They know how to seduce and not reveal their actual selves until the victim is thoroughly roped into a relationship.

I speak from experience: everyone thought he was the nicest guy in the world.

He was subtle with his abuse, waited until we were living together to begin slowly but surely to cut into my self-esteem, until two years later he could work his way into an argument that our problems were my fault.

My father was also a "nice guy" who emotionally abused my mother (until she killed herself) and me, so the situation was familiar: the nice guy, all my fault.

And he wanted to marry me! Move me away from friends and the city I loved, of course. Despite our epic fights, he wanted to marry me, nagged me to marry him, pressured me to marry me: one day into a full-blown anxiety attack for me (I thought I was having a heart attack) to which he had no sympathy.

But my father hadn't physically abused either myself or my mother, so when my abuser began to move in that direction (strangled me), I ran away from my own apartment. (He was 6'3" and went to college on a football scholarship, and I am 4'11", to give you an idea of his cowardice.)

He refused to leave my apartment, and this was before Domestic Violence laws had been enacted, so the police refused to help me (even implied for God knows what reason that I was a prostitute and he was a pimp! He was a computer engineer, and I worked at a magazine, but in their eyes I must have brought this upon myself with slutty behavior.)

I had the locks changed while he was at work, put his things in the hallway, and shivered alone and afraid when he brought his three brothers to try to pound down the door (no, the police wouldn't respond to that, either.)

This was 30 years ago, before ther term Domestic Violence had been coined, or it was ever spoken about in polite company (thank God feminism changed that.)

So when his mother called later and asked why I hadn't married him, it took some courage to say, "I think he was going to start beating me."

There was silence on the other end of the line, until she admitted that her husband (another seeming nice guy) "beat me, and it's ruined my life."

In one sense, I was lucky: he soon found another victim. A secretary at his office who'd always had a crush on him.

I ran into her six months later, and she told me they were engaged. But she didn't look happy, and had developed dark circles under her eyes. And I thought, "He's already started on her."

I now regret that I was too afraid to warn her, cold with fear that he'd come back to enact revenge on me.

I can only hope she had the courage to leave, too.