words "rude jerk" constitute an oxymoron. Sorry.

He won't find his way off stage by getting into a cat fight.

However, the young woman need only mention her marital problems in one of two circumstances. The first would be if she was involved in serious domestic violence that might result in her husband coming to her place of work with a shotgun. The second would be when she is actually divorced. A polite announcement will keep coworkers from wishing her and husband well at holiday times.

However, she isn't the one asking Cary's advice.

I have to admit that I don't get your John Thomas reference. Am I just hopelessly naive?

Things have certainly become Stranger in a Strange Land.

That is my choice.

However, I am pretty shocked at people in this thread who claim to be prochoice who want to limit other women's choices by enacting some sort of regulation or law. That would make them anti-choice, wouldn't it?

As to adoption, that is another choice. It would not be such a good idea if people, who do not really want to adopt children, adopted children. What happened to the mantra that every child should be a desired child?

While we might persuade people to our point of view -- and I agree that six children at once are too many even if they all live -- do we really want to force others to give up their choices, choices, choices, choices, choices, choices.

Geez. Imagine all those diapers.