Nick Viall

He is able to regulate his nervous system better than she can.

And he uses that.

And we can even talk a little bit about how that's his power in a certain way.

But reactive abuse, again, this is where it gets really murky.

Reactive abuse is when someone has like...

been chronically provoked, gaslit or lied to, manipulated over a sustained period of time.

And he does lie and gaslight her and manipulate her until she eventually explodes.

But the problem is that...

In reactive abuse, typically, if you want to look at it cleanly, that's kind of like the only pattern that goes on.

Somebody is lying, manipulating, gaslighting until the other person is all of a sudden like snaps.

And then you point at that person, maybe in this case, Taylor, and you're like, whoa, whoa, oh my God, you're being crazy.

You're abusing me.

The fact is that like Taylor also acts like this in other relationships, not like as severe, but we've seen her like...

lose her shit before.

She can get really mad at other people as well.

So that's why it doesn't fit very cleanly.

It's not just Dakota provoking her and then Taylor reacting.

And you said this, but I feel like it's important to say, reactive abuse does not cancel out personal accountability, right?

It just sort of adds some context.

So even if there was some reactive abuse going on there for Taylor...