And child abuse are really the underlying themes of Killer Sally. Without those, people would not get into or stay in clearly toxic relationships. What is apparent is that Sally and Ray both had dysfunctional childhoods, which led them to the perfect storm that was their six-year relationship. No one with healthy boundaries and a strong sense of self would marry a lover after a mere two months of courtship. That was the first red flag.
The maltreatment of Sally by her stepfather caused her to believe that she was flawed, undeserving and never good enough for anyone. She learnt to base her worth on what she did for other people. Ray, on the other hand, had to fend for himself after being abandoned by his parents; this led him to view people only as utility or an extension of himself as his young psyche sought to protect itself from obliteration. In other words, through opposite adaptation to emotional trauma, one became a giver and the other a taker.
There is a concept called repetition compulsion where we replay dynamics of previous significant relationships in current ones. Sally was unconsciously repeating her relationship with her stepfather with Ray. She could not step away from her marriage to Ray, even to protect her children, because she was determined for it to succeed in order to make up for the approval she could never gain from her stepfather. Ray became a substitute for Sally's stepfather; in shooting him, Sally was really trying to silence the crushing disapproval that she felt from the male figures in her life. There are no villains here, only children who deserved better parents and happier childhoods.
