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Researcher Response
I have been teaching family violence courses to undergraduate students for the past several years. Many of my students begin the course asking: “Why would a woman stay in an abusive relationship?” On countless occasions, I have heard students make statements such as, “It can’t be that bad or she wouldn’t stay.”
Over the course of the term, one of my primary goals is to help my students move beyond asking why victims would stay and thinking in terms of why perpetrators abuse. I want to help my students transition from unintentionally placing responsibility for the continuing violence on the survivor to holding the batterer accountable for all abusive actions.
However, family violence researchers acknowledge that women remain in abusive relationships for a variety of reasons.
- In talking with women who have been abused by an intimate partner, many say that they remain for the sake of their children (Gelles, 1997). They do not want to see their children grow up in a “broken home” and are willing to sacrifice their own well-being.
- Many stay because they are fearful leaving (Wuest & Merritt-Gray, 1999) or lack proper support systems (Barnett, 2001). Should they end the relationship, many believe that their abuser will retaliate, risking the safety of themselves and their children.
- Countless women are economically dependent on their abuser (Allen, Bybee, & Sullivan, 2004). Many women indicate that issues such as adequate housing and/or a lack of employment make it especially difficult. To leave would mean placing their children in a difficult financial situation.
- Other women stay in an abusive relationship because they believe that their abuser will change. Often, he promises that he will change, and they so desperately want to believe him.
- And yet others stay believing that their religious tradition opposes marital separation. Faith traditions are sometimes guilty of encouraging women to return to relationships – being told that the abusive relationships can be mended at the initiation of the victim (Nason-Clark, 2001, 2004).
Countless women in abusive relationships continue to love their abuser and do not want the relationship to end. However, despite wanting to keep the union intact, these women do want to see an end to the violence.
Studies do indicate that there are often patterns of leaving and returning to abusers, perhaps several times, before victimized women permanently end an abusive intimate partner relationship (Anderson & Saunders, 2003; Burke, Gielen, McDonnell, O’Campo, & Maman, 2001; Griffing et al., 2002; Landenburger, 1998; Wuest & Merritt-Gray, 1999).
Lanette Ruff Postdoctoral Fellow RAVE Project 2006-2008
Researcher Response
We may be familiar with discussions of why women stay, including love, hope, shame and economics. These reasons that seem universally to explain why many women stay represent the range of human emotion and basic needs.
Adding to this list, in some communities there may be concern of immigration legalities. If both partners are illegal immigrants to the host country, their support network is constricted, even in faith communities. Moreover, if the vulnerable partner is the illegal immigrant, that partner may feel herself ‘boxed in’ and facing one unjust option after another.
In African American communities, there is recognition of the disproportionate incarceration of African American males, and some women are reluctant to trigger that possible outcome for a husband they believe will change. Legal involvement could result in job loss for her husband and financial strain on the family. She may also be concerned about her children knowing their father has been arrested, or believe that his getting a criminal record could hurt the entire family more.
A finding in my research with African American clergy is that some women don’t disclose about the abuse because they want to keep up the appearance of a picture perfect Christian family. If the husband is in leadership, the tendency is to want to protect the public image of the husband.
“People are embarrassed that their families are falling apart,” Pastor H.
Some women may be ashamed that violence is happening in a Christian home. If he is a leader in the church, she might try to protect his image as a role model in the church. In the African American Christian community the reluctance to disclose can be a complicated overlap of a number of issues.
Jacqueline Dyer, PhD, MSW, LICSW
Assistant Professor at Eastern Nazarene College
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