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I don't think I'd characterize this as an abusive relationship, that is, no more abusive than any relationship which is ending unhappily and where one person is behaving badly. For all Maurice talks about hate, Sarah sees it as love and I think her reading is the correct one, and not that of an abused person who excuses and rationalizes her treatment.
As I said, I liked this very much; I enjoyed Greene's meanderings, the timeshifts, Maurice's exploration of Sarah and their relationship. However, I thought the miracles were overwrought. Not the first one, if a miracle is was, where Maurice lived when Sarah thought him dead, but the cures she effected after she died. They seemed clunky to me; I'd have preferred events that were more nebulous, more along the spectrum toward sheer coincidence or randomness. These were too explicit, especially Sarah's having kissed Richard on his damaged cheek and the presence of relics in the case of both cures.
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