It's not about tolerating abuse of yourself, it's about having been so controlled and manipulated over 2 decades, by your own mother, that you've either become unable to distinguish right from wrong or you're so terrified of the repercussions of doing something that you do nothing. Why do so many victims of domestic abuse do nothing about it? The law is there to protect them yet they 'choose' to remain in abusive relationships when they could just walk out. It's very easy to say what you'd have done in the same circumstances having not lived through those circumstances and suffered the effects. I'm certain the court will have gone into great detail about what went on so clearly there were mitigating circumstances which we can only guess at. I'd be very surprised if this young man isn't suffering from some very serious mental health issues having been subjected to this level of abuse over a very long time. His view of reality was/is very different from ours.
http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Kidnap...idn-t-They-Run