I don't remember it that way at all, and I recently re-read the first book.

Maybe I just have a blissfully ignorant perspective on these things, I know the 'she secretly wanted it' thing is a thing people write and believe, but since I'm a man I won't know what it feels like to have those terrible beliefs make me feel unsafe, I just know they're terrible.

I think what he was attempting to do was write about someone experiencing stockholm syndrome or similar attachments people can form to their abusers. It's not all bad feelings, or we'd never get stuck in these cycles of abuse.

It's easier and safer to either A: not write about it at all, or B: pretend it's all negative emotions, but in my experience with abusive people it isn't.

That mix of emotions is not comfortable in fiction, but it's not comfortable in real life either. That doesn't make it any less human or real, though.