The Gone Girl (2014)

In the Imitation Game (2014), Alan Turing says: "Do you know why people like violence? It is because it feels good." Each couple ought to decide whether violence really feels good---not on the spur of the moment, but over the long term---and then commit to it or banish it from the relationship, or separate if agreement cannot be reached.

The prescribed separation may fail to occur if the person who experiences violence empathises with the perpetrator, without enjoying violence directly. Nevertheless, separation is prescribed by the following criterion: Any act---physical or mental---that leads to the obliteration of an individual who does not initiate this act ought to be denounced. The described criterion also denounces murder and the abuse of a hostage with the Stockholm syndrome, but is agnostic about suicide.

Committing violence can be consistent with respect (as when restraining a child who may otherwise inadvertently hurt himself), but deriving enjoyment from committing violence is inconsistent with respect. The enjoyment from committing violence is the enjoyment from the exercise of power, which is the enjoyment from gratuitously neglecting the wishes of another---and that contradicts respect. Because respect is a prerequisite for love, a relationship of consensual mutual violence cannot be a loving one.

Can one ever be sure---about the other, about oneself? One can.