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What if you believed marriages should last forever? Would you stay no matter what? What if you didn’t want to leave your home and belongings? As many as 4 million women are abused nationwide (Mujer), and a lot of these women stay no matter what the cost. I was one of them. But, the interesting thing is that now, one year later; I can’t even begin to figure out the reasons I stayed. I consider myself a strong, independent person; I can’t understand why I allowed myself to go through the most emotionally damaging experience in my life. I chose the question “Why do women stay in abusive relationships?” for my research because I want to try and understand the reasons I stayed, as well as why so many other women stay.
First, I wanted to understand exactly what abuse was, so I went to AskPat.com and searched for “What is abuse?” I found a website that broke abuse into 4 categories emotional, psychological, sexual, and physical. Then it gave instances for each. Some of these include (1) emotional- ridiculing, a partner’s beliefs, undermining a partner’s self-esteem, and insulting a partner deliberately; () psychological- obsessive jealousy and possessiveness, controlling a partner’s activities, and imposing isolation from friends, family, and outside associations; () sexual- forcing sex on a partner, forcing a partner to have unprotected sex, and using sexually degrading names; and (4) physical- abandoning a partner in a dangerous place, refusing to help a partner during illness, and pushing, slapping, hitting, pinching, spitting, choking, and etc (Ask Pat). The article explained that abuse could be any of these things and not just causing physical pain. This is what I was looking for because I wanted to show that abuse isn’t only physical. In fact, I think that in the end physical abuse probably leaves the least amount of pain and suffering.
The next article I found by typing “why women stay in abusive relationships”. There were many articles that came up, but few covered the real issue. One that I pulled up didn’t really divulge as to why women stay, but they gave some personality traits for abusers and partners of abusers. I thought that this could have something to do with why they stay because personality affects a lot of things. As I was reading, I thought, “I don’t know where these people get their information!” The personality traits named made it seem like only the weak and helpless with tragic childhoods get involved with abusive men. I was in that situation myself, and none of these traits was one I possessed. Not one. Some of the traits named are intense need for love and affection, a background involving abuse, codependent personality disorder, clinical depression, and ACOA (adult children of alcoholics/addicts) issues (H., Will). Now, I’m sure that there are women in abusive relationships who have these traits; but there are also women, like I, who come from a functional two-parent household, no drugs or alcohol issues, plenty of love and attention as a child, and a good self-esteem (before the abuse). This article seems to be classifying abused women into weak, helpless people. It seems the author is not writing from experience or research, but only writing things he believes to be true, and are very much not.
After reading the last article I became frustrated with the way that people stereotype others, and I really want to find something that gives a well-researched opinion about the reasons women stay. I know now that personality may have something to do with the reasons some women stay, but it doesn’t cover even the majority of women in abusive relationships. The next website was a link from the previous one and I decided to check it out. The article begins by explaining that women don’t stay in abusive relationships because they like it, or because they are weak and helpless, and that these are just myths. The article then states, “many women in abusive relationships aren’t weak, as many would think, but are strong capable women who are weakened by the abuse” (Mujer). It also states that “it is often the stronger women who stay the longest because they are determined not to give up, convinced they can fix the relationship” (Mujer). I thought this was an interesting twist because you would think a “stronger” woman would leave, but this article made me think about the fact that their strength now becomes their greatest weakness. The article then goes on to list typical reasons why women stay. Some of them are “she feels the good times outweigh the bad”, “she blames herself”, “she denies or minimizes the abuse”, and “he promises to get help and change” (Mujer). This article gives many good reasons why women stay, but I didn’t feel that it was as well researched as I hoped. I need an article that explores the process or cycle women go through when they experience abuse, and the psychological effects that probably play a part in why women stay.
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I wasn’t really finding anything on the Internet, so I decided to try with books, but there was absolutely nothing in the library where I looked. I decided to try something else, and asked the reference guide at the library how to look up topics in magazines, he directed me to a series of databases with articles contained in magazines and other media sources all over the world. The database I used was called Ebsco, and I looked up “women and abuse and psychology”. There were hundreds of articles on abuse, but very few about why women stay. I finally found one called “Anatomy of a Violent Relationship”. This article provided information on why men erupt, the different personalities of batterers, how arguments escalate to physical violence, and why women won’t leave. The researchers who wrote this article did an eight-year study on 6 battering couples. First, they pointed out some interesting discoveries, one being “Batterers can be classified into two distinct types, men whose temper slowly simmers until in suddenly erupts into violence, and those who strike out immediately. This difference has important implications for women leaving abusive relationships” (Gottman). I never realized that the way a batterer strikes has affect on whether the woman leaves or not. The article then goes on to describe, in detail, the differences between the two. They called the “slow simmering” men “Pit-Bulls” and the quick striking men “Cobras”. They found that the pit-bulls anger gradually increases, but never lets up; while the cobras strike immediately with emotional aggression at the beginning of an argument. 80% of batterers are pit-bulls. % of pit-bulls have a history of extramarital violence compared to 44% of cobras. % of pit-bulls qualify for “antisocial personality disorder”- which includes “a long history of impulsive criminal behavior, childhood episodes of lying, stealing, fire setting, and cruelty to animals”, and 0% of cobras meet this criteria. 51% of pit-bulls come from violent family backgrounds, while 78% of cobras do. Pit-bulls have “unrelenting contempt for women, and yet are extremely dependent on them”. Cobras are more likely to be addicted to illegal drugs such as cocaine and heroin, and are much less emotionally attached to their partners. Pit-bulls also frequently use “gaslighting” which is a form of control where the batterer makes the woman feel she is going insane by systematically denying the woman’s experience of reality. This is the ultimate form of abuse to gain control of the victim’s mind (Gottman).
After discovering the different characteristics of each type of abuser, I would have guessed that the partners of the pit-bulls stay more often. I feel that they would be manipulated more, and therefore more brainwashed with each passing day. But, the research proved otherwise. They found that most women involved with cobras don’t leave. Almost half of the pit-bull relationships ended within two years; and by the five year follow up point; only 5% of partners of cobras had left. In addition, 80% of women with cobras tested normal on personality scales. The researchers found that pit-bulls are easier to leave in the short-run, but harder to leave in the long-run (Gottman). But, they didn’t really explain why this is. Although, they did go on to say that cobras will usually only pursue their exes if it is easy, and pit-bulls “have a greater capacity to minimize, deny, or distort reality and justify themselves stalking, continuing abuse, and even murdering their exes” (Gottman). With this in mind, I think that when a woman leaves a cobra, it takes longer, but she usually leaves for good, and it’s easier because the batterer doesn’t usually try and get her back. But, the majority of women don’t leave cobras in the first place. When a woman leaves a pit-bull, she leaves faster at first, but maybe with the persistency of the abuser, she goes back because she misses him or the comfort of the relationship, and she is constantly reminded of that. This article gave me good insight on why batterers react like they do, and I think that batterer’s behaviors and personalities have a huge impact on why women stay.
The next article I found was again on the Internet. It’s called “Abusive Relationships; Why Women Stay”. The first thing that caught my eye is that “women who were hit more frequently were more likely to call the police, but stay with the man; women who were hit less often but more severely were more likely to leave” (Parker). This goes back to the pit-bull/cobra idea. If a pit-bull is slower to “simmer”, they will probably hit less often, and more violently because their rage has been building up; and the study showed that almost half the women left the pit-bulls (Gottman). Likewise, the cobras probably erupt more frequently because they are quick to anger, and therefore justifying this argument. The article goes on talk about how battered women’s responses often parallel victim’s of violent crimes, but are different because the assailant is an intimate and previously trusted partner (Parker). The women who are more likely to stay are more likely to “engage in a process of rationalization which denies the reality of the situation, the options available, the truth about the victimizer and the victimization, and the causes of violence” (Parker). If a woman stays in the relationship she may also experience something similar to post traumatic stress syndrome. “She begins to identify with the aggressor, becomes brainwashed, may cling to her partner and behave in irrational ways. The long-term psychological effects include a profound sense of betrayal of trust, depression, suicidal ideation, guilt, shame and feelings of inferiority” (Parker). I believe that the longer a woman stays, more of these effects will surface, and therefore the victim will start to feel that nobody else will love her, and then she becomes scared of leaving the twisted sort of comfort her partner provides. The article also points out that many times battered women use avoidance coping strategies (Parker). In other words, she tries to avoid doing things that might anger her partner. Studies from this article show that avoidance coping leads to low-self esteem and feelings of helplessness and hopelessness (Parker). This will lead to the woman feeling she just can’t leave. The article then goes on to relate the psychological cycle that keeps her in the relationship. ”At first there is denial that anyone they love and trust could hurt them. The psychological abuse which accompanies the physical abuse lowers self-esteem and increases feelings of guilt, shame, loneliness, pessimism, and penetrating fear. The aftermath of attacks evoke confusing and ambivalent feelings that make it difficult to decide to leave. This is especially true when the abuser expresses regret and vows to change” (Parker). This article and the previous one both expressed many critical points, and helped me understand this issue more than I had in the beginning.
Throughout this essay and with my research, I have discovered a lot about the reasons why I stayed in an abusive relationship, and the reasons why so many women stay. I don’t think every situation is the same, and no matter how much research we do, there will always be another woman out there whose situation is different. Nonetheless, these articles significantly helped by guiding me through my own thinking process, and discovering the reasons why a lot of women stay through such destructive chaos.
Works Cited
Ask Pat. “Hot Topic-Abusive Relationships.” 6 Nov. 00
http//www.colostate.edu/Depts/HHS/Aphotabusibve.htm
Gottman, John M., and Jacobson, Neil S. “Anatomy of a Violent Relationship.”
Psychology Today March/April 18 60. MasterFILE Premier. Ebsco
Publishing. Markosian Lib., SLCC. 16 Nov. 00
http//search.epnet.com/direct.asp?an=117db=f5h
H., Will. “Personality Traits in Abusive Relationships.” 6 Nov.
00 http//www.recovery-man.com/abusive/abuse_rel_types.htm
Mujer-Ayuda el portal de la Mujer. “Why Women Stay in Abusive
Relationships.” Nov. 00 http//mujer-ayuda.com/article. php?sid=57
Parker, Joyce PhD. “Abusive Relationships; Why Women Stay.” Therapy in L.A.
Nov. 1. 16 Nov. 00 http//www.therapyinla.com/articles/ article11.html
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