Friday, September 18, 2009

Abusive relationships...

I've been in my share of bad relationships, but by bad I mean that the guy cheated on me, he lied, he was an ass, he may have beat up a little on my self esteem, but that was pretty much the extent of the bad.

I was hit by a guy when I was 15 and my Daddy took care of him. My ex-husband used to call me Jack as a nickname, it was short for Jackass. I dated another guy, Dan. He was my rebound after my divorce and he lied, cheated, and did little sneak attacks at my self esteem. That lasted 2 months. Another guy I dated, Shawn, attacked the esteem too. What all these men had in common was me and that I allowed them to get away with treating me badly. But through all of this, I've never been truly abused - you know, the type of abuse that leaves a mark.

I know someone who is in an abusive relationship and I don't understand why she stays. Whenever I hear about women in abusive relationships, I always wonder why they just don't leave. But what if you can't? That question popped into my head recently when I started imagining myself in this women's position.

For a woman to leave an abusive man she has to...
  1. Find a place to live, if she has kids, she'll have to consider how many rooms, will she have to put the kids into a new school
  2. Possibly change jobs, because her husband may confront her at work
  3. Who's going to help her move? Someone told me that many abusers alienate the person so that they no longer have friends or family to support them.
  4. Will he let her leave? Can she call the police to stand guard while she packs? Will they do that?
  5. If everything is in his name, than will she have the credit to get place, will she have a car, will she have credit or money?

This is overwhelming? In an economy that is bringing out the worse in people, there are so many women out there that are living in this stressful, overwhelming atmosphere with no way out, or so it appears.

Now, instead of asking why they don't leave, I wonder about the ones who do leave. How did they get the strength and courage to leave?

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