Does it take a certain amount of strength to stay in an abusive relationship?

[ellarosemay]

I don't exactly mean strength, but I suppose stubbornness, will, I don't know?

A few times I could easily have given in but didn't and I "admire" my strength in a weird way, although I guess I just should have left him.

[TheInvincibleMadameMoi]

Strength to survive it maybe.
Strength to get out and recover, not disappearing into another version of abusive relationship.

But staying...no, I think that's conditioned fear that what's outside the relationship will be worse than staying where you are.

What are you hoping to hear?

[Tiredbutnotyetretired]

I wouldn't consider myself strong to be staying in an abusive relationship and looking back i thought i was strong too but no, now im strong, walking away and staying away has taken more courage and strength than the stupid head games i was involved in in my relationshit with the abuser

[PickAChew]

Some would stay strength.

Others would say cutting your nose off to spite your face.

There are no medals at the end of it. You owe the twat nothing.

[Desmondo2016]

No. It's simply the sign of a scared abuse victim to stay in the relationship. Would you go back to a shop if every week the shop keeper punched you? Where else in the life would you put up with being repeatedly abused. It's a sign of massive strength to leave.

[PickAChew]

And yes, like Tired I have walked away. Best thing I ever did in my whole 47 years.

[Tiredbutnotyetretired]

High five pickAchew

[ellarosemay]

I suppose I mean to survive in it. I look back and he kept saying for me not to work, to just stay at home, he'd support me, and I didn't.

[springydaffs]

Well bravo for that Ella. Yes that does take strength.

[Dontlaugh]

I would say it takes more strength to leave.

[ellarosemay]

Thanks. I mean, I wasn't always strong, but I think I had a certain amount of intelligence and savvy if you like about me once?

[AndNoneForGretchenWieners]

I didn't feel strong. I felt defeated, overwhelmed, isolated, infatuated, confused, heartbroken and worthless, but not strong. For me, I felt like everything that was happening to me was because I wasn't enough for him, and I strived to be the perfect girlfriend because I had given up everything to be with him - I didn't see at the time that he had slowly but surely isolated me from all my family and friends with his disapproval of them (he made me believe that they either had let me down or had disparaged him, which was unacceptable in his view). I had nobody but him and was desperate to please him because I thought it would stop him beating me.

I found it hard to understand why the man who had been so romantic and lovely to start with had turned into this abusive monster, and the only conclusion I could draw was that I was the problem. I must be fat, ugly, lazy, slutty, ungrateful, thick, because he said so. I thought I deserved to be raped because I had wound him up and deserved to be punished.

It took him leaving me, and me meeting my lovely DH, to realise that this was not normal and that I was worth so much more. I still have low self esteem and can't make friends, and when I feel low I push everyone away because I was used to coping on my own, but I think how I was 20 years ago and I was a mouse, scared to put a foot wrong, to say the wrong thing, to even look at him the wrong way, because a beating or being locked out or raped or humiliated in public would be sure to follow.

[Tiredbutnotyetretired]

Good that you didn't allow him complete control.
No one should be 'surviving' in a relationship though, you should thrive!
Sounds like your out of there, if that is the case then congratulations, that is strength, and i hope your new life without abuse is going brilliantly now x

[ellarosemay]

Not really but maybe one day :)

[mineofuselessinformation]

It takes the same level of strength to leave....
You just use it in a different way.

[Tiredbutnotyetretired]

That would have been your intuition kicking in, he would have hated that you wouldnt hand over full control, they use any tavtic in the book.
ANDNONE..im glad life took a different direction for you, what you have been through is nothing short of torture. The thing is, when they leave you it feels like your world has fallen apart, its not, its just the begining of it falling into place. X

[springydaffs]

Great post Tired

[ellarosemay]

When I left university he kept saying I didn't need to get a job, just marry him.

I did marry him but I did work. I even managed to stay at it for a wile after we had a child.

[AndNoneForGretchenWieners]

tired it was my first relationship, I was a naive 17 year old and he was 30, I am convinced he knew I would be easy to control. If I heard a friend was going through what happened to me I would be appalled, but you become expert at hiding it and deluding yourself at the same time. DH is the complete opposite, he wouldn't hurt a fly. It's funny though, my ex was all "macho and manly" but abusing women made him feel like a man, but DH was in the forces and is a bouncer, and is such a gentleman.

[dinahmorris]

To your original question - no. Pure and simple. Staying doesn't necessarily require strength. However, it takes a kind of strength to not give in, to maintain your own sense of self.

That said, I don't see strength as a goal in and of itself. The goal is happiness. Sometimes it takes strength to get there, sometimes resilience, sometimes hard work and sometimes it is quietly biding your time. Sometimes you stumble across it without even realising. But, imo, happiness is always the plan.

[Tiredbutnotyetretired]

ELLAROSEMAY i understand where you are coming from, i was the same. He moved the goalposts constantly but i was too clever and strong willed and adapted to everything so it had little impact on me, i knew his games. I think he got bored with me eventually because i wouldnt play, or i wasnt the stupid or weak woman he assumed me to be (he had no respect for women not even his mother) It took a lot of inner strength to get through all that crap. Well done getting through uni with all that going on!

SPINGYDAFFS thanks

ANDNONE.. Sorry you went through that so young! Im glad you met someone lovely who knows how to treat you right

[Tearsoffrustration]

I've only recently thought of myself as strong for the way I have handled (and have to handle) ex - because I've seen how he's devistated his more recent ex gf 😕

[KJPxx]

I used to think it was strength that made you stay in abusive relationships, I often made myself think, it's because I am strong and resilient that I can stay, but it wasn't, I was actually weak. Weak that I couldn't walk away from a monster, because I feared him.
You are strong enough to walk away but you need to escape the fear first. Its taken me 9 year but I'm nearly there.
I hope you're safe OP x

[ellarosemay]

Sometimes I wonder if I enjoy the fight on some level but then isn't there something wrong with me?

[bibliomania]

The thing about abuse is that it can take good things about you and hook you into a bad situation - a kind heart, unwillingness to hurt someone, a willingness to try the understand the position of someone else, and I suppose strength too.

The question to ask is not whether this quality is a good thing, but whether it's having the effect of keeping you stuck in a bad situation.

Why couldn't your strength be used in better ways than merely surviving abuse? Is that what you want people to admire about you at the end of your life: "My, she put up with abuse for many years"?

[bibliomania]

There can be pride in rising to the challenging of "managing" a tough situation. But the thing about living with abuse is that it's such a fucking waste of the person you could be.