[opinion]I think I have a problem with some posters thinking of some of these things as force without an actual physical force. Words like "confine" with respect to hotel room or "force" or even emotional abuse as it applies to one of these alleged forceful things as an underlying assumption. Or at a minimum I am very skeptical about emotional abuse there, in those kinds of instances anyway. When I originally wrote that they ought to be "equal partners" that wasn't a mark against Hardwick but really on both of them. I think it should be explored and understood on her part, too. So, for example, a person with "daddy issues" who perceives they are being forced into things and confined in places needs therapy IMO. This is a thing I think where such person perceives themselves as a "leaf in the wind" affected by other people and circumstance without actually owning up to either their own desirousness or how they ought to behave by advocating for themselves in their relationship. So after just 2 weeks of a relationship she was already complaining about the relationship and putting it on Hardwick but she wasn't using equally powered influence to change the relationship. She complained that he was in it for someone to go to events with and bed, probably, and she also complained he laid down a Relationship Agreement. Now that's just as much on her to say "no, I don't like that" and "let's compromise here, here, and here." So just because he says, "I don't want you hanging out with a man in private" or whatever does NOT mean she is being forced to follow that as a rule. He is not her dad and she is not a child but a grown woman. She can respond with her own terms on his behavior, if she wants. The fact that she has this misperception about how she could not actively influence her relationship and influence her partner with her own communications or even threaten to end the relationship early on when it is not going her way was a huge factor that played a role in how the relationship ended up. And her continued misperception of being a "leaf blowing in the wind" is belied by her taking an active role in cheating. To cheat, you have to decide to actively lie and to actively talk about what you desire with another partner. With Hardwick, she wasn't a slave in a prison but a grown person with freedom and at any moment she could have snapped out of it and said bye-bye. OR maybe she couldn't and if so, then her lack of being able to get out has a root cause of emotional immaturity and because of needing some therapy prior to trying to get into a relationship. Now, I don't want to say she caused what happened because I think that's way, way too strong. She's more of a passive actor in all this who didn't know how to deal with it and misread her own mind, lacking true honesty and understanding of one's self.
All that said, Hardwick is completely at fault for his own actions and behaviors.[/opinion]
ETA: As I review my post I wonder how much my post will be understood. This part in particular "And her continued misperception of being a 'leaf blowing in the wind' is belied by her taking an active role in cheating. To cheat, you have to decide to actively lie and to actively talk about what you desire with another partner." What I had meant by this is it seems contradictory in her case. She had time to speak with another partner honestly and clearly voice some abnormal things to that partner. So, she could have also voiced such things to Hardwick.
You seem to be operating under the assumption that the two people in the relationship were equal partners. They clearly were not. In fact, in many/most relationships, one person is often more dominant than the other. More commonly, one partner may be more dominant in certain areas: social life, for instance, or financial life or housework or whatever and the other partner is more dominant in other areas of their shared life. That assumes certain equality or at least some agreement that Person A will take the lead on long term financial planning while Person Be takes the lead on managing day to day finances; Person B takes the lead on scheduling major repairs to the abode and figuring out financing, etc; Person A does more or is at least in charge of the routine day to day maintenance schedule--how often things get vacuumed, mopped, etc. One parent is usually more involved and makes more of the day to day decisions and running of the household with regards to children; the other parent may take on a larger, more dominant role as the children get older or for a variety of reasons. Those types of negotiations/specialization of various aspects of Family Life are or can be indicative of a healthy, balanced relationship between equal partners. They aren't necessarily but they can be and in my observation, mostly are.
I've also seen relationships where one partner was much more dominant than the other--sometimes the female, sometimes the male. Markedly so.
This relationship does not seem to have started out with the two individuals on equal footing, at least partially because of the significant disparity in age/career development/economic power. I would guess that their individual personalities played a big part in this. She seems to have felt as though she had little choice but to go along with how he wanted things. Sometimes, that happens in relationships. One person is simply more dominant and calls most of the shots. The other person, while legally able to simply walk away, may not be able to do that emotionally. Not for a while. And not if control is asserted gradually or only over certain areas and then more and more. One can enter into a relationship with someone you admire and respect and whose judgement you defer to because of the admiration you hold for them. This is more likely to happen if one is older/more economically stable/powerful . Deference can gradually--or not so gradually become capitulation as one's self confidence erodes because the other person asserts their better fitness to make decisions or stronger need for things to be a certain way--because of their career, or because they're going through a rough patch, or because they are sick or whatever. It usually starts out small but it can escalate quickly.
There is a reason that people who are physically abused in a relationship don't simply walk away the first time they are hit. It's because it doesn't start out that bad and because there is already a pattern of dependence which has been created between the two people. Plus there are other factors. In this case, she feels she must be extra understanding because he just ended a long term relationship and she figures he needs extra (fill in the blank) so she gives it to him. Given that she's younger --and I've never seen a relationship between singificantly younger woman/older man where the older man did not point out with great frequency that he is older, more mature, more experienced, better fit to do whatever it is he wants to do. There's generally a lot of charm and a lot of sex involved, at least initially. It's easy to see how it evolves that way.
Now, you may never have ever been the sort of person who would either dominate or be submissive to another person. Personally, I'm not that way, much to the displeasure of more than one former boyfriend or would be boyfriend who saw tiny girl with a soft voice and thought: pushover.
But lots of people are not that way. For a lot of people, they feel that someone must be In Charge. Personally, I prefer shared decision making with willingness to defer to expertise/time/inclination/special needs. When my husband was in grad school, I assumed most of the household/child care chores during crunch times for me, even when I was working full time + commute. When things were quieter: breaks and slower times for him, I fully expected him to assume a more equal share of the work, for example. But still, for a lot of people, they aren't naturally inclined to the shared decision making model and certain circumstances which create vulnerabilities in one or the other can skew a balance. Sometimes the relationship never regains an equal footing.
So, no he did not barricade her in the hotel room but he made it clear that she was supposed to stay there while he did WHATEVER. Since it was at least somewhat related to his career, of course she deferred. His career was IMPORTANT. Hers was just beginning. And I'm sure he paid for the hotel room. She was a good girl doing what he wanted her to do. He did not beat her into submission to force her to have sex with him but he did hold over a threat of leaving her while ridiculing her lack of enthusiasm to ensure her compliance. He did trash her work opportunities to create an economic dependence on him, making it much harder to simply say See Ya. Especially if there genuinely was love and affection or reasonable facsimiles on one or both sides. That's abuse. It may not have been intentional abuse and it's certainly not even close to stuff I've seen first hand. But it was there.
I believe they genuinely cared for each other, at least in the beginning. That does not mean that it was an equal or healthy relationship. I don't think it was either an equal or a healthy relationship at any point, even if they both intended it to be.
