Why Women Stay
The first law of nature is our own self-preservation, which is always thwarted when entangled in Domestic Violence relationships, defying our very nature and survival.
So why do so many who are obviously being hurt… stay?
Most stay because, whether we realize it or not, the tenets of Domestic Violence are some of the most complex sociological phenomena known to man.
As such, my hope in this writing is to shed some light on the very destructive, complex and disturbing human phenomena of why many victims and targets of domestic violence don’t (or can’t) leave harmful or otherwise dysfunctional relationships.
RELATING…
How we relate to those intimate partners and familial social structures alike, has the strength to shape so much of how we learn to socialize and interact with the world around us, while also imbuing us with those defacto definitions and attributes that mirror what relationship structures should look like, unhealthy and healthy ones alike.
Likewise, our social structures are designed by the grand designer to help us survive in the world, as none of us make it entirely on our own.
However, when our close relationships act adversely to us, by preventing us from successfully thriving and surviving in the world, there a quite a few trends in why most survivors don’t or can’t leave.
Some Of Them Include -
LACK OF FAMILIAL OR SOCIAL SUPPORT GROUPS
When we lack the nurturing familial and social support groups that help us stabilize ourselves, especially while entangled in volatile or abusive relationships, we are far less likely to leave.
For abuse victims to successfully get out and stay out of abusive relationships, free from the vicious revolutionary cycles of leaving and going back to the same volatile circumstance, it is imperative to have the stabilizing social structures of our friends and family who can provide us the vestiges necessary to safely exit the abusive relationship.
As such, a social circle of healthy family and friends are of the utmost importance when it comes to providing the foundational social strengths necessary to effectively help diffuse and subvert the harmful ones, as we heal from the survival attributes and behaviors adopted while trying to survive within dysfunctional or otherwise abusive circumstances.
However, when we lack such social supports, or when we come from dysfunctional or defunct familial structures ourselves, it not only makes our safe exit from abusive intimate partner relationships more difficult, but it might even prove a pointless expedition to leave one harmful scenerio merely to enter into another – or better phrased, to jump from the frypan into the fire.
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL ABUSE
Finances play a huge factor in a survivor’s ability to safely walk away from a volatile relationship, which is why most abusers seek to entangle and financially enslave their targets as a primary means of procuring supply from them.
When we haven’t the finances to help us safely walk away from violent circumstances, we aren’t equipped to survive outside of them, due to the obvious lack of economic resources.
Statistics show that around 95 percent of all domestic violence relationships include some sort of financial abuse.
In fact, most abusers even prevent their targets from procuring employment or the economic sufficiency means necessary to disentangle themselves from the co-dependency trap many are enthralled in.
In order to safely walk away from violence, survivors must have the financial means to procure their own safe housing, stationary needs, and any other economic resources necessary to satisfy independent living costs.
LACK OF ADEQUATE HOUSING AND SAFE PLACES TO GO
Billions of dollars are spent each year in effort to house and support families affected by Domestic Violence, yet there simply isn’t enough housing to support all the needs of those who need the help of supportive housing.
It is estimated that at least 30 percent of survivors are denied DV preventative and safe housing accommodations resulting from lack of availability, leaving some trapped in the cycle of abuse with no where safe to go. So they stay.
FEAR OF HARM TO SELF AND FAMILY BY THE ABUSER
So many victims of DV have dealt with immeasurable physiological, psycho-social, financial, and spiritual harm from their abusers, with even more terrified to leave as they might face subsequent retaliatory harm in their escape efforts.
Some are brutally beaten on a continual basis…in their finances, in their psycho-social wellbeing, in their families and supportive social groups, with many even being divided from their loved ones. Still yet, some bear the brunt of contusions of all kinds from the beatings they've endured at the hands of those who profess to love them.
So many survivors face the constant threat of harm, their children being kidnapped, with some even facing the threat of death if they try to walk away from abusive partners.
In fact, DV victims are twice as likely to be killed by their abusers when they leave or try to leave the relationship, making it extremely dangerous, especially if they haven’t the social and economic strengths necessary to safely exit the relationship.
STOCKHOLM SYNDROME AND TRAUMA BONDS
Repeated cruel and dehumanizing actions and words not only serve to break the resolve of victims of violence over time, but they also serve to groom them to accept and comply with faulty and abusive behavior.
Likewise, the confusing mix of cruel and inhumane infractions, coupled by inauthentic gestures of remorse can cause an emotional rollercoaster in victims, subsequently inducing dysfunctional trauma bonds, where over time the victim stops trying to leave the relationship.
Trauma Bonds can be far stronger than natural or otherwise healthy relationship bonds, as they are emotionally and energetically destabilizing, rendering most victims incapable of making independent decisions or identifying with their individual identity outside of the relationship, thus forcing them into co-dependence for their survival in an effort to regain their sense of equilibrium within the relationship.
This can be particularly dangerous, as trauma bonds are known to strip away the self-defining attributes of victims, especially their self preservation, whereby they gradually adopt those given to them by the abuser which usually serve the abuser at the sacrifice of their own.
Further, some victims, in an effort to survive, might even develop affirmative feelings and regard for their abusers, developing a cognitive dissonance of sorts whereby the dysfunctional, inconsistent or volatile actions of the abuser somehow signifies affirmative care or love and affection, effectively thwarting the victims survival inclinations to leave the relationship as they normalize abnormal behavior.
LACK OF SELF-ESTEEM
When we love ourselves and have affirmative self-reflections, we typically shun relationships that prove harmful, while gravitating toward those relationships that are supportive, loving and mutually beneficial, in that all within the relationship are getting their needs met.
As such, feeling unworthy of the best there is to be had in healthy relationships, such as mutual respect, trust, honesty and interdependence, can prevent most survivors from seeking healthy relationship dynamics for themselves or from leaving unhealthy ones.
Further, when victims are socialized into dysfunction by unhealthy familial groups and socializations, or other such defunct social matrices, they mightn’t even realize the depth of dysfunction they may be entangled in, making it far less likely that they might leave.
DYSFUNCTIONAL BELIEF SYSTEMS
We each of us have leanings toward individual self expression by nature, where we tend to live out our deeply held subconscious beliefs within our interactions with others, and most importantly, in who we choose as our social circle of close friends and intimate partner relationships.
Likewise, many victims of violence have been imbued with the faulty belief system that dysfunctional or abusive relationships are somehow healthy, or that slapping, hitting, gestures of economic violence, and other such abusive conduct is acceptable behavior.
So many women stay enmeshed in violent relationships because they don’t believe themselves worthy of good ones or because they don’t see anything wrong with misogynistic or unhealthy male attributes that contribute to an unequal balance of power within the relationship.
Some even have the pressing beliefs that they are inherently inferior or that inhumane or sexist behavior in a relationship is normal. IT ISN’T – In no way shape, form, or fashion.
SABOTAGE – TRIANGULATIONS – AND ABUSIVE MATRICES
Since most abusive and otherwise exploitative people view others, epically their targets, as a means of narcissistic supply and have no respect or value for their well-being outside of what they can get from them, they tend to do all sorts of malevolent things to sabotage and force co-dependence within the relationship as it helps them procure their narcissistic supply.
This includes using triangulation to divide victims from their groups of family and friends, to removing them from healthy supports or anyone who can prove witness to the abusive circumstances and behaviors the victim is incurring.
Isolation, triangulation and sabotage are the abuser’s trifecta of tools in their arsenal for diffusing and subverting the independent survival efforts of their targets, giving them far better aim to force victims into submission, while effectively thwarting any chance that they'll leave the relationship.
RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL BELIEFS
In some religious circles, it might be deemed unfavorable or even provoke dire consequences from fellow religious group members when victims try to leave their abusers.
Likewise, in some cultures, it is even common practice to use violence as a means of subjugating women in an effort to gain compliance from them, making it not only difficult, but dangerous for such women to leave their abusers.
SHAME
For some survivors, the shame involved in disclosing that someone is or has hurt us, or that we might be trapped within a harmful relationship dynamic might prevent some victims from seeking to disentangle themselves from their abuser by asking for the help they might need to break free.
So many domestic violence incidences go unreported each year, as victims try to cope with the violence they are facing in secret, resulting from feelings of shame - with some being killed by their abusers because they fail to get help for themselves.
The worst thing a victim of violence can do is try to hide abusive circumstances. It serves not only to protect predators and predatory behavior by preventing the natural course of justice from being carried out, but it likewise serves to disempower the victim by keeping them trapped in harmful circumstances.
We must learn to speak up, speak out and show up for ourselves in ways that allow for us to free ourselves from those things and people and circumstances that hurt us and threaten our sense of wellness in the world.
No one deserves to live in the world a slave to abusive people and circumstances.
Our relationships should bring out the very best of who we are, so we may interact with our world and those in it, from a place of wholeness and wellness.