Why Don’t People Leave Abusive Relationships?

Far too often, survivors of domestic and/or intimate partner violence hear some variation of the phrase, “Why Didn’t You Leave?”

Asking such a question, whether intentional or not, places the blame on the victim-survivor for not leaving sooner, rather than on the perpetrator for being abusive in the first place, which is where it belongs. There are many reasons, more than are included here, as to why someone may not leave an abusive relationship or a domestic violence situation. None of them are the victim-survivors fault, and none of them mean that they invited or allowed the abuse to continue.

They may have thought it through and chosen to stay, or they may be in survival mode, acting on autopilot. Abusive relationships are very complex and every situation is unique. Victim-survivors do not owe us an explanation, nor do they need to justify why they responded in a particular way to abuse. However, to better support victim-survivors and improve resources, it’s important to understand some of the barriers that they face when it comes to leaving an abusive relationship and why it isn’t as easy as just choosing to leave.

Reasons why it isn’t easy to “just leave” an abusive relationship or domestic violence situation include, but are not limited to:

Victim-survivors fear the abuser’s actions if they leave. The abuser may have directly threatened to harm them, their children, their pets, or other family members if they leave. Or, the victim-survivor may fear this outcome based on the abuser’s actions during the relationship. Abusive relationships are about power and control. By leaving, the abuser has less control over the victim-survivor, and may take steps to ensure that they continue to have that power and control over them by escalating the behavior.

Unfortunately, these fears aren’t unfounded. Research shows that leaving an abusive relationship can actually be the most dangerous time for victim-survivors. Abuse by a former partner increases by 75% in the two years after a victim-survivor leaves the abusive relationship.1 Stalking is also a common tactic that abusive partners may use, with 40% of stalking perpetrators being current or former intimate partners.2 Stalking behaviors by current or former intimate partners are also associated with 85% of femicide attempts.3 

Feeling love and being abused by someone aren’t mutually exclusive. Victim-survivors may still feel affection towards the abusive partner and care about their well-being. It is normal to feel affection towards an abuser. 

Often, relationships do not begin with abuse, and the relationship becomes abusive over time. The victim-survivor may struggle to accept that these behaviors truly represent who their partner is and still love the person they believed them to be. They may believe these behaviors result from a rough patch or personal struggles the perpetrator is enduring, hoping they are temporary. People often believe that they need to support their partner during a rough patch, or that they can help their partner change into a better person. This can be especially confusing due to the cycle of abuse, where abusive actions are followed by love-bombing. Love-bombing is a tactic in which someone “bombs” someone else with extreme displays of attention and affection with the intent to manipulate them.They may think that the abusive behavior was an isolated incident and that the love-bombing is proof that things are actually okay. 

When love is a barrier to leaving, those around the victim-survivor may pass judgment, such as asking them how they could love someone who does those things. The victim-survivor may not have viewed their behaviors as abusive or may have been in denial that they were, as further discussed below. Ultimately, the feeling of love is not always subject to logic and people have little control over whether or not they feel affection towards someone.

Someone may not leave an abusive relationship because their partner has made promises to change their behavior. They may believe it is an issue they can work past, and trust their partner to keep their word. The perpetrator may say things that make the victim-survivor truly believe that they hear them and are sorry for the way they treated them. Things may improve for a while, but ultimately, the changes do not stick. 

Victim-survivors have nothing to be ashamed about, the only person who should be ashamed is the abuser. However, many may be too ashamed that their relationship was abusive to admit it to themselves, or for others to find out about the abuse. They may also be ashamed that they didn’t leave the relationship at the first sign of abuse.

They may also believe that others will shame or victim-blame them. They may anticipate that others will ask them why they didn’t leave sooner, minimize the abuse they experienced, ask what they did to provoke the abuse, or encourage them to return to the relationship. This can be especially true for victim-survivors who do not fit the archetype of a “victim.” When intimate partner violence is portrayed in the media, the victim-survivor is often a young white woman. If, for example, the victim-survivor is a man, they may be too ashamed to admit that they’re being abused as they may believe it makes them less masculine.

If the victim-survivor has children with the perpetrator, they may not be able to support themselves and their children without the perpetrator. They may feel pressured to keep the family together because they don’t want their children to grow up in a “broken home” or without both parents present, a pressure that can be exacerbated by those around them. They may worry that their children will be emotionally harmed by the separation or that the perpetrator may try to get sole custody of the children. This can especially be the case if the perpetrator is also harming the children.

A victim-survivor may want to leave an abusive relationship, but may not have the financial ability to do so. There are many costs involved in leaving an abusive relationship, such as a security deposit, the sole responsibility of bills, and in some cases the cost of divorce proceedings. These issues are exacerbated by the fact that 96-99% of all domestic violence situations involve financial abuse.4 
They may have been a stay-at-home parent and be financially dependent on their partner. Those who are out of the workforce for an extended period of time may not be able to get a job that pays well enough to support themselves and any potential children they have. Or, their current job does not pay enough. Perpetrators may discourage or simply not allow their partner to work so they are unable to leave. The perpetrator may have sole access to household funds and the victim-survivor may not have any direct access to money. They may receive other financial benefits from the relationship, such as receiving health insurance through their partner’s job. Victim-survivors may fear that, due to their financial situation, they could lose primary or sole custody of their children, leaving them in the unsupervised care of the perpetrator. As a result, research shows that 3 out of 4 women who experience domestic violence stay due to financial constraints.5

Victim-survivors may not leave because they believe their life is too intertwined with the perpetrator’s. They may own a house or car together, have children, share pets, share finances, or jointly own a family business. It may be difficult to even begin to consider separation, as doing so could cause many aspects of their life to change.

While there are many national organizations that support victim-survivors, they may live in an area where there are no local resources available to them that fit their needs. Shelters in their area may be at capacity, or they may only provide assistance to those in dire financial situations. This can be a problem for victim-survivors who are experiencing financial abuse because their household income is not reflective of the actual money they have access to.

Victim-survivors of different identities often have less access to resources. Most domestic violence shelters only serve women and children, excluding male, non-binary, and transgender survivors. Some domestic violence shelters also refuse to admit boys over a certain age, meaning that a victim-survivor may not be able to bring their children with them. Some services may refuse entry to LGBTQIA+ survivors, or not have culturally-sensitive resources for them. Victim-survivors may not speak the primary language spoken where they live, and the area they live in may have little to no resources available in their language. Or, they may have a disability that these resources cannot accommodate or adequately support. 

Social support is also a powerful resource. However, victim-survivors may have been isolated from their family and friends by the perpetrator, which may weaken the bonds of social support and make the victim-survivor hesitant to reach out for support. Or, the victim-survivor may have no contact with family members as a result of domestic violence they experienced before their relationship with the perpetrator, or have no family at all due to other tragic circumstances, making them even more dependent on the perpetrator.

Additionally, different cultures react differently to abuse and may be more likely to discourage or disapprove of separation. In some cultures, separation is seen as shameful for the entire family. This may lead to tension, rather than support from family and friends, for leaving the relationship. Some victim-survivors may even fear violence from their family for leaving the relationship. Victim-survivors may feel the need to share more details about the abuse than they are comfortable with to prove to those around them the need to separate, which they may be too ashamed to do.

What individuals perceive as normal is centered around how they were raised. Those who are raised in households where domestic violence is present may believe that abuse in a relationship is normal. They may not label certain acts of abuse as being abusive because they watched others around them tolerate, excuse, or model abusive behaviors. If a victim-survivor cannot label acts of abuse as such, they may not even consider that the relationship needs to end.

Society often views cisgender heterosexual males as dominant, which can have negative effects on all genders. Firstly, toxic masculinity allows for the exclusion of male survivors. There is a myth that men cannot be abused. Male victim-survivors may not recognize that they are being abused or be too ashamed to seek support. 

Additionally, the patriarchy harms women by placing men in the dominant role. The patriarchy tells women that submission, and not speaking up, is the best way to exist. As a result, they may not speak out against abusive behaviors.

The perpetrator may use a tactic, known as D.A.R.V.O., which stands for deny abuse, reverse victim and offender. It is used to manipulate the victim-survivor and others into believing that the victim is actually the perpetrator. They may believe that they are the person causing the issues in the relationship and that to fix the relationship, they need to change aspects of themselves. They can also cause the survivor to question whether or not an incident truly played out as they remember it. This confusion is called gaslighting and is very common in abusive relationships. Sadly, many survivors may believe that they deserve to be abused or that the treatment is warranted.

Disability can make accessing resources difficult. Victim-survivors may not have the proper accommodations or may not qualify for certain services. Some people with disabilities need assistance from someone else to function daily, which may be the perpetrator. They may not be able to afford additional support or qualify for programs that provide them support, and fear that they will not be able to function without the perpetrator. People living with various disabilities may have insecurities about finding a partner. They may feel like they cannot leave because no one else will love them like their current partner due to their disability, which may be something the perpetrator tells them.

Age can also play a role in why a victim-survivor doesn’t leave an abusive relationship. If the relationship has a significant age gap, the younger person may feel pressured to stay due to the resources or other things the perpetrator has access to. For example, a college-aged student may stay with an older abusive partner because the perpetrator has an apartment the victim-survivor moved into in order to escape another domestic violence situation, something they wouldn’t have access to on their own. They may also not know that the relationship is abusive if they have never had a relationship before.

On the other hand, an older adult who has been in a relationship for decades may hesitate to leave the perpetrator because they feel as though they have invested so much into the relationship. They may have built a family together through children and grandchildren and may believe that they would tear the family apart. They may also fear that, due to their age, they would be unable to find another life partner if they leave the relationship.

Some abusers threaten and weaponize mental health to get victim-survivors to stay with them. For example, they may threaten to end their own life if the abused person in the relationship leaves or tells others of the abuse.

Victim-survivors may stay in an abusive relationship because they are being threatened with being outed by their abuser. For victim-survivors who are transitioning, they may also be experiencing violence and threats that could out their gender identity before they want to.

Victim-survivors who are undocumented may fear seeking support because of threats of deportation by their abuser. Also, if a victim-survivor is going through the process of obtaining citizenship, they may rely on their abuser as a sponsor. There are services and visas available for survivors of abuse, but those services are difficult to obtain without access to culturally appropriate services. Also, the quality of these services depends on where you live.

The victim-survivor may be experiencing other life events that require their full attention or add another hurdle to leaving. For example, they could be dealing with a health condition and may not have the capacity or physical ability to even consider leaving. The health condition could even leave them reliant on the perpetrator for daily functioning. Or, the victim-survivor could live in an area that has been impacted by war or a natural disaster, leaving them in survival mode where other issues in their life fall to the wayside. Life events such as these may lead a victim-survivor to delay leaving the relationship or decide that they need to stay in order to get through those challenges.

These are not the only reasons why a victim-survivor may stay in an abusive relationship. However, they provide some context as to why it isn’t easy to simply walk away. No victim-survivor owes anyone an explanation as to why they chose to stay. Rather than ask a victim-survivor why it took them so long to leave an abusive relationship, we should acknowledge the strength it took them to do so. If they choose to not leave, we should still provide support to the victim-survivor and work to maintain a trusting relationship where they feel safe to continue coming to them for support.

Sources

  1. Battered Women’s Support Services. (2020, June 11). Eighteen Months After Leaving Domestic Violence is Still the Most Dangerous Time. BWSS. https://www.bwss.org/eighteen-months-after-leaving-domestic-violence-is-still-the-most-dangerous-time/
  2. Smith, S.G., Basile, K.C., & Kresnow, M. (2022). The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS): 2016/2017 Report on Stalking. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  3. McFarlane, J., Campbell, J.C., Wilt, S., Ulrich, Y., & Xu, X. (1999). Stalking and Intimate Partner Femicide. Homicide Studies, 3(4), 300-316.
  4. Postmus JL, Plummer SB, McMahon S, Murshid NS, Kim MS. Understanding economic abuse in the lives of survivors. J Interpers Violence. 2012 Feb;27(3):411-30. doi: 10.1177/0886260511421669. Epub 2011 Oct 10. PMID: 21987509.
  5.  Mary Kay. (2012). “Truth About Abuse Survey Report.” The Nation. 

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