Why do women stay in abusive relationships?

[Honed_Hunger]

http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/emotional-abuse-and-brain-structural-damage

For those who need enlightenment........

 

[minx1]

http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/emotional-abuse-and-brain-structural-damage

For those who need enlightenment........

Actually thats really interesting HH. Thanks for sharing that

 

[dexwebster]

If you think I'm being so inflammatory, then why not just dismiss my ramblings as those of some troll and move on? Instead you parse and mangle, and pop in a bit of Wikipedia for good measure. I stand by my original point, that if these people have the opportunity to even experience this emotional abuse you've lived a charmed life. If all their other needs are so neatly met that emotional abuse even registers on the spectrum of hardships, then this not so hypothetical person enjoys a better existence then perhaps the majority of people who live on this planet. And it is with them that my sympathies lie.

Maslow's Hierarchy says the first requirement in a person's life is basic physical needs: food, air, sleep, sex, etc.

I am not stupid enough not to realize that I am lucky that my requirements for this tier are met, and that for plenty of people in the world they aren't.

But the second tier is "Safety".

At 6, 7, 8 years old, it was impossible to guess what would set my mother off, and impossible to know that it really had nothing to do with me, what it really meant that she was mentally ill. And I never knew what the reaction would be: would this be the time she hit me instead of throwing things? Should I be in the kitchen to fend her off in case she went for the knives to hurt herself? If she got in the car and drove away what should I do if she didn't come back this time? I was never once physically hit, but I was not safe. And in turn those experiences have warped the tiers that rest on it: my emotional relationships with people, my self-confidence and self-esteem, etc.

I'm 27 now.

And it is a matter of survival, mentally, to not be that little girl cringing when I hear someone yell, waiting for the time I screw up badly enough to make my partner leave for good, wishing I were less stupid so this bad thing (that had nothing to do with me) had never happened. I still struggle with those constant fears, and with others.


I'm not begging your sympathy for myself, but perhaps for the people who suffered 'mere' emotional abuse much worse than what I did. Either way, I'm baffled that your sympathy is a zero-sum game. Does extending some towards those victims take it away from others? Do you really only have so much to go around?

 

[flyHiGuy]

Many years ago I had an affair with an old high-school girlfriend. When we were together she was always very nervous. Many times she said she wished I would just take her out of here. Her husband is a control freak and has to know where she is at all times (they have been married 25 years at that time) I asked about abuse but she would skirt around it - she one told me he choked her once and hit her with a tennis ball and a broom - but that was all. He puts her down in front of their friends - so I know some mental abuse is there. She tells me her kids ask why she does not leave their father... she says she is trapped.

On the outside it looks like a perfect family - but she has told me looks can be deceving. She broke up our affair after he found out - and I am now unable to see her or contact her. They have been married 40 years now.

Is she in an abusive relationship? I am scared for her.