Rebecca Dawson

As a woman who is trying to leave a very similar marriage, I can say that I found the utter lack of assistance from the police, lawyers, and justice system very realistic. Getting a restraining order without him beating the kids separately from you doesn't happen. So you have to wait until he has attacked the kids too. It's a really problematic system, and the comment that Joe makes about how the courts favor the mothers is blatantly false. They try to retain parental rights for the fathers now, even if they are hitting the children, as long as they aren't leaving marks on the children. The things that were unrealistic were that she could leave the state with the kid without consequence, he could track her down with his cop friend, that she'd ever be able to quickly train to beat him up, and that she'd claim self defense, do no jail time, and have her kid without them figuring out that this was premeditated. But, sometimes you need to leave depressing reality behind and see someone get a happy ending.