Oftentimes people judge the
abused and blame them for being victimized.
The ignorantly misguided reasoning behind victim blaming is based on an
inability to understand how someone can fall prey to an abusive
relationship. The thought is that the
woman was either too stupid to get out or that she must be staying because she’s
gaining something from the relationship.
Please know that no matter what you may be gaining from an abusive
relationship, it in no way compares to what you’ll gain by getting out.
Reasons Women Stay:
Nurturing/Upbringing
Women are raised to nurture, they are taught self-sacrifice
and to please others first, so many women still believe that love truly can
conquer all and heal anything. Many of these women believe if they will
work harder to love the man abusing them, and his flaws, he’ll change.
This is made worse if that woman was raised in an abusive home. If this
is the case, she may feel as if she is abandoning everything she was taught if
she leaves, because she was trained to accept abuse. Thus she spends her
days covering bumps and bruises with makeup, and lying to protect the man who
caused them.
Denial
Many abused women focus on the frequency and severity of
abuse, thinking that as long as it doesn’t get physical too often or if he
doesn’t always leave marks, then it’s not that bad. The less severe and
less frequent the abuse is, the more likely a woman is to endure it.
Beliefs About Gender
In some cases, especially if this is a woman’s first
serious relationship, she may attribute the abuse to the hormonal differences
between men and women. Men are naturally more aggressive so she may just
think this is the way men are. If a
woman has never been exposed to a healthy adult relationship either as a child
witness or involved adult, she is unlikely to recognize the early warning signs
of abuse.
Economic Dependence
A great deal of abused women are also stay at home moms, so
they have very little access to making their own money. They therefore worry about whether or not
they will be able to survive without their mates. There is no way to know
how long it will take to find a job and some worry that once they do, the
income may not be enough to provide for them and their children. They weigh the perceived pros and cons of
their situation and sometimes consider it wise for them to stay.
Love & The Stockholm Syndrome
Stockholm Syndrome is the psychological condition
characterized by an individual being held captive and beginning to sympathize
with their captor or abuser. This relates very heavily to the psychology
of the abused because at some point, they don’t necessarily forget that they
are being abused but they begin to feel sorry for their abuser. They
begin to value his feelings over their own and start to care about things that
they shouldn’t; things like whether or not he will commit suicide as he has so
often threatened; if he can make it without her there to cook all his meals and
wait on him hand and foot; or if he will ever get help without her there
pushing him to do so. Once she is safe, none of these things will matter.
It would be fitting to care more about her freedom than the
one who has taken it away, but this is an excuse for co-dependency and a way
for the abused woman to keep themselves oppressed, however unintentionally.
They recognize that these men are sick, so when they promise to seek
help, the woman, out of love, wants desperately to believe him and eventually
convinces herself that she should. The
BIBLE says, “as a man thinketh, so he is” and this applies directly to the
Stockholm Syndrome. If a woman can
convince herself that she is not a victim, but instead the object of a sick man’s
affection, and he has promised to seek help, it becomes easier for her to
believe that “truth”.
Society
It is no secret that our society places a great deal of
esteem on relationships and the people in them. Those who are a part of a
couple are valued far more than the single. If a woman is alone, who was
once in an abusive relationship she may be timid to begin dating again, but
instead of being applauded for getting out of the abusive relationship, society
will often wonder why she hasn’t found someone new. There is no understanding of why anyone would
want to be alone. We reside in the age
of “suck it up & get over it!” In America, there is no honor in
healing.
Religion
Many, if not all religions emphasize the importance of
marriage, especially if children are involved. So much so that dependent
upon how religious the woman is, she may be willing to endure long-term abuse
for fear of going against all that she believes in.
Children
Many women in abusive marriages and relationships have
children with the man abusing them and may not want to separate the children
from their father. This is especially true for women who have sons
because women are often concerned about raising a young man with no male
presence in the home. They entangle themselves with the need of someone
teaching their son to be a man. What many don’t seem to understand is
that abusing your wife or girlfriend does not make you a man, so it is best to
leave while you can. Your son cannot
learn to be a man by watching one abuse you, unless you want him to grow up
and do the same. I understand that many women question their ability to
raise a son but for the sake of yourself and your child(ren), you must leave.
Legal Restraints
Though it is very important for an abused woman to leave
her abuser, this can be made quite difficult with children in the home.
Once she is gone, it is not advised for her to return for any reason, so she
must ensure that she has a place for her and her children before she
leaves. If she should flee without her children, she will surely be
charged with child abandonment. If she flees to a place that is not
considered fit to raise children, she will be charged with child
endangerment. Either way she may lose everything, including custody of
her children to a proven abuser.
Safety
It may seem easy to get away from an abusive relationship,
but it isn’t, and it doesn’t get any easier, especially if it’s been a long
relationship and you have children.
It is often said that many women don’t leave abusive
relationships because of their mates believed omnipotence; this is somewhat
more accurate than one might think. It is not that a man is truly all
powerful but the longer a relationship has been the more likely your abuser is
to seek and find you.
If a woman is in an abusive relationship and her abuser has
threatened to kill her or her children if she leaves, her family’s safety
becomes a very real issue. This man knows where you work and most
importantly where your children attend school. If he is their biological father
or is perceived as a custodial parent of that child, this makes him all the
more dangerous because it increases his access to your children.
We would like to believe that we can always protect our
children but the truth is that we can’t. Coupled with the fact that there
is no real way to weigh the threats of an abuser, the fear of this man
showing up to your child’s school and kidnapping them or doing them harm
becomes a definite factor. The possibility of him showing up to your job
in the dead of night and doing you harm is also a likely possibility.
Another issue is where you’ll run to when you leave.
The longer the relationship the more likely you are to share friends, so that
drastically reduces your possible hiding places. He knows where your family
lives, so they’re out. This leaves your only option to be a shelter for
battered women and children. Unfortunately, these shelters are small in
number and even smaller in space. They generally have very long waiting
lists and can be difficult to get into as the number of children increases.
Then, if you do get in, there is no guarantee that your abuser won’t find you
and there is no way to ensure your safety.
There are a LOT of reasons why women stay and
admittedly these only scratch the surface.
What we as society must understand is that getting out as an idea is
very easy, but in reality, finding your freedom takes deep thought and hard
work. Dedicate yourself to recognizing
that you deserve better, and work to get it.
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