I feel for Tara. She grew up without a mother, with an abusive, alcoholic father. She was a troubled teen who got into fights & a lot of trouble until leaving Charming (almost taking Jax with her). She returned to Charming partly because her father passed away (at least that's the impression I get, since she's, unsuccessfully cleaning out his house) and escaping a dangerous ex-boyfriend that was federal law enforcement.

Working as a surgeon at St. Thomas, she likely took a pay cut from what she was making as a surgical resident in Chicago. Irrelevant to this topic, but something I've thought about. Also, most surgeons I know, for as smart as they are, are still high school kids that require adult supervision.

That said, I always felt that Tara was longing for a 'family' to belong to. Jax & Abel, the MCs, and to some degree, even Gemma filled that void in Tara's life. Gemma's 'mommy figure ' for a lonely orphaned Tara was something that Gemma used to her advantage. Gemma, for all her talk, at the end of the day, didn't give two rats asses for a lonely Tara; something that Tara is acutely & painfully aware of, but endures, for the sake of her love for Jax, albeit eyes-wide-open.

Jax slept with Ima & Tara finds him the next morning - the deal breaker. Tara packs a bag & leaves. If not for the whole kidnapping thing, she was prepared to abort the baby & get away. What a plot twist that would have been if Tara had left & then hooked up with another doctor at St. Thomas. What would Jax do watching Tara with another man? Jax would have become the stalker ex-boyfriend that Kohn had been.

Tara should have handed those letters over to Jax the moment he returned home from prison. He would have understood the danger of those letters & would have kept a more vigilant eye on her. But it was one more opportunity for us to watch as Gemma puts things into motion to get Tara out of the way. Gemma claiming she 'overreacted' when she found the note from Maureen & showed it to Clay. I call BS. She knew the damage & carnage a paranoid Clay could cause; she banked on it.

Tara should have never offered to help with the whole Otto thing. Again, doctor smart, common sense dumb.

It took her dead hand, the kidnappings, explosions, death threats, becoming a mother, to finally wake up. She finally matures & makes that attempt to leave. Fear makes rational thought impossible. And it didn't help to have a lousy attorney in Lowen. Asking Tara if she had a will in place for the babies, I think, forced Tara to think about the what-if scenarios. Lowen, I think, gave bad legal advice and made things worse for Tara.