The Effects of Abuse—Why Does She Stay? - Different Perceptions Of Reality

Some researchers have found that battered women often hold distorted beliefs and perceptions that tend to keep them in an abusive relationship. Some women blame themselves for the violence; others see the abuse as normal and rationalize the violence as "not that bad."

Self-Blame

Researchers find that women who return to abusive relationships have higher levels of self-blame than women who permanently leave their abusers. Women who blame themselves believe that they cause the abuse, and they should be able to prevent it by changing their own behavior. In "The Relationship between Violence, Social Support and Self-Blame in Battered Women" (Journal of Interpersonal Violence, vol. 11, no. 2, June 1996), Ola W. Barnett et al. found that battered women have higher levels of self-blame and perceive less availability of social support than women who are not battered.

Escalating levels of violence in a relationship often lead to greater use of violence by the woman as a means of self-defense or retaliation. This can result in still more self-blame, since the woman feels she is at fault for the violence. It also may deter her from seeking help and prompt her to believe no help is available. External sources of support may be less inclined to help the woman who presents the problem as her fault; as a result, the self-blaming woman may receive less assistance from health and social service agencies and organizations. To break this vicious cycle requires counselors or advisors who can help the woman shift the blame to her abusive mate. In fact, some researchers suggest that while women may blame themselves when the abuse begins, as the frequency and severity of violence increases, they do eventually begin to assign the blame to the perpetrators (see Kate Cavanagh, "Understanding Women's Responses to Domestic Violence," Qualitative Social Work, vol. 2, no. 2, September 2003).

"It's Not That Bad"

In "Coping with an Abusive Relationship: How and Why Do Women Stay?" (Journal of Marriage and the Family, vol. 53, 1991), Tracy Herbert et al. compared the perceptual differences of women who leave abusive relationships and those who stay. They theorized that all relationships are a mixture of good and bad elements, but as long as a partner perceives that the good outweighs the bad, he or she will maintain the relationship.

The researchers interviewed 130 women to find out how they viewed their relationships. They suspected that the women who stayed would emphasize the positive aspects of their marriages and minimize the negative, because as long as they could maintain positive images, they would remain. Studies find that women are often finally driven to go to shelters when their husbands' abuse suddenly becomes more severe or when kindness after beatings diminishes, thereby forcing a change in the women's perceived reality.

The women reported that the frequency of abuse was, on average, once a month or less; 78% reported verbal and physical abuse. Of these, 77% felt the verbal abuse was as difficult, or more difficult, to deal with than the physical abuse. The more frequently the woman was verbally abused, the less capable she was of seeing her relationship as positive. One woman wrote, "Bruises, cuts, etc., heal within a short time. When you listen to someone tell you how rotten you are and how nobody wants you day after day, you begin to believe it. Verbal abuse takes years to heal but before that happens, it can ruin every part of your life."

Herbert et al. did not find evidence that the women were trapped by low self-esteem or the length of the relationship. The three variables they found most closely related to the decision to stay were:

• The women perceived more positive aspects to their relationship.
• They saw little or no change in the frequency or intensity of the battering or love that their husbands expressed.
• They felt their relationship was not as bad as it could be.