Why Does She Stay?
I hate this question. While there may be times that it is asked genuinely, out of a concern to understand what it is like to be in an abusive relationship, it usually feels as if it implies that any woman who stays in an abusive relationship is either (1) stupid or (2)asking for it.
Internally, when I hear this question, I cringe, because it feels like it is missing the point and coming from a perspective which does not understand the dynamics of abuse. Before I answer this question, I like to tell people, “Think terrorism.” No one asked Gracia Burnham, after her horrible experience as a hostage of terrorists, “Why didn’t you leave?” Abusers are terrorists. And while it might look like a woman enables her abusive husband by staying in an abusive relationship, her leaving does not only not free her from that relationship (especially if she has children), but she risks the abuse escalating.
While I’d love to dismiss the whole question as irrelevant and coming from a wrong understanding of abuse, another part of me wants to do my best to shed some more specific light on the difficulties of “just leaving” an abuser, for those who genuinely and caringly wonder, “Why won’t she just leave?” Read the rest of this entry »
