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Domestic Violence
Why Didn't You Just Leave?
Learn why domestic violence victims cannot just walk away.
Posted November 11, 2021 Reviewed by Vanessa Lancaster
Key points
- Domestic violence victims are constantly subjected to unpredictable patterns that affect their ability to escape.
- Abuse victims are never responsible for the violence perpuetated against them.
- Power and control are immense factors in whether a victim can escape.
Victims of domestic violence are consistently asked why they didn’t just leave unsafe relationships, suggesting they hold some responsibility for the violence because of their “choice” to stay. This one-dimensional perspective not only discredits victims and plays into the power game of domestic violence cycles, but it also sets up dangerous relationships as if they happen in a vacuum. To stop perpetuating myths about violence, our culture must recognize that there is never an easy way to leave in every domestic abuse situation.
Abuse Characteristics
Relationships are complex, fragile, and central to human nature. Their ups and downs can wreak havoc even in well-functioning, safe situations. Human beings thrive on attachment, hence why most trauma occurs in the context of relationships. To understand domestic violence, specifically victims of domestic violence, we have to grasp that relationships are always multi-dimensional, fluid, and incredibly intricate.
Asking a domestic abuse victim why they didn’t just leave the relationship is like asking a nurse why they don’t just ignore their more challenging patients. Relationships of any type are powerful, and violent relationships can often be the most intense. The characteristics of abuse – referred to as a cycle in more ancient literature, but now widely recognized as less predictable than a cycle – often play into a victim’s reasons to stay:
1. Tension-building: Victims walk on eggshells, trying every second to predict what will happen when it will happen, and how they will see it coming. They have a sense of looming danger, goaded by their abuser’s volatile and unstable mood or behaviors. The amount of energy it takes a victim to avoid triggering an explosion is massive, making all other aspects of their life fade into the background. If children are involved, victims will be even more sensitive to the potential of violence during this time – and many of them will purposefully put themselves in harm’s way as a sacrifice to keep those children from being hurt.
Sometimes it’s easier for victims to light the bridge on fire themselves because at least then they can see it coming. It is almost impossible for victims to dedicate the energy and time to plan an escape during this “phase,” largely because their situations are too volatile, and they need all of their internal (and external) resources available just to survive.
2. Incident: Classically, during this time, victims are physically or sexually attacked. However, domestic violence goes far beyond a physical or sexual altercation, and the broader inclusion of verbal, psychological, financial, emotional, and many other types of abuse is more accurate. Children often witness violence during this phase, internalizing the power plays they observe in primary caregivers. Victims may flee at the moment because of acute harm, but when these escapes are not planned and carefully executed, they just set victims up to fail.
Children often witness violence during this phase, internalizing the power plays they observe in primary caregivers.
Victims may flee at the moment because of acute harm, but when these escapes are not planned and carefully executed, they just set victims up to fail.
3. Reconciliation: Victims are wooed back by their abuser. Promises of change, outlandish actions to prove they mean it, and loving gestures are common ammunition for abusers during this time. “Everything is roses” becomes a motto, and the most skilled abusers are masters at manipulating victims in this phase. Abusers often will say or do anything to show they are a “changed” person, and even extended family members and friends of victims can easily fall prey to the manipulation that takes place.
Many victims hear the message from others that their abuser is truly sorry, and they need to “make things right with them.” The old adage “everyone deserves a second chance” can become a killer for DV victims. When an abuser appears loving and supportive, many victims will find their potential support systems are no longer willing to help, leaving them isolated and contributing to their inability to escape. Ironically, many victims also feel guilty during this time: guilty for their false belief of having triggered the incident, guilty for having a failed relationship, guilty for wanting to give up, etc.
4. Calm: Victims find their abusers cooperative, willing to work on the relationship, and remorseful. They often feel these are some of the best times in their relationship, perpetuating internal beliefs that the violence was worth it. Many victims struggle significantly with self-worth issues, which only manifest more strongly when the relationship is calm and feels momentarily safe. They may find it easier to put the violence out of their minds and choose to focus on “finally” having a breakthrough, which further stymies their ability to plan an escape.
What Part of Domestic Violence Is Predictable?
Many experts no longer refer to the “cycle” of domestic violence because these abusive relationship aspects are not a predictable pattern. Predicting a victim’s constant sense of survival, whether their abuser is actively attacking them, manipulating them to believe they have changed or exerting control in more secretive ways.
Victims bear the brunt of every domestic abuse situation, even when they do find a way out. They are constantly judged for handling the relationship and analyzed under a microscope for how their own behaviors “contributed” to the problem. There are specific character failings that would justify violence and control games.
The Most Dangerous Time for Victims
Most people fail to realize that no matter when a victim chooses to leave, that will be the most dangerous time for them. Abusers will do whatever it takes to recover their victims – be that by force, by grooming victims to trust them again, or by punishing them in every way possible until they return. For victims trying to escape with children, the ante is upped even more, and many victims have to choose between staying in a violent relationship so they can protect their children or leaving the relationship and allowing those children to be alone with their abuser at some point.
The reason victims don’t just leave their relationships is simple. They are trying to survive. They are trying to put one foot in front of the other in an impossible situation. They are coming to terms with the loss of what was supposed to be. They are trying not to think about what their future may look like, with a bitter and outraged abuser tracking every move they make. They are trying to make painful choices about their children’s safety and wellbeing, not just in the moment but in a very unpredictable future.
Victims never have the luxury of simply “walking away.” Domestic abuse victims know that no matter when or how they physically leave a relationship, the aftershocks will impact every part of their life. They also know that if they don’t get out eventually, they will end up dead – and that even removing themselves from the relationship does not guarantee a different outcome. Remembering the painful, impossible choices they have to face may stop us the next time we want to ask them, “why didn’t you just leave?”
