I have a TBM sister whose husband beats her, but she stays with him because "he is such a great dad." Well guess what, he beats their handicapped daughter too. Even if he only beat my sister, and that should be enough for her to leave him, he would still be abusing his daughter by teaching her such a messed up view of what it was to be a husband.

Have you had a chat with him about this? You can put the word chat in quotes if you like.

Trust me, he knows how I feel. Can't really get into details for legal reasons, but he knows.

It is really, really difficult to leave an abusive person. For a lot of reasons. The abuser tells you how he can't live without you and how you're the only good thing in his life. He makes you feel sorry for him on the one hand and afraid of him on the other. You think that if you can "just do it right" he won't get mad. Abusers create victims who can't get away from the abuse. They think they need to SAVE the abuser and that "he's not that bad".

I also think that the church itself is emotionally abusive towards women and so that type of relationship is sort've conditioned to be something that "women have to bear". I'll tell you this, most likely she will NOT be getting any recommendations from her bishop or other leaders that she needs to leave. She might be getting told that she either needs to "endure to the end" or "pray". In the mormon church, the marriage is the highest entity. Not the health of the individual member. If she is TBM she is taking this advice as coming from god.

What can you do? Understand the mindset of the abuser and the victim. I know I read a LOT of books about the abuse cycle when I was trying to understand my own abusive marriage. However, these books were towards the end of the marriage as in the beginning/middle I was trying to communicate better, etc.

Figure out how you can best support your sister - whether that is statements of support, comments that make her think, books to read, or some combination.

Unfortunately, it is SO HARD to rescue someone from that sort of situation, because the victim gets into the mindset that they somehow "deserve" it.

I know this situation is heartbreaking.

I know my mom must have heard this in relief society or from some other TBM in her life because EVERYONE in her life was TBM:
"Sometime boys don't know how to show they like you so they will punch or hurt you instead." - She said this to me when the neighbor kid wouldn't quit chasing me and punching me.

Don't say this to your kids people! I hope this is a long ago idiocy that is not being repeated.

I would replace it with this important life lesson,

"Sometimes people are complete sociopaths, or self centered idiots, and like to hurt other people for their own amusement. Since the law won't allow us to murder these people, we must instead make sure that we never allow them to have a place in our lives where they can hurt us."

One thing's for sure is that leaving an abusive relationship is one of the hardest things someone can do. Even if they want to leave, if the abuser has managed to isolate them from people like family who would support them, it's extremely difficult. In many cases, leaving results in the victim being murdered by the abuser.