Here's Why We Stay in Abusive Relationships

As a survivor you often hear “why don’t you leave him?” Well most of the time we can’t answer those kind of questions because we freeze. At least I do. How can you explain what it feels like to get abused? What makes us decide to stay?  

It’s hard to understand this when you’ve never experienced abuse yourself. Sometimes I even find myself judging people in the same situation.

I’ll try to explain what makes us stay, what it takes to accept the abuse, and what you can do to help someone in an abusive relationship.

And a relationship can be anything: romantic lovers, parent-child, teacher-student, best friends or anything like that.

There are a couple things that characterize an abusive relationship.

Things like power-differences—the way abusers have more authority than the victim. Because of that, they are able to put you under pressure, like a teacher can put their student under pressure. “I’m an adult, nobody will believe you.” Sometimes they even don’t have to say that; we can figure it out ourselves. Where can we go? Will they believe me? What will be the consequences? Those questions will make us doubt our credibility because the abuser has more authority than we do.

The second characteristic is the way we get manipulated and mentally abused. If your partner hits you, they might tell you “I’m so insecure. I’m scared to lose you. I’m so sorry. I really regret it!” or “you made me do it. You have driven me to that point. Don’t you see what you are doing?” Those comments make your point of view different. If anybody on the streets (a stranger) hits you, you probably have self-worth. You know it wasn’t your fault. But when a loved one hits you, you tend to downplay it. You take the blame yourself because you love them. Everybody deserves a second chance, right? We get manipulated. Our confidence disappears because they tell us there is something wrong with us. When you hear this long enough, you’ll start to believe them.

Another part of an abusive relationship contains isolation. Does this sounds familiar? We hate to tell people how bad the situation is. At the beginning we try to tell, we do give clues to our environment. We tell them our partner got really mad. We tell them the teacher isn’t that awesome. We tell them our parent isn’t as kind as they appear. And at one point we stop telling people because they don’t hear us. They don’t hear the real message. 

Often our abusers are very charming, empathic, charismatic, and funny. Other people only see that side—the side we fell for at first as well. But they don’t see the way the treat us inside our homes. Or they don’t see the way they tell us we aren’t worth a shit. They only see that good side. So if we tell, they get mad fast, the reaction will be like “maybe they had a hard day?” or if we tell them the teacher is kind of sticky. They answer: “they didn’t mean it that way! They’re like that all the time/with everyone!”

All these things will make us shut up and we’ll be doomed to undergo the abuse.

At some point, people will notice the abuse, the bruises, or our behavioral changes, and they tell us to shut down the contact. But at that point, we are already brainwashed. We believe we have no choice because we need them. That’s what the abuser has told us for months/years. We have empathy toward our abuser and we don’t want to destroy their lives by opening up.

Often our loved ones gives us an ultimatum and because of the incomprehension we feel like we have no choice but to choose the abuser. We’ve been told we’ll get killed if we leave them or if we tell other people. They have given us reasons to believe them.

And if we have to make that choice, the abuser got exactly what they wanted. They want us to feel different from anybody else. They don’t want people to interfere; they want us to be isolated so they can do whatever they want.

There are many many many characteristics of an abusive relationship but those three are the most important ones and they are probably always present in the relationship. Those three factors together make it very difficult to “just” step out of the abuse. Even the strongest person will break because of this abuse.

But what can you do? What can the support system do to help the victim?

The most important thing is not to judge. Judging will only scare the victim, it will make them feel alone and misunderstood.

Of course you can’t ignore the abuse and you need to talk about it. But make sure you tell them you’re trying to understand how hard it is to get away from the abuser. Tell them even though you hate to see it, you will not make them choose. And tell them that if they are ready to leave the abuser, you will do anything to help them. That way you not let the abuser isolate your loved one.

But also make sure the victim is safe. If there is a lot of violence, you need to tell the police. But only when it’s really bad, because, often the abuse and violence will get much worse when emergency services get involved. And most of the time, when the victim isn’t ready to break free, they will protect the abuser. They lie about their injuries, they minimize the abuse, and they will deny everything.

I know it’s hard for some to see the abuse and to see the victim protecting the abuser. It’s hard to understand why we don’t leave our abusers. They have made us feel so lonely and weak, we don’t dare to look forward. We just wait until it ends—but it never will. Please don’t leave them, stay right behind them, and if they are ready to leave the abusive situation, you will be there to support them and get them through the darkest times.

Often the abuse isn’t the hard part, but leaving and the healing process after that are. That’s where we get stalked, get scared, get PTSD, that’s the point where we see the damage of the abuse. That’s the hard part…

But after that, we’ll be free!