Why Do Women Stay?

from Rape and Abuse Crisis Center of Fargo-Moorhead,
P.O. Box 2984, Fargo, North Dakota, 58108.

It's been said that a man's home is his castle, but that same home may be a prison for a woman. The barriers to escape may be invisible, but they are extremely powerful. Women stay in abusive relationships for many reasons:

She loves him and values his good qualities.
She is economically dependent on him.
She fears losing her children.
Because he has destroyed her other relationships, she has no other emotional support.
She is afraid of failure. Our culture has put the burden of a successful marriage/relationship on the woman.
She holds certain religious beliefs about marriage and divorce.
She does not want to deprive the children of their father.
He tells her each incident will be the last one.
She may believe she has no power to change the situation.
She is unaware of or unable to access services that could help her.
She feels guilty for poor choices she may have made. (She made her bed, now she must lie in it.)
She is afraid of the unknown. (If I stay, at least I know what to expect.)
She is exhausted or depressed.
She is afraid of reprisal.

Recent studies indicate that a battered woman's risk of serious violence or death increases dramatically when she leaves her batterer. The Bureau of Justice statistics found that women separated from their husbands were three times more likely to be victimized by spouses than divorced women, and twenty-five times more likely to be victimized by spouses than married women.

The reasons that battered women stayed with their abusive partners are plentiful and powerful. Rather than ask "Why does she stay?", we should ask "Why doesn't he let her leave?" and "Why doesn't he stop abusing her?"