Abusive Relationships; Why Women Stay
Introduction
The question of why women stay in abusive relationships has been studied from many perspectives including the impact of the abuse on the women, the severity of the abuse on the decision to leave, and the types of coping used by women in abusive relationships. Some women leave or request help after an initial incident while others experience repeated beatings before involving social institutions or leaving the relationship. Some never leave, rarely revealing the incidents and don’t involve social institutions. One prominent researcher in the field found that the more severe the abuse, the more likely were the women to seek some form of intervention with divorce or separation being the most likely result as opposed to police intervention or going to an agency. Women who were hit more frequently were more likely to call police. Women who were hit less often but more severely were more likely to leave.
Rationalization and Denial
Battering is seen as a victimization of the woman and her responses often parallel those of victims of violent crimes. However, abused women are different from other victims of violent crimes in that the assailant is an intimate and previously trusted partner. The psychological repercussions include loss of a sense of trust and safety and intense feelings of helplessness. There is confusion as the woman attempts to absorb the impact of being hurt by someone who was thought to be caring and protective. High anxiety, passivity and/or apathy often characterize the woman’s response. The women who are more likely to remain in the relationship are believed to engage in a process of rationalization which denies the reality of the situation, the options available, the truth about the victimizer and the victimization, and the causes of the violence.
Profound Consequences
If the woman remains in the situation without taking any action, the abuse is likely to increase in frequency and severity. She may experience something similar to post traumatic stress syndrome. She begins to identify with the aggressor, becomes brainwashed, may cling to her husband or lover and behave in irrational ways. The long-term psychological effects include a profound sense of betrayal of trust, depression, suicidal ideation, guilt, shame and feelings of inferiority. The woman may be extremely afraid for her personal safety. The psychological consequences of battering are, therefore, profound. They cluster around physical symptoms and mixed anxiety/depressive symptoms.
Women who have been beaten and abused are also more likely to attempt suicide. Women in an abusive relationship use self-blame which imposes meaning on the situation and gives them some semblance of perceived control. Battered women ask the question, “Why now?” They blame themselves for causing the husband to act violently in order to feel as if they have some control over what has happened. But as the violence continues, they begin to blame themselves more and more for not being able to modify it or for tolerating such behavior.
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7 Responses to “Abusive Relationships; Why Women Stay”
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Gebadia Smith Says:
September 10th, 2009 at 6:48 am5 years ago I was in a relationship with an amazing girl who I was verbally abusive to for our whole relationship… losing her changed me.. made me look inside. See men are abusive because we are insecure. We can’t deal with our emotions inside and the reality is no woman can ever fix that. The abuseis an element of control.. our insecurity even justifies it. We actually think we are justified… sadly we are not.. we are just scared and afraid thinking nobody would love us. So my advice to woman is to walk away.. to tell the man to get help for them.. not for you cause honestly you can’t change for anyone else but yourself. Me personally, because of my insecurity I will never date again. I never want to treat another person like that. I have dealt with my issues in terms of I have dated since then and have conquered being verbally abusive.. the problem is I have not conquered the issues from childhood.. that pain is still there and it makes it impossible for me to date..
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Renee Hamlin Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:51 pmI’d like to know if this sounds like familiar circumstances to anyone. My goal is to be out of this situation in 3 to 6 months.
Today I am starting a log to keep my sanity as I try to survive this abusive situation with the guy I live with. While I may not be perfect, I cannot understand or get past his complete outbursts of rage and abuse of alcohol and gambling. Living with him and being around him is emotionally painful and physically draining and if I ever get out of this mess, I will count myself as a survivor. Although there’s a history that goes back 10-12 years, the past few days have made me more keenly aware of just how irrational he is.
Sepember 29, 2009 – We had bought groceries at the store and came home to make a salad. I took the dog to the park while he worked in the kitchen. There was shredded cheese and dressing on the counter and I put cheese and dressing on my salad. Je told me not to worry about his as he wanted to put the dressing on first and sprinkle cheese on after. I forgot after making mine and went ahead and sprinkled cheese on the salad, put it away and then left the dressing out for him. When he saw the salad, he got irate, started screaming at me about how I hadn’t listened to him and then proceeded to tell me how stupid I was. Saying he wouldn’t have told me to leave it if he would have wanted it that “F”___ing way. I told him he was over-reacting and I felt like I was trailer-trash, the way he talked to me. I ended up eating my salad, going to bed, and not talking to him.
September 30, 2009 – Morning- He has been late on all his bills and he had received a letter from the association to put a lien on the condo. Today was the last day to pay it. I have been helping him figure out a plan to get back on track and pay everything, so he sat down at the counter and asked me if we had enough to pay the whole bill off including the late fees. I thought he meant in the budget, so I said no. He got frustrated and slammed the counter and said, then why the hell am I going up there? He ended up saying he meant what was actual money sitting in the checking account. I told him, then yes, if that’s what you meant, you could write the check, but something else wouldn’t get paid. He called me a stupid bitch and went on to tell me how I couldn’t communicate and then also said quite angrily that he had that same problem at work, that people are stupid and complicate things when it’s so easy to understand. Then told me that’s why I can’t keep a job. He started to storm out to the garage and said he didn’t give a shit, that he was going to go out drinking, he didn’t care what I did etc., I followed him and told him that he’d blow his budget, not be able to pay his bills and lose the house if he did that , just because he was angry. He turned around coming at me with both hands up in the air, raised in a position like he wanted to strangle me, screamed at me, telling me I was a nag and a bitch. I couldn’t believe how he was acting and I said to him; what are you going to do hit me?…go ahead and hit me so I can get you arrested and thrown out of the country. So, he pounded the door to the garage with his fist, really hard. He then left the house to pay the bill. Within 10 minutes, he was calling me to come back and go get something to eat. He never apologizes, he just comes back and tries to act like nothing happened.
October 1, 2009 – We are on the nightly run to the park with the dog. We go out to the garage and it smells bad; old chicken in the trash. He pulls the bag out of the trash, ties it and brings it in the front of the car putting it at my feet. I asked him why he didn’t put it in the trunk and he says he doesn’t want the trunk to stink. So as we’re driving over to the park, and he tells me he thinks it stinks and the bag could be leaking. He asks me to reach down and feel it. I tell him that I’m not going to reach down and feel something stinky and rotten, not being able to wash my hands. We were just a minute or two from the park, so I told him we could wait, it wouldn’t matter, because we were driving and that we’d be able to see when we stopped. He got mad, and said “F” it, I don’t know why you’re such a bitch, I’ll just do it. We stopped, there was no leak, it was just stinky from the bag, and he then said to me, sometimes you’re a real cunt, I just wanted to know if it was leaking. By the time we got back to the house, we weren’t speaking to each other and, I went up to bed, taking my computer and not talking to him the rest of the night. ….but he did bring a bowl of ice-cream upstairs…..another gesture, but no apology.
October 2, 2009 – Morning – He is off work today, Friday. We were sitting around the living room watching TV, and he had made several things to eat. At this point, he was in the kitchen making a sandwich, and I said, Wow-you’re eating again. He told me, yes, I’m just making a jam sandwich. He brings it over by me and says here, you want a bite. So, took a bite and it was just Bread and BBQ sauce, and tasted awful. I thought he was just being silly and gross, so I spit the bite into my hand, opened the two slices of bread and put it between them. He started screaming at me. That’s “F—“ing gross, how can you spit that out in my food? All I said was, it’s not that gross, it’s no different then drinking after each other. He then said that sometimes I’m a real bitch, he threw the sandwich across the room to the kitchen counter. He then came back to the sofa, called me a douche-bag and started flicking channels. I told him I was sorry, but I didn’t think it was really all that bad. So I then asked if I could ask him a question, and he said no in a really gruff manner, started really flicking between channels and went upstairs about five minutes later. ½ later, he came down and needed to have something checked in the car, so he asked me to hold up the hood while he looked, and acted like nothing had even happened.
Let me say to everyone, that he’s two months behind on mortgage payments, has racked up all of his credit cards to the limit and hasn’t paid on them in 3 months. He orrowed $3,000 from his aunt and told her it was because the air conditioning was broke, when it wasn’t. All of the money has gone to drinking and gambling. I know this is classic alcoholic rage and addictive behavior and I will be so happy when I get out of this mess. The problem is that I put the down-payment on the condo and I stand to lose everything if he doesn’t get it all back in check. So, I just walk on egg-shells daily, trying to get his bills current, so that when I do get a decent job, I can safely negotiate me moving out or taking the condo over in my name. I have to safely negotiate this as, above everything else, he makes threats when he’s drunk, like he knows people that “can take care of me.” When I bring up the fact that he says this stuff when he’s drunk; his sober response is that he says those things just to get me worked up. I don’t believe him, so I have taken to just agreeing with him when I can, going to bed early and basically just holding my tongue as much as possible. I pray resolution will come soon.
I feel trapped, but I don’t feel hopeless, by being smart, calculating and patient, I think I will be able to make a decent exit. I’m not trying to take advantage, the money part really is all mine. I just want to regain ownership of it without him seeking out a vendetta. He’s mentioned many times that he pays more on the condo than he can afford, so he wants out too. I’m more afraid to leave in a rush as I know he is the type to retaliate; it will be better if it comes off as his idea and we look like we will stay friends. Then, once I’m by myself I can choose to not be available, change locks, and ease out of the whole thing.
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julia smith Says:
December 21st, 2009 at 2:16 pmI grew up with a father who would hit me when he got angry. Our family was super-religious, and people have told me that we looked like “Little House on the Prairie” from the outside. As a child, I was academically gifted and would question everything. I’m sure that this translated into me being difficult to deal with, as I was a total smart aleck; however, I also understand in my rational mind that violence is never an appropriate way to deal with a precocious child. My dad would hit me/beat me when my mom was not at home. When she got home, he would tell her the things that I had said that were disrespectful, or the smart comments I’d made. She would then tell me that it was my fault. I was so angry with my dad for hitting me, sometimes I would just push buttons to make it happen, because I knew that it ultimately would (you could always tell when he came home from work in certain moods). I would also interject when my little brother or sister was being yelled at, in order to stop them from getting hit. My mom would always tell me that I needed to learn to watch my mouth, etc. She would also tell me that society was so liberal that they didn’t even want parents spanking their kids, and that if I called Child Protective Services, they would come and take me and my siblings away and we would never see our parents or each other again. When I left home, I told my dad that if he ever treated my brother the way he had treated me, I would petition for custody.
I swore to myself that I would never be involved in a relationship with a man who either cheated on me or hit me, but I have now been in a relationship for over ten years with a man who is abusive. I didn’t realize that he was abusive when I first met him, although if I had been looking for the warning signs, I would have. He is charming, funny, intelligent, and very skilled in what he does for a living. He was warm and accommodating toward me – I felt as though he loved me no matter what. We always had a great time together. Because I’d grown up in the way that I did, I was extremely cautious about letting my guard down with him, though. It wasn’t until about 5 or 6 years into the relationship that I began to really relax and feel that I could settle down with him. That’s when things began to get bad. The first time he hit me, he accused me of sleeping with a celebrity (I’d only ever seen this celebrity perform live once, and had gotten a product signed afterward. He was angry because he felt that the signing had taken too long – I had to wait in line for an hour – and that I must have gone into a back room with the person or something). When I denied it, he called me a “lying whore” and slapped me.
This episode was followed by (the next day) apologies, explanations of his horrible childhood and how sometimes violence is just a “knee-jerk reaction” for him, how he didn’t want to lose me, etcetera. After he made some abusive comments again, about a month later, I left the relationship.
I got back together with him after he saw a counselor and started taking medication and keeping a journal. I was actually convinced that things would change.
Unfortunately, there have been several more episodes since then. The violence has gotten worse; at one point, he really hurt me. The problem is, because (amongst other things) he’s sometimes gone for more than a year before something happens. I have unfailingly managed to convince myself that it will stop happening. I am just now at a point where I’m realizing my mortality, and that life is too short to live this way. It’s hard for me to have perspective in this – because honestly, I do love him. He is a deeply flawed human being, and I understand that I am as well. Ultimately, I understand that I am putting my own safety (perhaps my life) at risk if I stay. Because I grew up with intermittent violence, it’s also difficult for me to not feel at some basic level as though it’s not normal, although I know in my rational mind that it isn’t.
What people should understand is that, after years of being with someone, it’s not as easy as you might think it would be to walk away. I’ve made some bad choices along the way, such as recently turning down a good job offer for one paying half the salary, so that I could be closer to him. Of course now my biggest obstacle to leaving is financial, in a nutshell, I just don’t have the money for a deposit and first month’s rent. I think that a lot of people might look at this and say – well, you got yourself into that situation – you shouldn’t have turned the job down. I agree, but also – consider that, if I were in a healthy relationship, it wouldn’t have been a bad decision. People do it all the time for the sake of their marriages. I am now implementing a plan to leave, because I’m still young enough to have the life that I wanted for myself when I was a teenager.
In conclusion, I’d like to say that from the outside, you can ask the question “why don’t women leave” and talk about the cycle of abuse and how it’s wrong and harmful etc. – but these analyses don’t take into account the actual human aspect of it – that is, this is someone’s life you’re talking about. This is a relationship that this person has built for years. When you love someone, you don’t just weigh the advantages versus the disadvantages and walk away if the disadvantages outweigh the benefits. That assumes a level of cold calculation that people just don’t possess. I know that there are extreme factors here, such as personal and emotional safety and wellbeing, that make the equation different, but the point holds. Finally, an abusive relationship is draining, emotionally and physically (especially for someone who likes to talk things out and be open, which I am/do). Sometimes it’s just hard to draw on those reserves.
All of that said, I am leaving. I just want folks to know that it’s not as easy an equation as you might think. Also take into account the fact that, at least in my opinion, the primary motivating factor for an abuser is control. When that’s combined in the abuser with a disregard for the law generally, in terms of, “no one controls me or anything in my life but me,” you potentially have a very dangerous situation when you leave. Abusers will stop at nothing to make your life miserable and/or may physically harm you if you try to leave. Sometimes not rocking the boat is a much more attractive option.
All of these things are not to say that a decision to stay in an abusive relationship should be sanctioned, but that women who do stay are not necessarily weak, feeble-minded, or ignorant/uneducated. They may just be good people in bad situations. -
Melissa Moore Says:
December 31st, 2009 at 4:44 pmI understand first hand why women stay in abusive situations. In my national best selling memoir, “Shattered Silence: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer’s Daughter” I meation all the excuses I heard from my mother. Thank you for providing sound answers to what seems like a mystery.
Melissa Moore -
Dr. Roberts Says:
February 8th, 2010 at 11:55 pmA question I must ask is why do all articles concerning domestic violence imply that the man is the abuser and the woman is the victim? How many articles are written or studies done on the impact of women abusing men? I have seen countless men beaten, sent to the hospital, and never get any support. They go back to the abusing woman. Where are the victim support for men who are abused? And yes, women can and do physically and sexually abuse men. I clearly recall a 6′5 300lb woman who beat her husband who was 5′ 130lbs several times a month. He refused to press charges so the police could not do anything. And yes, because he is a man he never received any support or visit from the social worker while in the hospital. When will men receive any support? Just a few thoughts to think about.
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Jason Says:
March 7th, 2010 at 7:50 pmThis seems to leave out quite a lot. There are legal, cultural, religious challenges for immigrant women in leaving violence relationships, problems with fear of police for legitimate reasons, difficulty planning to leave the abuser in terms of locating financing, social supports, safety planning (as leaving the abuser is the most dangerous time) and potential challenges to retaining custody by child protection workers because a home with an abuser in it is considered unsafe, and challenges of potentially multiple abusers being at going on at home. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Also, what information is this article citing?
Thanks for raising the issue,
Jason
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Janica Says:
April 12th, 2010 at 8:54 amI agree with Gebadia Smith who said in the first comment that you can´t change another person. It is only the person himself/herself who can change, not by anyone else. That´s why i think it is really important to support the people( and I mean both men and women) who are in abusive relationships to get enough courage to leave.
I have seen abusive men from really close and that´s how I have also seen that even thought first woman has left, the man hasn´t changed a bit. The same assaults continues in the next relationship. I just hope strenght to all those people in bad relationships.