capntom asked this question on 4/3/2000:

Evening Xperts,I was just wondering, it appears to me that there seems to be a large segment of the people who ask us questions are women with abusive boyfriends or husbands. My question is why do women insist in staying in abusive enviroments. My job during the day is working in a Salvation Army Shelter as the director of security with A daily flow of 1100 clients, it boggles my mind when i watch these women get tormented by their mates, Yet they stay and take it

rainbowlady gave this response on 4/4/2000:

This type of "ignorance" (and I do not mean that in a derogatory manner towards you) is a great deal of the problem when it comes to fighting domestic violence. Here is a portion of my page on domestic violence (and I'm a trained DV shelter worker) (THe entire page can be seen at http://www.geocities.com/~rainbowstar/sp/domvio.html

Many ask why a woman would stay in an abusive relationship. There are five basic reasons most women stay.

Tradition. An abused woman often comes from a violent home and feels that such abuse is inevitable. She may believe that this is the way love is supposed to be because that is how "love" was expressed in the home where she grew up.

Humiliation. She doesn't want anyone to know that she is being beaten or that her partner is an abuser. Whether to protect the family name (often at the urging of other family members) or because they do not believe they deserve any better or to keep others from finding out that they made a mistake, women hide the bruises and pretend everything is all right. They go on hoping their abuser will change.

Children. Women fear losing their children in the legal system. They have often been told by their abusers that they are not capable of taking proper care of their children. If the abuser comes from a wealthy family, they're often threatened with lengthy and costly legal custody battles they cannot afford to fight.

Fear. Many abusers threaten to hunt down and seriously injure or even kill the woman and even her children. The women are threatened with isolation and/or alienation from family and friends. Threats against the woman's family or place of employment also serve to keep her tied to her abuser.

Financial. Many women don't believe they can make it on their own, especially if children are involved. In fact, most women who leave an abusive relationship DO find their standard of living drops drastically while that of their abuser often rises. Abused women have often been isolated and/or alienated from family and friends and have no support network to fall back on. Many women are not aware of the resources available and how to tap into them.

Abuse comes in many forms and is intended as a means of control. Just as rape is not about the sex, but about power, abuse is NOT about what the victim did or did not do, but about the power the abuser has over the victim. Regardless of what a victim may do, even if she becomes abusive herself (in which case she is responsible for HER actions only), the choice to abuse is ALWAYS the responsibility of the abuser. Being drunk or high is no excuse and should not be accepted as an excuse by the victim, the police or the courts.

The long term effects on a woman's psyche cannot be stressed enough. The effect of the abuse is to undermine the woman's trust in her own abilities to the point where she feels completely dependent on her abuser and incapable of making any sort of right choice for her life or for her children. So she stays with her abuser because she's so sure that she's going to screw it up even worse if she tries on her own.

THE MOST important thing you can do for an abuse victim (of any gender) is to EMPOWER them. To that end, NEVER make a decision for a survivor. If they say "What can I do?" you give them a list of options. If they say "Which should I pick?" DO NOT tell them. Let THEM make the choice and then do what you can to help them put that choice into action. You may not agree with it (especially if they choose to return to their abuser) but you are telling them "I believe that you can make the right choice for you at this point in time. I believe that YOU knwo what you need more than I do." In time, that message sinks in. If you take control of their life by making decisions for them, they will eventually see you as just another abuser.

I'm not even going to get into how modern society and the media still feel women are nothing more than sex objects for men....

Hope this helps you understand a bit more.

Love and Light, Rainbowlady

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