Friday, April 10, 2009

Why Women Stay

Fairly interesting post on why women stay with men after being victims of physical or emotional abuse.

One thought on physical abuse - and forgive me if I'm being a total idiot - but in terms of trying to explain why someone would stay in such an obviously dumb situation...

I think people who have experience with violence have a much different attitude towards it than folks who don't. To those who don't - myself included - violence seems to be the worst thing that can possibly happen. We think of a woman being beaten as the end-all worst case scenario for a relationship. A fight is the absolute last resort behavior to protect ourselves, etc.

But to those who fight or where violence has been a somewhat regular part of their lives, I imagine see it as being less of big deal. In that respect, it isn't much different from most things...people who speak in public for a living probably don't find it terrifying at all...yet many list this as their number one fear.

2 comments:

Kat said...

Everyone I know who was in an abusive relationship stayed because they still loved the other person, no matter what sorts of horrible things had happened. Unconditional love is always referred to as a positive, romantic ideal. But often it is not.

Greg said...

love is a curious thing. i imagine abuse - in the long run - doesn't help it grow.