Why Do Women Stay in Abusive Relationships

culled from:http://youqueen.com

Not many women know that a man is abusive when they get involved with him. Usually the abuse starts somewhere down the line. One would think though that a woman would leave an abusive relationship, but many women don’t. Why do women stay in abusive relationships?
There are several reasons for this. There are also several ways in which a relationship can be abusive. First, let’s have a look at different types of abuse, and then at why women don’t leave abusive men.

1. Emotional abuse

It’s easy to think that abuse is always physical, but in most cases it’s not. Most abusive relationships consist of emotional beatings, more so than physical ones.
Sometimes this is real abuse directed at the woman, sometimes it’s simply a guy being emotionally unavailable when the woman wants to be loved and cared for. I’ve composed a list of how this can play out:

• Emotional coldness or unavailability – the guy never shows much affection, neither in words, nor in actions, whether it’s because he doesn’t want to or doesn’t know how to.
• Breaking promises, lying and/or cheating – in a monogamous relationship the man cheats or disregards other important promises he made.
• Using her – the man is using the woman for reasons other than love, such as having her look good, treating her as arm candy, whilst falsely pretending he loves her.
• Disrespect – the woman’s wishes and feelings are generally disregarded; not because she does something so that they would deserve to be disregarded, but because he just doesn’t care, or doesn’t know how to care. It can also be that he prioritizes everything else ahead of her – from work and friends to other women.
• Degrading – the man degrades a lot of the things the woman does, or who she is in general. It can also be that he tells her that other women are much better, she should wear other clothes, or she should be more outgoing/less outgoing, etc.
• Controlling – the man controls the woman’s life in one way, or another. This can be done with threats, or by generally shunning her when she does not behave as he wishes she would.

Of course, there are many levels of abuse – just because someone is emotionally more distant for a while, or prioritizes work, they’re not abusive. Nor does telling someone they have an ugly dress necessarily count as abuse. It all depends on what place someone is coming from and how often it occurs.
Sometimes the man is not coming at it from an angle of abuse – women simply often get involved with men who will never treat them in a way they would like, and by doing so they abuse themselves.

2. Verbal abuse

Verbal abuse is a form of emotional abuse. A man can abuse the woman by constantly putting her down verbally.
It’s one thing to honestly tell someone that they aren’t a great cook, they might need to lose or gain a few pounds, or they would look nicer with another haircut, with the intention of the person becoming happier as the end result, or simply to be honest without any malice (you probably don’t want to eat food that’s inedible even if it was cooked for you by the loveliest person in the world).
It’s another thing to constantly make negative comments, or have the intention to put someone down. Your partner should lift you up, not put you down. That doesn’t mean you don’t need to talk about the tough stuff, but it means you have to do it in a positive way.
Whilst we can all have a bad day and spew out some comments we don’t really mean, if it happens constantly the man either needs to learn to control his mood swings, or he simply has to change his ways if that’s his general modus operandi.

3. Sexual abuse

I have a friend whose husband used to drug her and rape her. That’s an extreme case. Sometimes men just don’t take no for an answer, and I don’t mean the kind of playful no that really means “convince me”; I mean the no that’s an absolute no – the kind where the woman is clearly not enjoying herself.
It can also be trying to control her to do things, like getting naked in front of friends, or having sex in a specific way and using threats to make her do it (such as saying he will leave her if she doesn’t or he will post naked photos of her on the internet if she doesn’t comply), or simply pushing her real hard to do something when he can see she is clearly not happy about it.
With pushing her I don’t mean pushing her through a bit of embarrassment to help her get through some sexual fears, I mean pushing her beyond what is reasonable and healthy.

4. Physical abuse

Physical abuse can be anything from locking a woman into a room to beating her senseless. This often happens because the woman does something the man disagrees with. With time these reasons have a tendency to multiply.

Why do men do it?

If a man is actively abusing a woman by putting her down emotionally or hitting her, usually it’s because of a lack of confidence; a lack of self-worth. I.e. the man does not feel he has enough power without putting someone else down in some way, be it physical or emotional.
He only feels in control when the other party feels inferior to him. He does not believe he can have anything unless he controls his environment. If he just relaxes he thinks the other party will get the upper hand and abuse it, or leave him.
A man abusing a woman emotionally or physically can simply be emotionally hurt as well and he’s taking it out on those around him.
Emotional unavailability (that’s due to other things than having different priorities, such as going through a period of focusing on his career, as opposed to always being emotionally unavailable), usually stems from having been hurt in the past, or brought up without the emotional stability and love needed.
This can simply be a case of complete emotional shut down and an inability to show emotions, or using anger to cover up things like love and worry.
Emotional wounds can also lead to self-hatred, or simply emotional pain, which a man might deal with by taking drugs, or becoming a workaholic. Generally, people who feel self-hatred also mess up their lives by cheating, beating others, messing up work or doing something else that makes them loathe themselves.
They are living up to their own self-image by self-sabotaging their lives or others people’s lives. Or they are simply taking it out by sabotaging whatever comes their way.
Lastly, abuse can simply be from a lack of discipline – most people feel like being nasty when they are having a bad day. Some people learn to control it, others don’t. If they feel angry, they somehow justify taking it out on everyone else.
Again, it’s about expressing inner pain, but it’s not so much about some big old wound, as an uncontrolled temper. It’s an inability to process or deal with emotions and therefore creates a need to get them out some other way.
No one’s heart wants to abuse other people, but if a man is not living by his heart, then he needs to get help to do so, or a woman should not be involved with him, no matter how great he seems.

The core of putting up with abuse

The only real reason a woman stays with an abusive man is a sense of lack of worth i.e. they don’t think they are worth more, whether that’s a conscious or unconscious thought. There are many ways in which this plays out though. So let’s have a look at some of those ways.

1. He is the best when he is not abusive

Sometimes women run into men that make them feel more alive, more loved, happier than any other guy has ever done. Then something happens and the guy starts hitting her, or mistreating her in some other way. She still stays because she remembers the good days and his “true self.”
Sometimes this can be brought on by a drinking problem, the loss of a job, or simply the relationship gets deeper and the guy’s wounds come out.
It might even have been there from the beginning, but the highs are so high the lows seem worth it.
It often happens that women in these scenarios are either too emotionally attached (he starts drinking five years down the line and she is by then feeling lost with the thought of being without him, or ashamed of giving up on him) to leave, or they think they will never meet someone who will make them feel as good as this guy again, so they will just take the good with the bad.

2. He’s just hurt

A woman can look at a guy’s heart and see all the beauty there is. The problem is that the guy is wounded and acts from a different place sometimes. In that place he finds his abusive side.
In this scenario women often stay to try to “fix” the guy. They see that he is wounded, so they justify whatever abuse he throws their way. If the guy isn’t getting any help to heal his wounds though, or if the help isn’t actually helping, then staying is self-abuse.
The guy might make it hard to leave by provoking guilt as well (“You are going to give up on me like everyone else did.” “You never loved me or you would have stayed.” “What kind of person are you giving up on a guy who’s in rehab, trying to sort his life out?”), but a woman in these circumstances needs to understand that her own life comes first.
She has the right to be happy. She can also not help anyone when she’s being abused. To help she has to be alright. Be a friend, but don’t be tied to a relationship that’s ruining you. Love is unconditional, relationships aren’t.

3. She doesn’t know any better

Women who come from an abusive family tend to think that’s the way life is. And in some places, like where I work, in a South African township, there is a lot of abuse.
Women who have never experienced anything better have grown to believe that’s the way life should be and tend to put up with it. Even if they know there can be better, they are so abused that they think they can’t have that better world. It’s for “other people.” It’s not true, but they perceive it to be true.

4. There’s secondary gain

Some women stay with abusive men because they supply drugs, money, or simply a roof over their head. Again, this is common in poor neighborhoods, but if you’ve ever spent some time in Los Angeles, you’ve found that there are women willing to be high class courtesans in exchange for coke, career lifts, or cash.

5. Fear of loneliness or change

This is a form of secondary gain, but what happens is that some women get so used to being in a relationship with someone that they don’t know how to be without that person. They might feel they would lose their entire life if they break up with the man (friends, status, money), or they don’t like the idea of having shared custody of the kids, not seeing them every day.
They may be scared they don’t know how to socialize by themselves anymore, or that they don’t have the strength, or ability, to start a new life, to get a job, etc.

6. Fear of hurt or damage

There are abusive men that threaten their women so much that they fear leaving them, as they are scared their men will beat them to death, or continuously harm them if they do.
Sometimes the fear is not that the man will physically hurt her, but that he will ruin her reputation, take her kids away, or damage her life in some other way.

7. Shame

Some women don’t want to confess to themselves, much less to the world, that their relationship has failed, or that they picked a guy who beat them. Their pride is basically luring them to believe they look stronger if they stay than if they leave. The opposite is true.

8. Fear that this is the best she will ever get

Some women think that they will never find anything better, not because it was great in the first place, but because they have never been in a relationship before or no other man has ever been nice to them.
If the man she is dating is as nice, or even nicer, than people in her past have been, then she will often stick with it. She might see that others have better relationships, but she won’t think that it could ever happen to her.

9. Denial

Some women try to deny what is happening by justifying the man’s behavior. She makes a mistake, like everyone else, so she deserves to be beaten, or emotionally abused.
We all make mistakes and people can honestly share their opinions about them, but if they are in a relationship with you, they should be the kind of people who help you become a better you, not tear you down.

10. Lack of self-love

At the end of the day the only real reason a woman stays with an abusive man is because her own self-image is no better than the one he is projecting at her. If she saw herself differently, she would leave. You don’t necessarily attract your own self-image into your life, but you only allow the people who you believe to be your mirror to stay.
If someone tells you that you are a green faced alien, you will laugh. Likewise, if they tell you that you are ugly and you believe yourself to be beautiful, you will laugh. If, on the other hand, they tell you that you are ugly and you believe them, then you will continue the conversation as you believe they were telling the truth.
For a woman to leave an abusive man she has to listen to her heart and see her true self. Usually, this involves having a professional, such as a therapist; show her what she looks like, before she learns to truly feel like she matters.
All people, at their core, have a heart. All people, for the same reason, are worth exactly the same. However, you have to choose to surround yourself with people who are open and emotionally stable so that you can be yourself.
Life is a gift and it’s ours to explore. We tend to judge ourselves by our so-called successes and failures, but as long as we treat ourselves, others, and the earth with love, we deserve the very best. That very best is someone who does the same. And it’s not about what you did yesterday.
Yesterday is gone. So is the person you were then. What you have right now is an opportunity to be who you choose and embrace life as someone who loves and therefore demands love in return.