Why did you stay in your controlling relationship?

Lots of reasons I guess.

• I told myself it wasn't really controlling behaviour and he would tell me I was mad/ wrong if I ever suggested otherwise.
• As above I downplayed a lot of his other behaviours even though deep down I think I knew it wasn't normal to be constantly scared around someone I thought I loved.
• I had nowhere else to go (tried to leave on one occasion but the landlady in the other rental wouldn't accept me as I was technically a student. (Even though I was doing a Masters and had guarantors). Had no family living within 150 miles and my job was in that city. Plus I did love living in that city. And when he found out I had tried to move out he was raging and I didn't fancy going through that again.
• Because he was very skilled at socially isolating me after I while he was all I knew, so he became my whole existence.

If I'm being very truthful the only reason I left is that by the end I was so low I was considering suicide and realised I'd come to a choice point. As much as I wish I'd left sooner I'm also very grateful that I eventually did.

My husband was controlling mentally and financially. It was a gradual process and it is only now, years after his death, that I realise just how bad he was. I am, after many years, a proper and complete person again. Looking back at it I am surprised that I did not realise what was happening.

I had nobody to turn to and nowhere to go, and I was scared he’d take our son. I did eventually kick him out. I was right about him taking my son. 😢

Of course, he beat the shit out of me regularly and knocked me out completely a few times. That's why I had a male relative help me leave because he'd hit a woman but wouldn't dare try it with a bloke. Classic woman beating scumbag

I really wanted (and want) kids. I'd been with him for 7 years, was approaching 40 and thought if I left and started again I would be pushing it too late to have children. Every year I stayed with him compounded the problem as I was slightly older so finding someone new, and establishing a relationship before time ran out was less likely; but it was also even more apparent I couldn't bring kids into that situation

I didn't realise it was controlling until I left. Until then I thought I was unhappy because I was ungrateful and didn't appreciate him.

Yep, that's how deeply he'd clawed his views into my psyche.

Once I left it took a good few years to peel away all the habits which he'd steered me into and rediscover my own mind.

I was too scared of what he'd do when I left. Luckily I did leave and he did nothing because he was too scared of the relative who'd helped me😂