Liberty

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Why Women Often Experience Multiple Abusive Relationships

Y.L. Wolfe
Liberty
Published in
14 min readMar 20, 2025

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Sad woman leaning over and clutching her arm
Photo by Engin Akyurt from Pexels

“If most of your past relationships have been abusive, that’s on you. You’re the one who fell in love with abusers again and again. It’s time to take responsibility for your own shitty choices instead of blaming men.”

I get this comment so often, I’m convinced most men have an online script somewhere from which they copy and paste certain beloved talking points, scattering them almost verbatim in the comment sections of feminist writers and content creators.

As the years go by in this public space where I share my writing, I find myself less and less affected by the stupid, cruel, and sometimes downright hateful things men say to me on a regular basis. It is, I have learned, a cherished pastime for so many western men, and so I choose to keep myself as guarded from their misery as I possibly can by ignoring them.

But I have to admit, this is probably the one comment I get most frequently that never fails to rile me up. The men who say this purposefully misrepresent the way abusive relationships play out in order to both vilify women and continue creating a narrative that excuses male abusers from any responsibility for their behavior.

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Y.L. Wolfe
Y.L. Wolfe

Written by Y.L. Wolfe

Adventuring, nesting, and raising hell in middle age. Welcome to my second act. | Substack: https://ylwolfe.substack.com | Email: hello@ylwolfe.com