“It was, at first, the kind of dreamily romantic attention that Cori Bush craved. She was 19 or so, barely making ends meet working at a preschool, and a new boyfriend was spooning on affection. He lavished her with gifts, too. ‘He would spoil me, he would spoil my friends, my sister — whoever was near me,’ she said.

“But quickly, she said, the high-watt beam of his attentiveness became an unyielding glare. He monopolized her time and curbed her independence.

“’He would answer my phone,’ Ms. Bush said. ‘I thought it was cute at first — he wanted to answer my phone and talk to my friends. But then it turned into him screening my calls.’

“When she tried to end things, he hit her, she said. It was the first of many instances in which he was physically violent.”

Read article by Melena Ryzik and Katie Benner from The New York Times.