A similar thread was running about a week ago, and I posted quite a long post on it that is pretty apt here. This is what I said on that thread about women staying in relationships with men, when the relationship AND the man is perhaps not so great...
---------------------------------
Although MN is great, and women do support each other (amongst the spats!) they are too quick to say leave the bastard! Sometimes for very petty things. I mean, even if he is just a sulky git sometimes, who goes silent for an afternoon when he can't get his own way, or if he doesn't do the washing up (ever!) or he watches too much crap reality tv! They say LEAVE.
It's just not that easy. Where are you meant to go? And how are you meant to survive financially? Unless you are a professional, or at the top of your career ladder on 50K plus, you are going to be living on or below the poverty line as a single woman/single mother.
Not all of us spent our 20's and early 30's working in skyscrapers in central London on 40-50K, and many women don't have the ability to earn more than minimum wage. Many women would seriously compromise their lifestyle if they decided to go it alone, and often, tolerating a partner who is a bit of a dick sometimes, who is clingy, who noses at your texts, who watches too much sport, and who doesn't do much housework is preferable to a life of penury.
There have been a few threads on here over the past few weeks from women saying they are fed up of their partner/husband, for one reason or another, and most of the reasons were fairly trivial and resolvable. With counselling and talking to them and communicating, the relationship could probably be salvaged, yet people just say LEAVE. NOW.
Like I said, leave and go where? Bunk down on your adult children's floor? Kip on a mate's couch? (while the kids sleep in the garden shed!) Go into b & b? Go into expensive and transient private let? (If you're not on benefits! Because many landlords won't accept benefit tenants.)
Now of course if there is bad abuse, physical/mental etc and you and your kids are in danger, then you must seek help. But you will need to report it, and involve the police and social services and the C A B etc, otherwise you won't get the support.
When women are beaten and threatened by their partner, it does piss me off when people suggest someone 'just leaves' when they have a partner who's just a bit of an arse!
'Get your ducks in a row, get your paperwork in order, and get a full time job, be self sufficient, and independent.' Like it's THAT easy.
And all the women suggesting this, have always had an EX who was a bit of a dick. No-one ever admits they are still with someone like that. And every single one says their life is wonderful now they have left their clingy moaning DH. I am not sure I believe it to be honest. The only women I have known who are divorced/separated, are struggling to survive, and are certainly not 'having a wonderful life.'
Even women who don't have kids at home anymore find it hard to leave, because they have often been with the husband for 25-35 years or more, they have a whole lifetime together, lots of joint finances together, extended family together, and grandchildren, etc. And the woman who has spent much of her adult life raising the kids and looking after the family and home, has very little - or no ability to go out and get a well paid full time job with enough of a salary to sustain a place of her own, and maintain her current lifestyle.