Happy Monday everyone!
A few weeks ago, I laid out the different types of domestic violence. After learning all the various forms of abuse people endure on a regular basis, many people’s first thought is, “Why don’t they just leave?”
It seems completely unfathomable that someone would choose to stay in a relationship with someone who is mentally or physically violent toward them.
To the victim, however, staying makes the most sense.
Here are 7 of the most common reasons a domestic violence victim doesn’t leave their abuser.
1. They’ve been cut off from their support system
One of the main things an abuser will do is cut their victim off from their support system. They will isolate them so that they have no one to reach out to for help or so no one will try to intervene with their attempts to maintain control over the victim.
The abuser will isolate the victim in several ways. They will sometimes threaten the victims friends and family if they continue to stay in contact with them. Other times they will gaslight the victim into believing that their family and friends don’t actually want what’s best for them. They will tell the victim that their friends and family just don’t like them or their relationship and that their friends and family don’t actually love them. Sometimes they will even move their victim to a new city, far away from their friends and family and then keep them from going anywhere where they can make new friends in the new town.
2. They’re financially dependent on their abuser
A lot of domestic violence victims don’t have access to money. Even if they have a job (some abusers don’t allow their victims to work or only allow them to work jobs that pay very little so they don’t make enough on their own), their abuser often requires them to hand over their paycheck and doesn’t let them have any access to the bank accounts. It’s common for an abuser to give an “allowance” to their victim, which tends to barely be enough to cover the necessities like gas and groceries. This makes it very difficult for victims to save up any money to be able to afford living on their own and paying things like a security deposit on an apartment.
Some victims are financially dependent on their abuser because their abuser pays for their children’s school or healthcare needs. If they were to take the children and leave, their abuser would stop paying these things and the victim wouldn’t be able to take over that financial burden.
3. They’re dependent on their abuser in other ways
It’s common for alcohol and drug addiction to go hand-in-hand with domestic violence. Sometimes victims use drugs and/or alcohol to cope with the abuse. Other times, abusers will actually force the victims to use drugs and/or alcohol as a means of control. They get their victim addicted or dependent on these substances and the steady supply from their abuser keeps them from leaving. Their addiction causes them to stay and endure the constant abuse rather than leave and risk not being able to continue to find drugs or alcohol elsewhere.
Some victims also depend on their abuser for transportation. They can’t rely on public transportation to get to and from work, so they have to use a vehicle provided by their abuser. One of the women who stayed at the shelter I worked at came to the shelter and left about a dozen times before she decided to leave her abuser for good. The reason she kept going back to him is that she was using his car. She needed the car to get to work. She was worried that he would drive around town until he found the car and then he would know where she was or that he would file a report with the police that she stole the car. So, she kept going back. He was able to keep her from leaving because she depended on his vehicle.
4. They won’t leave their pet behind
Not wanting to leave behind their pet is one of the most common reasons for staying I heard when I worked at a domestic violence shelter. Pets are one of the biggest sources of comfort for domestic violence victims and oftentimes abusers will threaten to harm or kill the pet if the victim leaves. Even if they wanted to leave their abuser, most shelters won’t let them bring their pet with them unless it is a service animal. This is due to liability concerns and restrictions from funding sources the domestic violence shelter depends on to continue to provide services
Some shelters have a program specifically meant to help alleviate this burden for victims. Sometimes shelters are able to partner with community members that are willing to foster animals for people in need of the shelter’s services. This is a good start, but still requires the victim to “give up” their animal, a.k.a. a large aspect of their comfort, even if temporarily.
Even if they aren’t using services at a shelter, many apartments have restrictions on pets and those that allow pets require a pet deposit and typically charge extra per month in addition to rent. This adds to the financial burden placed on victims I already discussed.
5. They feel unworthy of love from anyone else
An abuser constantly talks down to their victim, making them feel like they aren’t deserving of love. The abuser will tell them that they should feel lucky they love them and that they won’t find anyone else to love them if they leave.
It’s also common for victims to feel as though they are so broken and would appear as if they have so much baggage that they won’t be able to be loved by anyone. So they stay with the one person who says they love them, even if that person abuses them.
6. They don’t realize they’re experiencing abuse
This is common among victims, especially those who experience psychological abuse. Even though people outside of the relationship may see the abuse or the red flags, abuse can be so difficult to recognize for the victim.
Take me for example. I was in an abusive relationship for 5 years and for all 5 of those years my mom and my brother tried to get me to see the red flags. They tried to get me to see that my boyfriend’s behaviors were controlling, not sweet and loving like I believed. I couldn’t see it. How could someone who says he loves me actually be abusing me? Especially when there were times when he was sweet and caring. I thought that because he never actually hit me that it couldn’t be abuse. My family was obviously wrong. In reality, they were able to see the things I was blind to. They were detached from the relationship enough to be able to recognize the behaviors as controlling.
7. Staying is predictable
Probably 9 out of every 10 domestic violence victims I’ve spoken to over the years said they stayed because they knew what to expect on a daily basis if they did. Though terrible, the abuse was predictable.
If they stayed, they could see their abuser coming.
If they left their abuser, they no longer had an idea of what was coming next. They couldn’t see their abuser so they didn’t know where their abuser was. Were they lurking around every corner on the victim’s walk to work? Would they show up at the victim’s work? Would they find their victim’s new apartment or figure out the location of the shelter they were staying at?
Leaving was too unpredictable, especially because that is the point in the relationship that is most dangerous and lethal for the victim. The abuser is losing the control they worked hard to maintain and this is when they tend to lash out the worst, often leading to things like intimate partner homicide or mass shootings.
If the victim stays, they can at least work to keep the abuse at a manageable amount and are able to “keep tabs” on their abuser just as their abuser keeps tabs on them.
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These are just a few of the many, many reasons domestic violence victims don’t leave their abuser. To the outside person looking in, leaving seems like the obvious solution. To the victim, who endures the abuse on a constant basis, it’s not always that simple.
Here’s a previous issue where I talk about the hidden reason domestic violence victims don’t leave their abuser.
Until next week,
Rychelle 💜
I was a number 6, I didn’t realise it was abuse as my family of origin behaved the same way. I was brought up believing abuse was love.