Her father has had a great deal of impact of her lifetime of unhappiness and abuse. .
Secondly, Madeleine's first husband, Bobby Joe, had beaten her every night in the duration of their marriage. The narrator speaks of Bobby Joe's abusiveness toward Madeleine, "Bobby Joe, a husband she had been married to since she was seventeen, and he had committed every possible kind of abuse on her. And this unthinkable abuse had been only but a nightmare since she married Jack" (Steel, Pg3). Bobby Joe used extreme violence to get every point across very clearly to Maddy; he does not value her as an individual and as a wife. Maddy tells Dr.Flowers, (her secret psychiatrist), that she "was so blinded with fear" that it took until "he had broken both of [her] legs and both of [her] arms" to divorce him (Steel, Pg198). Maddy is terrified of leaving Bobby Joe because he might beat her so much that he kills her. This kind of abuse is more obvious and dramatic in both a short-term and long-term affect. At first the person might not understand why they are being abused but then later that person might start to believe that they actually deserve what they are getting. Maddy pours out her heart to her good friend, Bill Alexander about her past with Bobby: .
"It got to the point where everything I did was may fault. Everything that went wrong in his life was my fault. Anything bad that happened, was my fault. If he had a hard time at work, it was all because of me. The sad part is that I believed it, and I believed that I deserved the beatings he gave me, because it was all my fault" (Steel, Pg209). .
Maddy is so abused and so tortured by Bobby Joe that she actually starts to believe that everything that Bobby Joe says to her is true. His abuse towards her puts him in power and shows her who is boss. It is possible that Bobby Joe beats Maddy all the time because he does not want her to advance independently as a woman or as a businesswoman.