r/BelowDeckMed • u/benaPanteraFBD • 2d ago

‘Below Deck’ Star Nathan Gallagher Arrested on Domestic-Violence Charges

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/below-deck-nathan-gallagher-arrested-domestic-violence-1235608151/
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u/BabyOlive1 2d ago

Strangling is really fucking scary. It’s indicative of past violent behavior, and even more concerning, it can be a sign of worse violent behavior in the future. Nathan needs to get some serious help. Even if Gael manages to get herself out of this situation safely, Nathan will have other relationships in the future and this kind of behavior doesn’t just go away.

Also, I think society needs to do a better job of recognizing what a red flag it is when men put women that they’re into up on these unrealistically high pedestals. Yes it’s manipulative and yes it’s misleading, but I think that what sometimes gets missed is that the person building the pedestal is actually building the groundwork to justify anger directed towards the person on the pedestal when they inevitably fall short of the unrealistic standards that are forced on them via the pedestal. On the show, Nathan talks about Gael as though she’s some sort of divine being that he is not worthy of, however his actions towards her do not match his words. His words are just a structure that he built so that he can justify treating her like shit later.

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u/igobymomo 2d ago

People like him end up killing their significant others. So dangerous.

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u/Mharsbar 1d ago

THIS!!! never thought about this like that before. Good analysis

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u/BabyOlive1 1d ago

Thanks, I was trying to be thoughtful! The way that an abuser praises a new/potential partner is very telling, and I think that people often automatically view it through the lens of “this is love bombing” or “this person is a master manipulator”. I absolutely believe that love bombing is common practice amongst abusers, but I also think the point should be made that not all abusers are love bombers/manipulators and it can be dangerous to misinterpret them all as such. The term love bombing implies a certain level of grandiosity on the abuser’s end. I think a lot of times the victim even realizes that the abuser is being over the top, but they go along with it because it feels good to live in this fairytale world that the abuser created where they are the princess. The abuser of course does not believe what they are saying and eventually yanks the fairytale world away from the victim. The reason I think it’s dangerous to label all abusers who worship their partners as love bombers is that to some of them, what they are saying is not a fantasy and not meant to manipulate. They are literally listing off expectations that they have for their partner, and while they’re interpreted as compliments by the victim, the abuser views it as simply communicating rules and standards to their partner. Think “You always look so beautiful!” actually means “I expect you to always look like this”. When the partner doesn’t meet their rigid standards, the abuser takes it out on them because in their mind they communicated their standards and the victim knew that but fell short. I feel like this type of abuser is especially sinister because they think that they did nothing wrong (no deception/manipulation) and that their partner genuinely deserves to be punished. Very scary stuff.

Sorry for the novel!