I want to take a moment to dissuade you from being here.

Seriously, if I knew who you were, I would personally do or say practically anything to make you step away from the computer right now. I have a few hundred in my pocket and I wouldn't stop short of bribing you with whatever I have on hand. These people have zero concept of what they're saying and you should not make important, life-alternating decisions based on the whims of others to feel good about themselves for having a moral high ground. I guarantee precious few are in a position to offer any semblance of helpful ideas for you to act on.

The greatest disappointment for anyone in social work is to offer resource after resource and watch on as people continue to create poor decisions. Plenty of young adults aspire to offer social work because they went through depression, mania, or otherwise went through a tough time. Many of these individuals burn out and stop after volunteering for hotlines, shelters, or end academic pursuits. It really sucks to watch on as people like your sister continue to make bad decision after bad decision knowing full well that she will be hurt badly. And most people cannot handle working with individuals like that.

Maybe the upbringing in your household has sometime to do with the way your sister regards relationships. Maybe she terrible relationships are all she has ever known. Maybe she was shown a better way but made the choice to reject it. Maybe she thrives on conflict or has low self-esteem and deals with it in all the wrong ways. Maybe she has simply fallen under the yolk of Max's control.

Whatever the case might be, the only person who can make your sister stop dating this guy, stop coming back to him, and accept that she deserves better is herself. You cannot control whether or not she creates better decisions. You cannot 'make her' stop dating the guy by bashing his face in anymore than you can 'make her' get help. These morons are trying to instill the same broken, dysfunctional idea that you had in the first place - You people seem to think you can force better decision making upon your sister.

Sure, both yourself and these random strangers on the internet have good intentions. I know that you just wanted to protect your sister just like these people want to protect her by forcibly getting therapy involved. But none of you seem to have realistic expectations.

You cannot make someone want to change. You cannot force someone to utilize just one of the many, many different resources out there. The more you push change through your fists or forcing therapy, the more a person resists and becomes defensive. We all know with common-sense, careful scientific investigation over several decades, and this is why law enforcement, therapists and and other social workers operate the way that they do.

If you try to push someone into getting help when they do not want it, then not only will they become defensive and view you as someone to avoid from now on, they'd carry negative connotations about therapy. The individual in need of help as now lost an entire field of assistance and a close sibling who she cannot turn towards anymore.

If you try to bash the face in of Max, your sister will bury her heels into the sand even further, perhaps outright turning against you. Domestic disputes are among the most dangerous incidents for first responders to deal with. All you would achieve through further violence is writing your sister out of your life entirely - at best. What would you do then? The violence would probably continue to escalate and your sister's face would become a roadmap. You'd be written out of her life so what would you do then? What would you do if she became physically violent with you at worst?

This is why social workers burn themselves out, because certain people cannot accept that those in need would willingly continue to create bad choice after bad choice. People want to do more to help, like get in a fight, force someone into therapy, or force help onto them. But all you can do is offer resources for people like your sister to select from when she is ready. To force the issue will make things worse for everyone and I guarantee that any professional will tell you the same thing.

Please stop, and end your participation on reddit. For crying out loud, I'm -begging you- to stop reading the clueless input here from incompetents who have no business giving advice to anyone.