There’s got to be a better way to describe how fear leads people to do some rather egregious things and then do everything possible to run away from the mess they’ve made without calling them a coward or criminalising them.
In my experience, only three people – one I was engaged to, one I was married to, and one I have never met but made it her mission to defame me for not dating her – have actually done something criminal to me in terms of harm or abuse.