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.

Not really. I know how weak I am. But there must be something there?

Sorry, x posts!

I feel there's something in what you say but it's more that maybe I have a purpose and an identity in this relationship. Outside of it perhaps I am just a weak idiot. In it there's some strength.

No, ime it's easier to stay

Why not turn that round: in this relationship you're a weak idiot, outside it you have purpose and identity.

Hmm I'm not sure I like that!

I can only speak from an outsider's point of view. My daughter was (still is, sometimes) in an abusive relationship. I think she is strong when she walks away, weak when she goes back to him. You need to find a firm inner strength. Hard to do, but necessary, otherwise you will have a miserable, rotten life.

That's how I feel riding. Pathetic for putting up with it. People who know me would be amazed/horrified.

I feel like it's gone on for so long now that it's almost just a part of me.

I'm sorry, but I will be blunt.

It takes strength to survive an abusive relationship undamaged.
It's weakness to stay.
It takes one hell of a lot more strength to walk away. Every single time.
It takes intelligence to understand you should leave. And it takes the aforementioned strength to do it.

The whole dynamic behind being abused, is not one of strength or intelligence.

You could have left. You still could. You could find a man to love and respect, to support you. It's not strength to take the abuse. Don't please try to tell yourself it is. All you're doing is justifying it to yourself.

I think what bibliomania said completely nails it for me. It does take strength to hold it together in an abusive situation, along with other good qualities, but it's misusing those qualities to a bad end. Once you're out you can use them to so much better effect. One thing I think we can all agree about, though: you are not stronger whilst you are in that relationship. You're holding tight to a sinking ship, with a good strong grip that you are proud of, when would you should really be doing is striking out for shore. You might drown on the way, but you'll sure as hell drown if you stay where you are.

What Annie said. Good post.

Thanks annie, it is a good post. One of the things that worries me is the assumption that I should be with someone else.

I don't think you need to assume you should be with someone else. It would be sensible to be on your own for some time, do the Freedom Programme, get some therapy and generally sort yourself out so you don't go straight into another abusive relationship. You got into this very young and I think you'd need some time to figure out who you are without him.

I don't think I want therapy. I don't know what I want.

Have you so little faith in your own ability to find meaning in this world, that this relationship is the only meaningful thing available to you?

It absolutely doesn't have to be another relationship. I'm happily single years down the line. I think the first thing you need to do is fantasize about what life would be like without him. What could you do with your strength and energy and inner resources if they weren't all being poured down into this bottomless pit of a relationship? What pleasures and satisfactions are out there, waiting?

Any relationship should enhance your life, not take away from it or have to be endured.

Strength or whatever you want to call it, is irrelevant if it means that you are not living to your full happiness potential. Real strength is realising that there is greater happiness to be found (on your own or alone) and then doing something brave and striking out for it rather than taking the easy option and taking whatever crumbs of happiness your "strength" leaves you with in this relationship.

Are there kids in the mix? If so you are making a fundamental mistake by modelling an abuse dynamic - which, very very sadly, they will go on to replicate, either as the abuser or the victim. this really is not theory

Don't think kids don't 'know'. They DO know, on a cellular level, which is all the more damaging.

It's hard to know what to think!

I think it also depends how you mentally determine what is abuse! One persons bossy or even slightly sarcastic bloke is another persons 'abuse'

Do you have children ellarose ? I thought I was strong enduring my husband's behaviour for 15 years, but I now realise that 'strength' is useless to my children. The strength they need to see is their mother standing up and doing what it takes to make the rest of their childhood abuse free so that they don't go on to continue this cycle. I used to think I was fighting for my marriage, and thought I was 'strong' in that. Now I am fighting for my children and the 2 are not compatible.