The Real Reason Why Women Stay With Men Who Hurt Them Continually

You never know what happens behind closed doors until someone breaks their silence and reveals what they go through.

Ella is a classic example.

She’s married with two kids, she goes on holiday each year, the house is paid for, and her kids go to distinguished schools.

On the surface, she has everything a woman would want. She’s living the dream.

But boy, aren’t shiny things deceiving at times?

Many people don’t know that in the middle of the night, her husband regularly has sex with her when she’s asleep and acts as if nothing is wrong.

When she calls him out for it, he asks if he needs consent from his wife. Or whether he should sign a contract that dictates when it’s okay to have sex.

The audacity!

There’s everything wrong with this picture, but the big questions are:

Why has she not left?

Does she even realize she’s being raped?

Does she know he’s abusing her emotionally too?

The truth is, deep down, she knows this is ill-treatment. She knows she deserves better and that love isn’t supposed to hurt.

She knows her husband is a rapist.

But she has bonded with the trauma in such a twisted way it’s hard to see things clearly.

It now doesn’t seem like such a big deal as it would have had this happened earlier.

Her friends have tried telling her to be assertive and put an immediate end to this. She says she’s unable to be assertive with him, and she doesn’t know why.

She says she has repeatedly told him that is rape, but he shrugs it off and doesn’t take her seriously.

People have suggested she leaves him, but she won’t do that either. Claiming that she wouldn’t do that to him because he’s not as bad as he seems.

How can he be when she showers her with gifts, is really caring, and gives her and the kids a good life?

You can say so much about this woman.

You can pin her behavior on ignorance, seriously low self-worth, and plain stupidity. And to some extent, you would be right. But there’s a deeper issue at play here.

It’s called trauma bonding.

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Trauma bonding is when a victim develops an unhealthy attachment to the abuser.

But the victim cannot remove themselves from the situation because they share a connection with the abuser.

You see this often with people who stay loyal to their partners despite being poorly treated. Something in them doesn’t register the pain and betrayal because they’ve normalized it.

Worse of all, they don’t feel empowered, or in control of the situation, so they let it go on for months or years.

Helplessness is a bad spot to be in, believe me.

Trauma bonding doesn’t happen all at once. It happens so subtly that it may take a while to realize that your spouse’s actions aren’t isolated, but they, in fact, follow a pattern.

Victims of trauma bonding not only overlook clear red flags, but they also take it a notch higher and actually defend their abusers’ bad behavior.

They say things like:

He hit me because I aggravated him.

He does these things because he loves me.

If I hadn’t triggered him, he would not have done what he did to me.

Anyone who defends an abuser has a serious problem and needs to see someone.

And the truth is many women who find themselves in such sticky situations lose their sensitivity to abuse over time. This is how murders happen in marriages.

You hang around the fire too long until it sets you ablaze.

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Why do women put up with abusive men?

I shudder when I recall the things I put up with in my first marriage because I’d not tolerate that crap now.

At the time, so much emotional abuse was unfolding that the small things — that shouldn’t have been happening — were eclipsed by the bigger things.

It hurt so badly when I realized he was bad mouthing me to our friends that it didnt matter much when he was rude to me.

You get so used to being treated badly that you no longer feel anything when small bad things are done to you.

However, a wrong is a wrong. It doesn’t matter its size.

What makes this toxicity and abuse thrive is that times are not always bad.

At times the relationship is full of happiness, which covers up the bad moments and also masks the toxic traits of your abuser.

The bond is cemented when passion is in the air due to the production of the feel-good hormones like dopamine and oxytocin.

So when they hurt you again, what do you do? Nothing.

Why? You’re holding on to the feel-good moments.

But these moments never last.

Hell breaks loose again, which confuses you more and makes it hard for you to make the right choices.

The reason I now see the patterns in my first marriage clearly is because my emotions aren’t in that state anymore.

It’s hard to focus and decide what you really want in your relationship when your emotions are on a perpetual roller coaster.

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Photo by iStockPhoto.com

Sometimes, women are the biggest enablers of their own ill-treatment.

I don’t know what it is about us that makes us think if a man didn’t treat his ex right, he would be different with us.

Maybe we think we will change him or that his ex was to blame for the breakup.

One of the things a woman needs to learn is to evaluate the reasons behind their potential husband’s breakups.

No one is saying to do a forensic study of their past relationship, but knowing what you’re getting yourself into is helpful. You just need to tread carefully.

You’ll be amazed at what ex-partners can reveal.

Obviously, you don’t call them up and ask,

“Hey Anna, why did you break up with James?”

However, if there’s any way you can find out — say through friends or family– always ask a question or two without looking so creepy.

I know of women who have dodged bullets by doing a little digging.

Traits and habits have a way of repeating themselves. You owe it to yourself to study the history of the person you wish to build a life with.

Then there’s the most obvious one: Financial handicap. You know this already, but it’s worth mentioning.

There’s something so liberating, like knowing you’re not tied up to a spouse because you’re financially handicapped.

Empowering yourself financially makes it easy to choose the relationship you want.

But if you rely on this person for your existence, you clip your wings.

Clipped wings can’t take off. Clipped wings make one a prisoner in their own self-imposed cocoon.

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Photo by iStockPhoto.com

So, what can you can do?

Let’s be honest. Relationships make us soft and fluffy. Even the strongest man becomes weak.

Ask Samson what Delilah did to him.

The point?

One day you were so good and calling BS, and now you just put up with it. I’ve been here too. The line can get very blurry very quickly.

That’s why I think people should spend time evaluating their boundaries. Not because they want to be the boss, but because it gives your spouse clear guidelines on how to behave with you.

Sure, introducing boundaries isn’t a guarantee you won’t be abused but it’ll clarify the lines they shouldn’t cross and eliminate the opaqueness in a relationship.

Without boundaries, how do you know when you’re depleted, taken advantage of, or intruded upon? You can’t.

And this is what gives an abuser a green card to do as they please.

On the flip side, having healthy boundaries solidifies your self-esteem. This way, you can take responsibility for yourself and make good choices.

If you’re in any of these situations, it’s time to realize that what’s happening here is harmful to your physical and emotional health.

Once you’ve embraced the reality of your marriage’s toxicity, seek help. Look for someone who won’t judge you but will point you in the right direction.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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