Why didn’t I leave sooner?

[Artemis123]

This is a question that has been troubling me alot lately. It’s nearly (detail removed by Moderator) years since I left, and my life has moved on leaps and bounds, but this question lingers. So today, I decided to consider why, and I came up with the below. Maybe others will relate.

1. Denial that the abuse was happening. “I am too strong and independent. Too clued up”.

2. Ingrained survival tactics. “Love isn’t real. All relationships are like this”.

3. Minimising the behaviour. “It’s not that bad. He doesn’t do X, Y or Z”.

4. Shame. “I’m embarrassed I sm letting this happen. Leaving makes it obvious”.

5. Brainwashing. “It’s all my fault and as much as I deserve anyway”.

6. Fear. “It’s too complicated. Too dangerous. Too difficult”.

7. Not wanting to hurt him. “He will not cope”.

[Bananaboat]

Good list, similar timescale here and I’d add:

1. Hope to the list. Hoping he’d change, hoping it was a one-off, hoping I could fix it, hoping I was wrong, hoping he loved me & wanted the same future as me.

2. Trust is another. Trusting him when he blamed alcohol/drugs/stress, trusting he’d quit or get help, trusting the future faking, trusting his word or apologies.

[Artemis123]

Bananaboat, yes. Hope is a dangerous thing! It took me years to understand change was never going to come. And I think trust plays into that. You hope you can trust them, because you really want to!

[Shaishai]

Also, thinking you have nowhere to go. That you are stuck with him. I didn’t think I had any other option but to stay. I didn’t know about things like refuge. It was the early days of the Internet so I didn’t really know how to use it. I was too ashamed to admit how bad it was.

[maddog]

I sort of knew when I married him that there was something not quite right. I didn’t know what it was. It was one of those things that we can’t know what we don’t know, then we can’t unseen it. Abuse takes so many forms although it all sits under the same umbrella.

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