Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-11058666-20141228031222/@comment-5205908-20150116161153

Some people are beginning to exaggerate. Rumple never abused Belle, at most, he abused her trust. And to say their relationship is abusive is ridiculous, Rumple let Belle go, at least twice, it was Belle's choice to go back to him, actually three time if we count the time he trusted her to leave the castle, and expected her to not return. If anyone wants to say he loves his power over Belle as Belle believed so in the fall finale because the gauntlet that points to anyone's weakness pointed to the dagger is also ridiculous, I can understand why Belle felt that way due to finding out he's been lying about giving her the dagger and other things, that would make anyone emotional and irrational. For the rest of us, we should all remember that the dagger is literally the Dark One's weakness, so the gauntlet pointing to the dagger is hardly an evidence that Rumple loves his power more. It's been shown to us many times that no one in the show is truly a pillar of virtue, so I would say up to now, Rumplestiltskin and Belle deserved each other. I cannot see them jumping back into each other's arms anytime soon, but as I've said before, the writers invested too much in them, so it's doubtful they'd just leave their relationship broken.