Why won’t she leave him??

Have you ever wondered why women suffering from verbal or physical abuse stay with their abusive partners?

I can’t speak for all women who put up with such treatment, but I can speak for myself.

If you’ve not read my previous posts, then you may not realise that I was verbally and emotionally abused for around 9 years by my former husband.

It wasn’t constant, but it was enough to push my self esteem so low that at times I wondered if I would be better off dead.

So why did I stay?

There were a number of reasons (and yes, if you’ve never been in a similar situation you may wonder about my intelligence here!) which I will cover now:

1. I felt I had nowhere to go (despite the fact that my parents lived nearby and would have been there for me no matter what).

2. I didn’t want to admit I had "failed" to myself or others.

3. Financial reasons – if I left, then there would be a huge financial mess to clean up.

4. I was afraid of the unknown – my self esteem was so low that I really wasn’t sure I would be up to surviving on my own (what the..?).

5. I didn’t think I would cope as a single mother.

There were plenty of other "excuses", but as you can see, the reasons above were either not justified or they were just plain lame.

Looking back I know these excuses were lame but at the time, they were very valid and a strong reason to stay.

Another thing our marriage counselor said to me was that because the abuse I suffered wasn’t physical, I felt I didn’t have a tangible reason to leave. I suppose if he had hit me (several times I tried to get him to!), I would’ve been out that door in an instant! (I hope!)