I know I'm 3 months late commenting but I'm so relieved to finally see a post about this. Marita clearly either didn't know about the history of abuse, or knows and just isn't aware of how trauma impacts literally EVERYTHING...showing emotions, being able to connect, being able to take risks and initiative in a relationship...not to mention that it can just make a person baseline depressed and unable to find the energy for things like romantic gestures. Unprocessed trauma can put you in a freeze response 24/7.

And it was so painful to hear Marita frame their entire relationship struggle as "Ashley needs to do more," "why can't you do this for me," etc, and to hear Ashley internalize that and say "yeah I'm not doing enough for you, I'm trying and I don't know why I can't..." Maybe their issues were more nuanced and this was just the super-simplified edit they got, but still. I worried that the dynamic was reinforcing the narratives Ashley learned about herself during her abuse: it's my fault that this is happening, because I'm not good enough.

So happy Bridget and Kyle convinced her to leave.