Why Do They Stay?

by Alessia

One of the things people have difficulty understanding about domestic violence is why the victim of abuse stays with his or her abuser. There are many reasons, but a very common one is dependence.

Not just financial dependence, but utter dependence… Self-esteem is so shattered — especially when compared to the batterer’s physical & emotional power, the latter of which extends to public life past the home.

It’s rather like the domesticity of dogs: your life, no matter how good or bad it is, depends upon that being, so you are ever alert to their whims, wishes and commands. You please them because your life, such that it is, depends upon them.

This is greatly multiplied if you have children or others dependent upon you.
If this seems too simplistic or unflattering for humans; if you can’t see how, in reality, being a human trained for another human’s service is worse… That you are held hostage… That you become grateful for the scraps…. Check out Dr Joseph M Carver’s Love and Stockholm Syndrome: The Mystery of Loving an Abuser.