7 Factors Victims Stay In Abusive Relationships
Love is a good and a beautiful virtue for everyone especially, people who aspire to build lasting relationships. When love is experienced, it reciprocates itself and promotes marital relationships. But when love dies or is far from a marital relationship, the rate of abuse that would eventually ensue in the union could be indescribable. Our generation, with all its knowledge, is recording an increasingly higher number of marital abuses than the previous generations.
Marital and relationship abuses create monsters and victims alike. And these abuses are not peculiar to gender. They can be perpetrated by any partner in the relationship, whether a male or female. And any partner can be its victim as well. This article, however, intends to explore the 7 Factors Victims Stay In Abusive Relationships, and to some extent, explains why they choose to stay. Because it’s not easy to keep on staying with the person who sees little or no good in you and one who abuses you as much as they can, whenever they can. Without much ado, let’s get started.
1. The Lack of money factor
Some abusive relationships thrive because of the advantage of wealth and money the abusive partners have over the others. If the victims are totally dependent on the abusive breadwinners for their livelihoods, it becomes absolutely difficult for them to leave their relationships because of not having money to continue life after leaving. This factor keeps them with an already abusive partner.
2. The “Love is blind” factor
Some partners don’t leave abusive relationships because they just love their partners who in this case are the perpetrators of the abuses. It sounds funny but truth be told, it happens. They can fight in the morning and at night, they glue together. The sense of reason cannot explain this at all. It’s beyond reason. It is just what we call the “love is blind factor” and coming from one side, though.
Let’s be clear here that true love doesn’t abuse anyone. Just as the Bible says that love is patient, gentle, and kind, it doesn’t hurt at all (1 Corinthians 13). So, what happens in this case? Is it not true love that makes one victim stay in the relationship? Well, It could be. But this true love is coming from just one partner- – the victim. If both love each other genuinely, there would rarely be any abuse.
3. The paper factor
This in other words means that they are illegal immigrants. In some western states, immigrants are required to have legal documents to stay in the country for a lengthy duration. And if you do not have such documents, you could be deported to your country of origin or be put in prison.
Some partners stay in abusive relationships to avoid being deported because they don’t yet have the papers to stay permanently in the countries they found themselves in. With this in mind, they would endure great pain and torture just that their papers may be done with. And in some cases, the abusive partners manipulate circumstances to slow the process and progress of having a legal document, thus, keeping their victims in a perpetual web of abuse.
4. The love for the children factor
Another factor that can keep a victim in an abusive relationship is the children factor. Some partners don’t want to throw in the towel on the relationship because they love their children and think about their future.
They can endure pain to avoid the children growing up without one of the parent’s presence in their lives. In some cases, the victims are the ones trying hard to help the children unlearn the ill-treatments they see on a daily basis and imbibe good manners in them. Thus, the love for their children’s lives and future is greater than the pain from their abusive partners.
5. The timing factor
Some victims of abusive partners just don’t find it to be the right time for leaving their relationships. Some might have a kind of plan on leaving one day but It’s not just the right time. This could be because they want their paperwork done first or they are saving money for the move or they are just waiting and gathering enough evidence, when enough is enough, they leave the relationship. For any of these, timing is a factor.
6. The fears of the unknown factor
It’s very possible that some victims of marital abuse are just afraid of the unknown when they leave their abusive partners behind. A lot isn’t known or certain or guaranteed. The fears of what would become his or her life, what others might say, what family might say, what the culture holds about such leaving, and many more questions may come to the minds of victims of abusive relationships before even considering leaving their relationships. And in most cases, they don’t leave for lack of answers to lingering questions.
7. The Religious factor
We cannot forget the fact that some victims of marital abuse cannot leave their relationships because of what the religious leaders told them. They would prefer loyalty to their religious views about marriage than leaving an abusive one. And most times what they believe in is faulty as they think that it’s God’s will for them to be maltreated the way they are.
Yes, God created marriage and presided over the first union, and blessed them (Genesis 1:27-28). No kind of abuse was ever part of the blessings of God. In fact, God instructed man to love his wife and the wife to respect her husband (Ephesians 5:28-33).
Both the created man and his wife were one flesh and bone, as in unity (Genesis 2:23), they were naked without body-shaming anyone (Genesis 2:25). So, anything that brings shame, pain, and division in marriage doesn’t come from God, the master creator. See to it that your religion does not enslave you in an abusive marriage.
To recap, the 7 factors victims stay in abusive relationships are the money factor, the “love is blind” factor, the paper factor, the love for the children factor, the timing factor, the fear of the unknown factor, and the religious factor. Do you have another factor to add to the list?
