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7 Reasons We Struggle To Leave the Ones Who Harm Us Most
Why leaving an abusive relationship is so incredibly hard to do.
“Why don’t you leave?”, “How can you love someone who treats you this way?”, “You need to stick up for yourself”, “I wouldn’t allow anyone to treat me this way”.
Anyone who has experienced any form of domestic abuse will probably have heard these sentences in one form or another. They are usually made by well-intended outsiders who have been fortunate enough and never experienced abuse. Or at least they don’t know that they have.
But the truth is, “leaving” is extremely difficult. And that’s all financial or family commitments taken aside. The mental effort of actually leaving an abusive relationship is a lot harder than walking away from a normal relationship that didn’t work out.
For me, walking away from guys I had dated for a few weeks, months or years was easy. Leaving my husband of 10 years with 2 kids was easy. Giving up on the 1 1/2 year relationship with a narcissist was the hardest thing I ever had to do.
1. We want to believe in the good
Abusive relationships rarely start out abusive. They usually start with an intensive love-bombing phase.
