Why would a woman remain in an abusive relationship??

I am not sure what the reasons are that most women stay in abusive relationships but I myself was married to an abuser for 8 years. He abused me mentally and physically. We had a child together which made my situation worse. I myself was afraid to leave. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to make it on my own because even though we both worked, he made more money than I and took care of most of the bills and everything else. Plus it didn't help that he said things to me that made me think for a long time that I wouldn't make it without him and that no one else would want me. I was at a stage in which I was to afraid to leave know matter what. I think that fear and belittling is the main reason most women stay. What forced me to leave was when he became physical with our daughter over the stupidest thing. That was when I made up my mind that enough was enough and I took the day off from work, went to the courthouse and filed for temporary custody and a protection order. Both were granted and I had a large group of people scheduled to be at our house that evening to get me out of there. We lived with my parents for about a year before getting our own place. I must say that even once I left I fealt bad and fealt sorry for him. At first that is, but now it has been more than 6 years since I gained that courage and now I am standing my ground against him. I can't say if or when your cousin will finally wake up and realize that that is not how she is meant to live, but hopefully she will realize it soon so that nothing worse than just a beating happens to her. My prayers are with her and I hope that she does what she needs to to get her abuser out of her life for good. Believe me, she can do better than that even though he probably beats her down and tells her that she can't.

Love is blind, do you know that... nothing can stop this two until each one of them realized on their own. For my experience, I used to be abused both physically and verbally but I still what the same guy until now. However, for all these year, I learned something that is very valuable. My husband used to push me, called me names and did all kinds of stuff to make him felt better; just to win and he didn't even care who I am, or how I felt. I still wanted to stay with him, and I swear to god to change him before I walk away. And I did, some part... not the whole thing tho. One thing that I made him calm down and accepts me as his wife, feel what I felt... I talked to my old friend, that used to love me before to work along with me... he agreed and my husband knew about it. He was going crazy... and he scared to loose me to someone else. He did just about anything to get me back, then I know he still loves me but he just can't take someone to involve to his life too early. So now, I work with him day by day and very patiently... thing is getting better. I release from this depression now... but just sometime I just want get him away from me... you cousin might be in love with him so bad and hope he will change for her someday. sometime, it can be so nice to with him but it is just one small thing that can't take it away. and it might take a lot of time to do it... so give her sometimes and if you can talk to her... please do so, she needs your support now.

It's very sad topic but very important to talk about. Before i just knew family voilence happening in remote and poor area,but one day a TV program said in the UK there are over 10000 women in abusive relationship. I was really shocked with the fact. I think women in the world are still in disadvange position. Some wome can leave the abusive relationship because their weak situation in the world. They maybe have no ability to survive in the world without the income from their partners;for the sake of children they have to stay; some women accept the marriage due to tradional customs. to them divorce might be worse, they can not stand the social pressure; some women are easily cheated. they are naive with men's promise,etc. by the way have you heard the news about the American girl who was in kidnapping for 18 years? Same as the girl some women have a mental problem to keep their abusive relationship. we should feel lucky we are in a love relationship. for this point i think i should more cherish my husband who's a very tender gentleman.

It depends on a countries culture and marriage values also, for example in India especially in South India when a girl gets married no matter how stingy, mean, or violent etc, the guy maybe she has to live with him. But its all changed now only few girls are like that the rest of them dont like to be bullied. In my opinion no matter how bad the wife is a guy cannot hit her, but he should try to change her if something is wrong in her in a different but a nice way.

I used to work with battered women, I am an attorney. REasons? Low self-esteem, which is reinforced by the batterer - she thinks this is all she can get. She saw this growing up, and think all men hit all women. Lack of money. Even a batterer most likely makes more income than the woman, statistically. She is scared - he tells her he'll kill her if she leaves. Any one remember O.J. Simpson?

is it love or fear of being alone? might be feeling of insecurities? might also be loss of self-confidence and self-worth? i would personally want to regain my pride and self-worth by leaving him and let him realize that he can be dumped too. i wouldn't want anybody to beat me up ... is this how a woman u love should be treated? well, we may say thousands of things here, so easy to do that because we are not the ones in the situation. we don't know the real reasons and the real things involving the couple. we can only hope they realize things, more particularly on the boyfriend. i will pray for both of them.

Yikes, that's bad but it's not that easy to leave an abusive relationship. It's even harder to leave when you were raised by an abusive parent because as you get older, it's the norm, even if you hate it, to be abused. Plus after awhile, you think you do deserve it, you really are worthless and you don't deserve anything good so you should be beaten. Then that's all just a horrible cycle in your brain and you're totally messed up mentally and emotionally as well as physcially and its really super hard to be able to take that step and leave the relationship. I've been there and its easy for people to say to you "why don't they leave" but unless you've lived it, it just isn't as easy as it sounds to leave. I'm not saying that's exactly what it is like for your cousin of course because I don't know her but that's what it was like for me. And yes, I did eventually get the courage to leave but, it was hard and took me a long time and years of counseling. So I hope you'll be understanding and compassionate for your cousin because she's in a bad place mentally. There is usually an Alliance Against Family Violence in most cities, perhaps there is one where your cousin is?

It is a bafffling behaviour indeed. I have somehow come to the conclusion that a woman will only get past that behaviour when they really want to. No matter how much help these women get they go right back to these men or even find a substitute for them to continue the abusiveness. I think it has a whole lot to do with some self esteem problem. Its frustrating to deal with persons who do not learn to love and appreciate themselves. They are always running behind others and stooping to their every demands just so they can feel loved and accepted. I just think it has a lot to do with how much these women love, respect and appreciate themselves.

She believes she loves him. She believes she can change him. Her self esteem is so low that she doesn't think she can do better. She's afraid it will be worse if she leaves. Could be any number of things. If that happened to me even once I'd be SO outta there!

The main reason of course, she love the guy. And there are soooo many succeeding reasons. Maybe because she is afraid t leave the relationship because she is thinking that she can't go on with her life without the guy. And if she leaves, maybe nobody will love her. Or maybe she is hoping that the guy will change his attitude. But the thing is once you know that you are in a hurting relationship you should get out of it as soon as possible. Because the longer you stay the harder it is for you to leave. We girls should retain our dignity. We should love ourselves more and give importance to our life that is given to us by God. We are precious so don't let anybody hurt us just like that. If a guy don't love us anymore then i guess no matter how hard it is, we should leave and move on. Anyways, there is always tomorrow that awaits us. And I am sure there are a lot of wonderful things waiting for us. We just have to pray and to trust God. We should let God handle our lives so we would have peace of mind and a peaceful heart as well. Happy my lotting to you! Hope that your cousin will soon realize that it's not worth it.

she's afraid

I'm really sorry to hear about your cousins situation. Actually she's not alone there's millions of other women who are trapped in an abusive relationship. I think your cousin really need to seek a psychiatrist, she needs a counseling and advice. Because I think she's in the stage of losing her confidence, and much battling emotions. Being abused both physically and mentally is a serious matter that should be taken in action. For me people who are trapped in that kind of relationship are not aware that they're really being abused. Unless you're cousin's aware of her situation and convinced that she's an abusive relationship then, that's the time the she can move on, and can avoid ending up with the same kind of relationship. Your cousin need people who's willing to help and assist her on her needs, especially on emotional and moral needs. There's so many factors involved on why many women seem to prefer having an abusive relationship.

I'm so sorry to hear about your cousin, I have been in a similar situation to you, in that I have had to watch someone who was not willing - or perhaps able, emotionally or psychologically, to leave. She was one of my group of close friends, and we had all watched it happening, and watched her change from being a confident, assertive person to being completely controlled by him - we would try to talk to her but she gradually cut herself off more and more from us, because I suppose she knew on some level we were right, but at the same time thought we couldn't understand. We went to her wedding, we considered not but didn't want to hurt her even more by having no friends there - we considered telling her Dad but though that he would go right round, blow up at her boyfriend and she would cut herself off from the family too.So we watched and waited and just knew we had to be there if needed. I sang at the wedding, and we were all crying, and everyone thought if was happy wedding tears, but we were crying because we didn't want her to marry him. I don't know why people stay - I do believe if my husband beat me I would leave, and I would go back to my home in England. But I do understand from what I saw that it is a slow process - she changed so much and by the time we talked to her she would sound like the classic victim, thinking it was her fault, hehad gradually chipped away at her self respect. I hope things get better for your cousin, and she gets away.

It depends on the woman. Sometimes it could be financial. Maybe she thinks she can change him. Maybe thats what kind of man her father was... There are a lot of reasons why.. But you should STILL BE HER FRIEND. Regardless of her choice in men you should be there for her, I know this sounds crazy but she DOES need support and probably a good psychiatrist.

As a man. I don't like those abusive things implicated to a women. I don't agree with those man abusing a woman. They are fool and do not have love in their self. There are countries that woman has a limited access to human right. They are not treat well by the government because they believe woman is a slave for flesh. But they are wrong. Woman is equal to man as they created as human that if they are getting married they are one body through the sanctification of their marriage. I don't know why those people tolerating the violence against woman. In a democratic country where equal protection of the law is upheld that cases is rare and if found those violence against woman those man doing it will face charges against woman or against person. There are also cases that woman itself. Allowing their partners to inflict such violent by not report it to the authorities to punish their boyfriend or partners because there reason is that they love that guy. That is why the authorities not doing things to help the victims because they respect the right to privacy of those people involve in the particular cases. I do hope that I can you some details about your discussion and make some points in what you particularly describe in this articles...have a nice day!

This is a cases of a battered girlfriend/wife syndrome, in which a woman involves in a relationship likely to misuse the concept of love as a way to be patience and becoming martyr, when she fall in love with the wrong guy. Even if the partner becomes abusive, she tolerates it for the promise of love. Whenever they engage in arguments just like what happen to your cousin she even forgives her boyfriend and even have a tendency to admit that she is the one to blame to whatever her boyfriend jealousy of rage over the situation. Your cousin tolerates her boyfriend behavior and I think she already get used to it tracing from her past abusive relationship. She seems to tolerate it as she likely want to save this relationship and hoping it not to end up as a failures. But, she need to awaken from this delusional feelings before it's too late and it destroy her dignity and respect for herself..

Abusive behaviour is not only physcally, but also mentally..Can you imagine if your partner is having affair and he/she does it in front of you?it happens to my friend..a few months after they got married, she found out that her hubby still has relationship with his ex and they kissed in front of her!then she left her husband, and thank GOD she found a job as a dentist in a government hospital..she has decided to choose divorce..they haven`t god a kid. sometimes, women remain in an unhealhty relationship because they still maintain traditional values, so they keep silent whatever happens to them.But, nowadays women are more independent so they can decide what to do next if they`re trapped in abusive relationship.women in this era are now more aware of their rights..

To begin with it may be the attraction of the bad boy, the one that you are going to turn around and make right... But this never happens! After a while in this type of relationship some women think that this is all they deserve, they can't see that it is wrong. They think they have done something to deserve it... and in some way they can't see that the violence is wrong. They don't always see the violence. My betting is she feels that she did the wrong thing by going with the brother - it is all HER fault, and she deserved being beaten up! When someone is like this it is very hard to make them see sense - I would suggest some professional help for her! Good luck and stay strong :o)

I think alot of it comes with self-worth. Sometimes,they have been so verbally abused, they actually think that no one else will want them. When I was in a abusive relationship, I went to counselling. She said that I had to break the pattern that I made for myself. It read "Victim here." No one sees this sign except abusers. Perhaps you should talk her into some kind of counselling. In the end, if she goes she'll be able to identify the jerks that are like that.