Why would a woman stay in a relationship with a guy who puts her down, hems her in, and perhaps even physically abuses her? Why would a woman hold down two jobs to keep the rent paid and food on the table while her boyfriend sits around smoking weed all day? Why oh why would a woman allow herself to be emotionally blackmailed by her boyfriend’s threats that he will kill himself or her or both if she even talks about leaving a relationship that is going nowhere?
There’s no easy answer. Often it’s a complicated mix of a number of answers. If you wonder why on earth you stay with the guy who keeps hurting you in spite of promises to do better, in spite of protestations that he loves you, in spite of your obvious distress about how things are going, see if you recognize yourself in any of these common reasons.
1. Because being someone’s everything is intoxicating stuff — at least at first.
When you met, he only had eyes for you. He called to say good morning. He called to say “I love you” at lunch. He wanted to be the last voice you heard before you went to sleep. When you left work or your last class for the day, there he was – waiting for you. If another guy even looked at you, he put his arm protectively around you. If a guy friend called you up, he pouted. He wanted all your attention. In exchange, he gave you attention as no one ever had before. He wined you and dined you (or at least took you out for pizza and a beer several times a week) and made you feel like a princess. Sounds like any romantic beginning, doesn’t it?
If your guy is so insecure that he needs control, his attention gradually became claustrophobic. Over time, his demands for all your attention all the time hemmed you in. You found yourself frantically explaining your every move that didn’t involve him. Staying a bit late for work, a girls’ night out, even a visit to your mother on a Saturday morning became grounds for a fight. What started out as wonderful attention became not so wonderful control.
2. Because these guys can be absolutely charming.
You didn’t fall in love with your boyfriend for no good reason. He can be charming. He can be romantic. He can say the things that every woman would like to hear. Sometimes he lets you see a sweet vulnerability that melts your heart. He seems to feel genuinely terrible after the two of you have had a big fight. He brings apologies and flowers. He promises he’ll be less jealous. He says you really are his everything. Lovemaking at times like these is delicious. He says all the right things to make you want to give him another chance. Things are wonderful for awhile. But then it starts all over again. You come home a little late and his eyes look stormy. You make a phone call and he has to know just who you’re talking to. Pretty soon, you’re feeling hemmed in again and you know that there’s going to be another blow-out…
3. Because you don’t feel you deserve any better.
Maybe you grew up in a family where you were told that you were no good, ugly, clumsy, or incompetent. Maybe your father or mother even told you “No one will ever love you.” Perhaps you were an ugly duckling in high school who never had a date or you were never accepted by the people you wished were your friends. Maybe you’ve had a series of disastrous relationships or no relationships at all. Your self-esteem is in the cellar. Even though a part of you knows that your family should have treated you better; even though you understand that high school is harsh for a lot of people, there’s an even bigger part of you that feels that maybe all the people who rejected you were right – you really are a loser. You’ve become convinced you should be grateful for any smidgen of caring your boyfriend provides – even if it is painful.
Continue reading more reasons why women stay in painful relationships…
33 comments
9. Because the woman believes that her children need a father more than she needs to be free of the relationship.
In my experience I have seen the same issues concerning men in unhealthy relationships. I think that this kind of polarizing article makes those men, however few you believe there are, feel ashamed because this is seen as a female issue only. Being a victim is a state of mind and has no concern of the sex that the person might be.
Women think that this will not happen to them, but it will if you don’t understand the situation very quickly.
For years I have equated this syndrome/controller with the men who kill their wife or girl friends & and in some cases to the Stalker situation.
It is dangerous; it ruins the lives of women and families. Usually people don’t want to be involved- the woman is on her own- even when it comes to the police.
These situations can be bizarre, sometimes, in the stalker scenario a woman is not able to even identify the person who is trying to control her life- then the chance she will be believed is very small. She is in danger and she stands alone.
it is a situation that happens every day and it is so scary. hard to stop once it starts.
This is a good list; thanks for posting it!
The list is incomplete. The unmentioned reason is because women are attracted to bad boys, abusive jerks and dimwitted buffoons. Try to be nice to them and they blow you off. Nice guys finish last; it’s the jerk that gets the girl.
Excellent, absolutely right, but it might also be useful to look at less admirable reasons women stay with monsters: they may be using them for money, status, power and they may be weakness, cowardly, in the face of social presure (this pressure to stay together varies depending on where you are, in some culture it is almost overwhelming, maybe you should leave that culture too!).
In addition to seeing oneself as a victim, it may be healthy and liberating to face up to the fact that you may be suffering because you too are at least a bit of a jerk, not 100% angelic victim.
Complete black and white is rare.
Women over 50 have to tolerate a lot of misbehavior because statistically, there are about 2X as many single women 50+ out there than single men 50+ who are remotely attractive. I think the “eligible” 50+ men know this so they don’t have to try to stay in a relionship. They just have to be. It’s very unfair.
As a man who was in an abusive relationship, I agree with what Ken said, this is not just an issue with women. I am a fairly macho guy who has traveled the world, met with famous people, jumped out of planes and drank cobra venom… I didn’t want to fail and became a fool kicking a dead horse. She refused to go to a counselor for years, and when she finally did go, the counter came to me and said “sometimes we just have to let things go…” I kept our marriage going for a good three years trying to force it to work, always thinking that it would “get better,” that she would “come around.” Two of her affairs later, I was backed into calling a lawyer. Mind you, I am the other half of the problem, and I am not saying that I got off squeaky clean. It always takes two, but I stayed with her because I did not want to quit and because I loved her. Artie is right that there is no real black and white.
As cliche as it may sound it also has to do with cultural or traditional beliefs.
Having spent a number of years in an abusive relationship, I spent most of those years ill with reoccurant mono and polycystic ovary syndrome. I wound up spending a lot of money on doctors and trying to stay alive. I wound up losing my job which allowed me to finally get the rest I needed to heal. While I was healing, I started working on my bachelor’s and then used the financial aid to leave. It’s not easy and right now I’ll still dealing with health issues again but I’m out.
I think that women get in these abusive relationships because it is easy to confused belligerence and agression with emotional strength.
Also, a lot of women come from difficult family circumstances so if they did come across a “nice” guy, they know that the “nice” guy wouldn’t really understand their situation. The nice guy would look down on them because the nice guy lucked out on the gene pool. Also guys that act like they are nice really are not nice. They tend to be snobs and believe that they are better than a lot of people.
Sorry for being late, but I have just received this newsletter. I don’t know why so late. Anyway, I can’t help commenting on the issue raised here.
I would have been ashamed of writing such an article. This is perfect but for a feminist site. And the authoress (on top of that) an ED.D. holder should have in mind that this site is not feminist or was she drunk or confused thinking that she was writing for her feminist colleagues?
Putting things in a nutshell, the woman is an angel, a poor thing and the man is a bloody f- disgrace.
Only a good man, who is an exception, should wait on her hand and foot, be always at her beck and call and make love to her only whenever she wants. For Marie Hartwell Walker, ED.D this must be a perfect relationship. Marie, you can shout till you are blue in the face…
Obviously, I do not negate what THE scientist in education writes, but this is true in MARGINAL SITUATIONS only (perhaps 5% of all couples??). And therefore it is ludicrous and offensive to most men. She MUST NOT generalize like that.
Her best sentence: “Love isn’t ALWAYS rational, it’s true†(my emphasis).
Oh dear, I have learnt something… As I see it, love is NEVER rational. If you have ever been in rational love, you have never been in love at all, my dear.
By the way, are you a family therapist? If so, you had better change your occupation.
I strongly protest and demand that she should be stopped from writing for this site.
Richard Kurylski, PhD
Madrid, Spain
I am surprised that financial needs was not listed. So many women are dependent upon the income of the man to support them and their children. I wonder how many would leave if they could actually support themselves in the lifestyle they are use to? My mother stayed with my father because he was an excellent provider. There was no way she could give us children what we had if she had left him, so she stayed. Once we grew up, she got out of there-quick! Funny thing was he continued to support her and she allowed him to “come and visit” whenever he wanted.
My abuser was sly. I couldn’t go anywhere because if he came by & I was gone, he would miss me. He “loved me too much”. I couldn’t use the phone because if he called & got the busy signal, he would miss me. He “loved me too much”. He took me shopping & bought me clothes so I would look nice when we went out. That appears to be a really caring person. The reality of what he was doing was he didn’t allow me to go anywhere – he didn’t allow me to use the phone – he decided what I could wear. Even if I hadn’t done anything to send him to a rampage, he would invent something. Just to keep the fighting side of him open. I wasn’t allowed to shut the bathroom door. He would charge down the hallway & bang the door open & yell”What are you doin’ in there” I had to announce to him that I would be doing laundry downstairs. His response- – “You hurry up! I need to know what you are doing!” It had been so bad during those days that I always had to wear long sleeves & long skirts to hide the bruises. The first time he hit me was because I wanted to watch tv when he wasn’t there. “If you have the tv on someone will drive by & stop in to see you!! I won’t have it!!” I got a split lip & a black eye for that one. That was the first of many, too many beatings. I’m not there any more. Thank you for a place to vent.
I have been with same guy 22 years, married 19 and lived together 3 before marriage. We have 2 daughters ages 17 and 18 in high school, a junior and senior respectively that have witnessed this toxic relationship decline over the last 10 years. I have such mixed feeelings why I have remained so long with someone who really does not want to be with me. He is my second husband and I am his first wife. I am ready to go forward and do what is best for me and my girls only my bark is worse than my bite. I am looking for the strength to do what I know I should do. I need emotional support and guidance. I have fear of the unknown.
I had been in a very emotionally,psychologically abusive relationship for 24 yrs.These can hurt worse than being hit (as no one can see how hurt you are on a daily basis- as I had to keep on a good face for the world.)It gives me hope that there are men out there who have also been in these kinds of relationships and would understand how hard it is to leave such a situation. But when someone has been the one who works only part time jobs to raise the kids and be at everyone’s beck and call you are made to feel low because you aren’t the one earning the bigger paycheck.This has been my situation and other women will say “you could have worked full time and gotten out- others have”. Easy for them to say- when they are not the ones who are manipulated and made to fail every time you try to go back to school, or get that better job.I tried to leave him 3x. He finally left when I contacted his “friend”.
I have the best one i think – i have been married for 23 going on 24 years – my husbands and i have a good relationship in general, but his mother takes priority and his friends do. I have compromised how i feel and we do fine, we have nasty blow up arguments when i demand to be put first. We have tow children who he provides for very well – but i work also and pay my share of the bills that i can. I won my own business and with the economy etc. things are slow but bills are there but they are my bills. Our culture beleives that you take care of your elders which is fine but what about your wife!!! I feel i am the only person in his life who can be replaced. He takes me for granted – i am getting bitter. I was 22 when we married it was arranged – he had wnated to marry someone else that he dated but it didn’t quite work out. So we had an arranged married he is the only man i ever loved. I put a brave face on my hurt of finding pictures of him and his ex lover in his college books under his bed etc. He told me how wonderful she was etc. I was a stupid naive little girl who had never been to a different city now i was married in a different country away from family. So i did my best to be the best wife – i was a great cook, worked hard, have a strong personality and dreamed big. We had two children but behind me i have 23 years of waiting for him to come home from hanging with his buddies, waiting for a evening out with him. Waiting for his mother to go stay with her other kids – (which she has four within a 30 mile radius from us) so i can have a break. I am 45 tired of being told how to do everything by him and his mom. I am tired of waiting to be told that i am number one. We argue over money because he say’s i don’t pay attention to the financials – he’s right i don’t but i am burned out of waiting for him to pay attention to me. He does – after a big fight or if he is planning a trip with his buddies – the the smooching begins but i amsick of that. I don’t want to leave him – i love him but i can’t live like this any more either. So does that make me sick or an idiot or what. I am an inteligent woman (well lets not talk about my spelling) but i don’t know how to fix this. Any help out there????
how do we start over, I am finacially responsible and pay all the bills. I am drowning emotionally and really need help. I spend so much time helping others and giving advice and care as a nurse of 25 years and yet I do not know where to begin but know it is time and I am ready to move on.
No one can keep you under lock and key except yourself,unless there is non imaginary ones bound around your ankle refraining you from fleeing from them. Most of these people are afraid of never being able to find some one better than the ones they already got waiting at home. The sheer thought of being alone with no one to love and welcome them home is a terrible thought. Their better off with what they know than what could be potentially worse to come. Their track record has’nt been so great why chance it! For myself, I would be better off living alone than left alone with any of those people welcoming me home! I will never understand why people need someone else to define who they are and how they let the other person tell them who they should come to be. Most were doing well before them and do so after they make up their mind leave. Being alone is better than staying where you clearly DO NOT BELONG!
PAULAPOLLA
I know what you meen in alot of the same ways, but I believe you hold on in hopes he will one day change but unless some devine divinity interacts in his life I’m sad to say it will most likely forever to remain the same! If you would like to email someone who knows and deals with it every day and maybe we can talk our anger out with each other instead of hurting any of these innocent bystanders! And you wind up in the not so good psycial side of this topic! [email protected]
Many of us female and also some males go through emotional abuse. At 34 yrs. of marriage I have filed for divorce. During our 28th yr. of marriage we had problems and went through marriage counseling. It helped w/communication for a while but within two yrs. back where we started.
I also, have not been where a wife should be: next after God. Became disabled in 2002 and I feel over time my husband no longer respects me. I feel it’s because I no longer work. I do draw a monthly disability check but it’s not the same. I am placed after 2 grown daughters and 6 grandchildren.
It has taken a lot of courage for me to do this but for the past 4 yrs. I have felt less and less of a person and am depressed. At times I feel like dropping the divorce and just staying and continuing on but I know he will respect me even less if I do. That is the easy road the hard road is the one I finally decided I had to take. It hurts to think that you think once the kids are grown it will be time for “us.” No not for us and I know it won’t change.
It took a lot to take the step to talk to an atty and then finally decide to file. Once you file for divorce you really see the true person you married. Can’t turn back he would really treat me poorly and I would curl up on the couch in the fetal postion and just live as a robot.
My prayer are with each of you no matter what your situation is.
9. They lack the skills/education and emotional maturity to support themselves.
I meet who i thought was the love of my life at 17 who turned out to be the jerk of my life. I got pregnate at 18 and had a beautiful daughter. Now we have three kids and been divorced 2yrs.
I stayed in the marraige for 10yrs i was very happy the first 3yrs and then as i grew up and could see things for whay they really were i knew i had a serious problem.
I left him several times and always went back because i didnt think i could do it on my own i had never been with a different man or by myself and i didnt want my children to be without a father. So for these reason i stayedand tried and the more i did the more misserable i became and so did my children.
I always thought i could of done something better maybe hurried a little faster or done a little more. But as the thought came threw my thoughts i figured out hey it aint me nomatter what i do he will always cuse me andhit me. That’s when i decided enough was enough.
I left him and started over from scratch. I have a good life though not perfect it is finally my own. I’m in school to be a nurse and im in a wonderful relationship that both of us share andf are very equal in.
So for this reason i call myself happily divorced and happilly engaged to a new life and man
I have been involved with this one guy for about 2 and 1/2 years or so, and of course it started out soooooooooo great. He would take me out to great places for dinner, etc. But that didn’t last too long, as he became comfortable and felt he didn’t need to impress me anymore. Then, he completely changed. He wouldn’t want me to stay the night with him, and whenever he would call me it would be for his “satisfaction”. Moreover in the time that we were seeing each other, he never wanted to claim me as his girlfriend and/or wanted me to call him my boyfriend.
I finally grew some strength to stand up for myself and I finally informed him that I no longer wanted to remain in a relationship when it didn’t seem like it was going anywhere.. After telling him this (about 7 or 8 months ago) he has completely changed his attitude. Now he has been trying to get in touch with me, wants to see me, and really wants to make things work out between us.
In the past 5 months, I actually met another guy who is completely different. And, the new guy has been treating me soooooooooooo much better!! I know that I need to focus on the new guy. But for some very strange and disturbing reason, I can never build up the strength to tell the old guy that I found someone who treats me sooooo much better and to leave me alone, goodbye!!
I don’t understand why? What should I do???
It was the biggest shame of my entire life to call my Mother and tell her that my marriage of 23 years to my husband was over. He had asked for the divorce, after having found a female half his age to shack up with. Me, he had left with no money, no food, no support, no children, forbidding me contact with any one for 4 years. Why, did I stay?
He isolated me over the years, separating me from my family, never allowing me friends, etc. Made me dependent upon him by dumping me where I couldn’t get any help.
After he told me he wanted a divorce, I walked as far as I could, starved, unkept, no money to a neighbor’s house and asked to use the phone to call my Mother. My family came to my rescue. But the shame, depression, loss, scars remain. Don’t know if I will ever marry again, or trust a man again.
When you teach your daughter to “stand by her man,” make very sure she understands what that means, and when to get help.
When asked, I reply that the wrong men married me. I had three abusive marriages, and my battle cry now is “I would rather be lonely on my own terms than miserable on someone else’s.” At 19 I married a man almost twice my age. Two days after my 20th birthday I had my daughter who was the apple of her father’s eye, and is now my pride and joy with marriage problems of her own. Although he was away from home a great deal, her father would call me every day and go crazy if he couldn’t reach me. After 12 years I divorced him, and fell into marriage with a former Flying Tiger, alcoholic, adventurer who got pleasure out of slapping me around and then doing the flower routine and begging my forgiveness. I had a son by him and, after two years got a divorce. On a business trip to Polynesia I met a man who was going around the world on business. Impressed, I married him six months later when he moved to the States. Unable to get a job, he tried suicide. I sent him back to England, divorced him and began psychotherapy. Unfortunately, I came away feeling that I had made him live in my world, and I should go to his. With my son (my daughter was going to college) I moved to England, remarried him and began another horror story which ended in returning to America, supporting all of us, finding out that he was stealing from the travel agency I’d opened (where he was employed) and watching him drive away when I went into bankruptcy as he’d “fiddled” the books. I found later on that he had been molesting my son for years. I’ve accepted the fact that I must never marry again because I still haven’t learned…
This article was helpful, 8 Reasons Women Stay in Painful Relationships
Why not examine the other side of this issue which is even more shocking?
Men have an even harder time leaving an abusive female partner when they have kids together. He will most likely be stripped of the kids and his children WILL most often be left with the abusive mother if he chooses to leave the abusive woman since the common “wisdom” today has become that “men are more abusive than women.” Nothing could be further from the truth, and more thoroughly documented. Fathers are proven in the vast majority of studies to be 3 things:
1- Least abusive family member.
2- Most protective family member.
3- Most stabilizing family member for children’s sake.
Wrongfully bashing men and fathers is bad for the whole family and society, esp for kids.
Research and statistics state that men are overwhelming the abusers within domestic violence/family violence situations.
This is not to say that abused men should not be acknowledged. There are absolutely some abusive violent women out there. But again the research indicates that overwhelmingly it is the males that are abusive.
One more point is the fear factor. Given the physiology of males and females it is almost impossible for a male to physically fear a female. This is a huge difference when it comes to measuring the affect abusive practices have on partners.
What we also know is that abusive behaviours stereotypically assigned to women are also dominated by men. Things like biting, slapping, kicking, using weapons and emotionally withdrawing are all male dominated behaviours.
A good way to sum this up is to say that women, when it comes to family and domestic abuse are chronic underachievers!
I would like to add to what Chuck said above that 43% of stalkers are women, and 57% are men. Hence, with regard to this particular type of abuse, stalking behaviors are shared almost equally among men and women.
On a related note, I recently dated a forty-eight year old woman (I am of similar age) who is in the process of divorce for almost a year. During that time, I learned that she was highly paranoid (believing that she/we were followed frequently when this was not the case, believing that her house was broken into many times when that was not true, etc.).
When I attempted to end the relationship, she would continue to call me many times each day. She also broke into my house three times through various windows when I wasn’t home, and also accused me of stealing things from her house when this was not true as well.
I’ve recently become absolutely committed to ending the relationship via obtaining a restraining order, and becoming much more militant about keeping her away from me. My primary point here is that men are abused by women much more than the popular press would like us to believe.
Because women are needy for a man, hate being single and alone, and some are very insecure and immature.
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