Abusive Romances - Can You Help?
September 7th, 2008 by admin
One of the most heartrending situations you can ever be faced with is to have a loved one in a dangerous situation that you can’t rescue them from. It can really come close to tearing you apart, to making you feel that you are literally losing your mind. This can come in the form of having military personnel in your friends and family circle that are far away in a dangerous war zone. It can present itself in the form of someone in your life being struck with crippling depression that they can’t seem to pull themselves out of, and there’s little that someone on the outside can do about that. It can come as having someone that you care about deeply being stricken with a serious, even terminal, illness that the doctors are at a loss as to what course of action to pursue.
It can also come in the form of someone in your life being trapped in an abusive relationship. This is equally insidious. When someone is deeply involved in a destructive, violent relationship, their friends and family are powerless to help them Aside from simply letting them know that they are there for them should they ever seek help, there is little anyone on the outside can do for the person in the violent relationship. They are helpless and powerless.
Sometimes, it doesn’t even have to be violent. Sometimes you might see a loved one in a verbally abusive relationship, and this can be equally psychologically damaging to them. And, just as difficult as it is to be degraded in front of people you care about, it can also be difficult to have to stand by and watch someone you love being degraded
The question on the minds of many friends and family members of those trapped in abusive relationship is - why do women stay in abusive relationships? I wish to God there were a clearcut response to that question Sadly, there is not. Sometimes it’s as simple as fear, as the abuser has staged a long term psychological campaign of terror against the victim, convincing them that they will never let the victim live if they leave the relationship. Sometimes it has to do with their children, they don’t want to leave the relationship for fear of retaliation against their children or because the abuser is actually good to the children directly, and so the victim feels this is better for the children than having no father at all. Sometimes it has to do with finances, the person has no independent job skills and does not feel confident in their ability to earn a living wage on their own.