“Why did she stay?”

44 thoughts on “Why did she stay?”

1. As a suvivor myself, thank you for shutting down the thread, Jill. The post at Shakesville is indeed a good one and there are some great comments and discussions going on.

2. I haven’t read the comments on the other thread yet.

   I must admit that one of the first things that went through my head was also along the lines of “what is a smart woman like her doing with such a jerk” Closely followed by “Doh, what does that have to do with anything”

3. Questions about why she “was with a guy like that” are besides the point anyway, as he was her EX. So she wasn’t with him.

4. WOW! Thanks Jill! I’m so appreciative of this opportunity. I feel that story telling and getting the word out will help quell the misunderstanding so many have about DV. Thanks!

5. It was someone’s comment that she had made unfortunate choices that made me all ::headdesk::.

   Yes, because I’m sure he had “Psycho” stamped on his forehead and she said “wow, what a great idea…I’ve always wanted to be in a relationship with a person like that! It’s so Alfred Hitchcock-ie!”

   Ahem…prbly not…

6. Wow, Jill, thanks for this.

   I didn’t check out the comments on the first thread, but I did follow the link over to Shakesville. Here’s what I posted there:

   —-

   hank you so much for sharing your story.

   I think this part is especially important:

   However, he had to deal with the effects of domestic violence at the beginning of our relationship. I would have panic attacks in stores I used to shop with my ex, panicked that I might run into him. I would refuse to go to certain stores, towns, or even listen to certain music because it invoked images of my past with him. I feared that he would come after me sometimes.

   Getting out of a DV situation is difficult. Dealing with it is even harder. With me, I never termed it DV because my ex never got physical with me. It was just all emotional, and it was a constant fight with myself to recognize emotional manipulation for what it was. All the signs you mentioned with DV were there. All the same things happened.

   And after we finally broke up, and I managed to kick him out of my place, and say no when he called, and cut off all contact with him, I still didn’t understand why I had so many terrible dreams where he was restraining me and I couldn’t get free. And I didn’t understand why I felt such rage and at the same time such fear. He is still in my local area, and in the two years since we have broken up, he has tried every possible way to stay in contact with me and each time after he does it I am torn between wanting to punch him in the face and wanting to hide.

   And the worst thing? It’s that my friends call me strong. Strong because I made him leave, I didn’t take his shit when he stepped out of line, strong because I didn’t take him back, strong because I moved on with my life and became better and achieved more in the two years I was without him than the five years I was with him. On the outside, I look like a model of success.

   But they don’t even know how this tears me up on the inside.

   So, once again, thank you for sharing.

   —

   Strong women are not impenetrable forces. We have our own issues and weak moments too. I think, even more so if you consider yourself strong willed – it can be harder to recognize these things as they fall into a pattern.

   Even with me – I *knew* that if he ever got physical, I would leave him. Due to a lot of different personal factors, a man hitting me is the unequivocal game over. But, like a master manipulator, he got around that. Instead of hitting me, he just destroyed other things.

   Instead of throwing fits, he would appeal to my reason and make me think *I* was being unfair for wanting something closer to an equal partnership.

   It scares me to think this, but I do believe the only reason I got out of the relationship was because he got so cocky in his manipulation that he gave me an out. Yes, I left of my own will and accord. But it was because he created a situation where it was impossible for him to play mind games to get the result he wanted.

   And again, I’m generally a person considered strong.

   The conversation around DV needs to happen. And there needs to be some conversations about spotting an abuser at the *emotional* level not just the physical.

   I wonder how many women are still in a situation like I was, not calling what they are experiencing abuse because it doesn’t come in a physical form?

7. I believe the question that needs to be asked is, “Why does he do it?” not “Why does she stay?” What makes someone think it’s OK to abuse and terrorize their partner? And how can we prevent this from happening BEFORE abuse occurs?

   Putting the onus on the victim to either 1) “just leave” or 2) spot an abuser before getting in to a relationship puts the onus on the victim, rather than where it should be – on the abuser. We should be saying, “Abuse is wrong. Everyone deserves dignity and respect in their relationships. How do we prevent abuse from occuring in the first place, and how do we prevent people from being abusers?

8. thank you for shutting down that thread, and pointing to such a powerful post instead.

   i know that moderation is often a thankless task, but it’s so important.

9. Thank you Jill. I know I’m glad I never read the comments that you felt were bad enough to delete. I don’t need to see that shit on a feminist website.

   Latoya, your story sounds a lot like mine.

   And there needs to be some conversations about spotting an abuser at the *emotional* level not just the physical.

   HELL YES.

10. I had no idea the comments had devolved in that direction. I don’t particularly feel like reading over them, but I know what they say.

    I think it’s funny that we already know it’s wrong to pick on a rape survivor for what she wore, where she was, how much she had to drink. But apparently it’s ok to then turn around and spew that abusive bile toward survivors of abusive relationships.

    You have to understand the dynamic to these relationships. Abusers don’t have As tattooed on their foreheads for all to see. Sometimes, it’s easy to tell a person is going to be abusive. Sometimes? It’s not.

    And what makes these relationships SO frustrating is the way they wiggle and worm their way deep into your psyche. You form a genuine attachment to your partner (the same way, you know, EVERYONE forms an attachment to their partner). You *love* them! They are genuinely interesting people, and they show affection for you too. You share stories, you cook meals for each other, whatever it is you do to form a bond with this person. An honest, genuine, deeply-felt bond, between BOTH of you.

    And the abuse doesn’t necessarily seem that way when it’s YOU who is going through it. When the person who throws a fit that you went out for icecream with your childhood best friend is also the person who gives you great foot massages when you get home from work. The person who screams at you for perfectly trivial shit is also the person who’s out there playing wiffle ball with your six-year-old. The person who handles you roughly is the person who is paying the bills.

    And it progresses steadily. Do you know the old story about the frog in the boiling water? It’s the exact same fucking thing. Everything is perfectly normal from the beginning. But then as time goes on and you grow closer, he grows more possessive, and at first it just seems like he cares about you that much more, but over time things get more and more restrictive, and he gets less and less agreeable.

    (Now, this isn’t true for EVERY abusive relationship. There are many, many types of abuse — it’s not all the same. Sometimes, an outsider can tell from the start that something is capital-dubya WRONG. Usually in those cases, the victim has already been primed for abuse — usually in early life by family members. So they don’t realize that physical fighting is inappropriate, because that’s all they’ve ever known. And you can tell them otherwise all you want, but they will just see you as an overprivileged person, and still maintain to themselves that THEY can never have anything different. Etc…)

    The isolation progresses just as steadily, and the thing about the isolation is it reinforces the rose-colored glasses. You don’t have anything outside your relationship to gauge things by anymore — it’s all you know. So you go along.

    Being a victim isn’t a matter of stupidity. It’s a matter of all sorts of factors, some within your control — and some entirely out of it. I know it feels nice and reassuring to your ego to tell yourself that the reason YOU aren’t in that situation is because you’re just smarter/wiser/whatever, but that’s a big fat fucking lie. And the more you say it, the worse you make it for people who ARE victims of abuse, because you reinforce the barrier they face between their reality and everyone-else. Hope you feel good about yourself for it.

11. I wonder how many women are still in a situation like I was, not calling what they are experiencing abuse because it doesn’t come in a physical form?

    *raises hand*
    not DV, but my mother and brothers.
    It’s only been within the last year-ish that I’ve been able to call it for what it was — abuse.

    The niggling thing about the emotional abuse is the self-doubt it creates. Which means you might recognize that something is off — but the environment is such that you just can’t *truly* believe that. And so things go.

    No form of abuse is better or worse than another, I want to clarify (on reread my comment seems to imply it) — they work in different ways. Which ALSO makes it difficult to really “get” that it’s wrong. Because the only abuse that’s really strongly condemned in public in our society is the Very Obvious and purely physical kind.

    Think of it like all the billboards and magazines with airbrushed pictures of women creating a warped ideal in the brains of young kids… it’s a very similar mechanism here.

12. After spending more than three decades as a victim of domestic abuse, I am now free of it. My son and I are safe and happy. Our house is quiet and peaceful, except for when the TV is too loud. Right now all I hear is the hum of the air conditioner.

    I’m no longer a victim, but a survivor. After I got away, I found that there was more help available than I had ever realized.

    No matter how long it’s been going on, there’s still hope. I know how hard it is. I really do. But you can do it! You can get out and you can learn how to be OK. Really…

    I also read the HolyFatMan’s post. Excellent piece.

13. Latoya, thank you for sharing.

    I wonder how many women are still in a situation like I was, not calling what they are experiencing abuse because it doesn’t come in a physical form?

    I don’t know, but I’m among them. Like you, I thought that I would leave a relationship due to hitting, rape, or any other kind of violence. It took me about a year to realize “Oh crap, that was emotional abuse” and years more to realize “Oh shit, that was rape and other kinds of sexual abuse.” The problem is that not enough women understand what abuse actually looks like. That does not make women who do understand to blame for the abuse or to blame for staying, but I do think that it could help lower the numbers of women who stay in those relationships for longer periods. I don’t blame myself for not leaving. I do think that if I had known better, I probably wouldn’t have.

    Of course, as others have pointed out, the bigger question is how we stop the abuse before it starts. We can help women to recognize abuse, to get out of relationships sooner, and so on — but that doesn’t stop them from being abused in the first place.

14. I used to volunteer at a DV shelter, and at one point I was in an abusive relation myself. I fully understand the concern about blaming the victim. The fact is, that anyone can get into one of these relationships because abusers don’t necessarily start out being abusive. Often, they seem like loving, caring people. It’s not until later that the abuse begins, and no matter how soon you realize that this person is abusive, and no matter how soon you get out, at this point it really isn’t possible to reason with or control the abusers actions. It’s not about how smart or informed you are.

    That said, reading through the original post just now, I found it a little disturbing the negative, and really quick, reactions to some of the comments. (And, these were the comments that Jill felt ok to leave in.) I think it’s ok for people to voice confusion about DV, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are blaming the victim. Some of the comments seemed to be genuine questions stemming from the posters concern and sadness – just looking for answers to a troubling event. I don’t expect people without DV experience to know how to discuss it, and I don’t think it furthers the conversation to respond with knee-jerk negativity and without any constructive information. Educating people can be tiresome, but it’s necessary. And why assume the worst of people without first trying to discuss the comment? Kindness is important, and not just when grieving family and friends are reading the post.

15. And people who tell you not to drink when you’re out at night are expressing genuine concern for you, too.

    I actually think that is one of the key things that allowed me to start coming out from under the abuse: the fact that INTENTIONS aren’t what matter. ‘cuz, you know, a lot of the abuse I faced was honestly just how my mother was expressing her love for me. And I’m not saying that sarcastically, either.

    It still needs to be called for what it is.

    It doesn’t mean the people at issue are Bad People. But it can still be a harmful thing to say.

16. I have to wonder if part of people’s tendancy to to “blame the victim” comes not from a desire to actually place blame on the people who are being hurt in this situation, but from the hope that we ourselves would be able to somehow outmanuever a potential abuser.

    I am not trying to make excuses or say that this is therefore acceptable. I am just trying to analyze why it is that so many people turn to the “She should have!” route. Obviously the ultimate should belongs to the abuser “He should not have been an abuser.”

    I find that while I am angry with abusers (and rapists), I want to believe that there was something that the victim could have done that would have made things better for her. That there would have been a way out earlier. This is not because I want to diminish their struggle, but because I want to believe that victims still have some kind of control over the situation.

    But that’s just not true.

    And that is a hard thing to accept. In life we want to believe that we have control over things that we don’t. If I just wear the same shirt every time my hockey team will win, or if I hadn’t left the house when I did that driver wouldn’t have hit my car. But so much of what happens in life is really a result of other people’s actions.

    When those other people’s actions hurt, and even kill, it is hard to accept that there is little we can do to protect ourselves.

17. Hi Amandaw. I guess the difference is that no one was talking TO Jana (or to you or any other commenter) – they were talking about WHAT HAPPENED TO JANA. But people were taking it as if they themselves were under attack. Here’s one of the comments that bothered some people, “I don’t understand how someone so involved in the fight against domestic violence ended up in such a dangerous situation herself. I’m sure it’s an extremely complicated answer.” I don’t see any finger-pointing here, just an honest question. And the answer is a complicated one. I really don’t want to belabor the point. It’s just that you and I both know that even family members don’t get it, so questions are understandable. And, intentions do matter – that’s my point. There’s a difference between a troll being a jerk, and a good person expressing confusion.

    Many of us have a lot of personal anger about DV. I just don’t think we need an excuse to treat each other with kindness.

18. I wonder how many women are still in a situation like I was, not calling what they are experiencing abuse because it doesn’t come in a physical form?

    I’m not still in it, but I’ve definitely been there. Thanks for telling your story.

19. Yeah. Again, I really don’t feel like reading the comment thread — my insecurity quotient is high enough for today 😉 — but I just do feel, on principle, that I can’t allow myself to step back on calling out a harmful trope, just because the person using it is awfully nice and caring about it — you know?

    The comment you quote seems like something that should be engaged, not attacked, if that makes sense. But the problematic aspects still need to have a finger put on them. Again, that doesn’t make the person bad, or mean, or insensitive, or what have you. Just, privilege, and all. Sometimes it’s really hard to accept that you’re part of something that *IS* harmful, even though you not only mean no harm, but are trying to actively work toward less harm.

    I’m getting rather brainfoggy here so I think I’ll cut it off. But I hope what I’m trying to communicate is coming off right. The ideas still need to be called out and deconstructed, no matter the person who was employing them, and both sides (including the caller-outer-person) need to understand that it doesn’t have any bearing on the character of the person involved.

20. I think we can word the questions this way and possibly get the answer we are looking for:

    What can be done to help women understand the cycle of violence early in life?

    How can we make our courts understand that safety is the prime concern and issuing restraining/peace orders can greatly reduce the cycle repeating?

    How can we better understand the psychological aspects of Domestic Violence so we may reach out to people when we notice a pattern to their behaviors?

    These could possibly help understand why people like myself and Jana found ourselves in these situations. While I was in counseling, I shared the waiting room with many women across class lines. Some were even married to prominent judges and area politicians. They remained in their situations for reasons that can only be described as economic and political. They were clearly seeking assistance so they could make a clean, quiet exit without tarnishing either their social standing or their husbands careers. I think every situation differs and there isn’t a blanket answer. When we are faced with a tragic outcome like Jana’s, we start to ask, “What can we do to make certain that we understand as best we can, reach out to victims and survivors and change laws so this will never happen again?”

21. And, intentions do matter – that’s my point. There’s a difference between a troll being a jerk, and a good person expressing confusion.

    Many of us have a lot of personal anger about DV. I just don’t think we need an excuse to treat each other with kindness.

    As one of the people who commented somewhat angrily on that thread, I’ll also agree with what you’re saying here, melle. That’s why I wrote that I wasn’t trying to unfairly target the person who wrote that comment – because I didn’t think she was trying to be a jerk or anything like that. Yet I still wanted to express how upsetting and angering comments like that can be. You’re right that it may not have been the most constructive response, but I don’t think that means there’s no place for responses like that. Still, I hope I didn’t come off as too harsh towards that particular commenter and apologize if I did.

22. Latoya,

    I hear you. About a year ago, a good friend of mine said of her husband “I wish he would hit me so I could leave.” Then she told me about the stuff he’d done. She knew it was abuse, but I think she needed people agreeing with her and understanding to really drive that knowledge home.

    In her case, part of what made it so hard was that she was deeply religious and had never wanted to divorce. That one day we had that talk, she kept saying that she didn’t want to break her vows. I kept telling her, but what about his vows? Is he upholding them?

    Happy ending, she divorced him. But she took a bath on the settlement so she wouldn’t have to contest it.

23. I’m a very strong, assertive woman. I currently do activism/volunteer work in the realm of DV within the world of BDSM. My roommate in high school and college (and best friend still today) works as a victims advocate for a living and started her work during college. My mother was raised in a family with a father who beat the crap out of her mother and her for most of her childhood. I know quite a bit about DV.

    My first husband was an abusive ass. Education worked and luckily I recognized enough that I got out of it fairly early (as in maybe 1 year instead of decades). But it was a case of starting out very nice and normal and then we hit some rough spots in life and he turned on me. It started with the emotional stuff. Then he used what started as consensual S&M as a means of getting in the physical and sexual abuse, claiming that he thought I liked it that way when he was clearly violating the idea of consent. I was in over my head financially when he started showing any indications of abuse and really didn’t have the option of just walking away. And he did the classic pattern of isolating me from my support network, so when I did finally leave him, everyone I knew was shocked. They thought we were happy as clams and assumed that they hadn’t heard from me in a while because we were lovey-dovey newlyweds. This includes my friend, the victims advocate.

    So yeah, it really can and does happen to anyone.

    I advocate for education and prevention. I talk with people within the BDSM world to put the responsibility for prevention on everyone, not just those who might be victims. I really believe that education can help on both sides of the coin…the problem is getting people to listen and take it seriously.

24. TheHolyFatman:

    Excellent points and insight.

    I think it’s also important to remember that this can be a very difficult topic to discuss, especially for victims and survivors. Hearing news like what happened to Jana Mackey can stir up a lot of very powerful and confusing emotions. In trying to cope with all those feelings, we’re not always going to say the right things or react appropriately. Different people handle stress and pain in different ways.

    In this kind of setting, particularly, people are often too willing and even eager judge others or write them off as trolls or jerks or whatever, when they may not be either. It may be that they’re having a hard time processing it all, and as a result have difficulty conveying what’s really on their minds or where they are, emotionally.

    If we are really committed to reaching out to victims and survivors, we have to keep in mind that they are sometimes very emotionally fragile. Dismissing them off hand for not phrasing things exactly right or without even trying to understand where they might be coming from can be very hurtful and cause them to pull away for fear of being re-victimized by the very people from whom they were seeking support.

    I don’t know if this makes sense to anyone. It’s been a very emotional couple of days… 🙁

25. The post on Shakesville from Holy Fatman added another dimension to the “why didn’t she get away?” discussion: the author was unable to get a restraining order because there weren’t bruises; she had to wait until her daughter had been harmed before she could break free. Once a couple have a child, a survivor of DV often has to see her abuser all the time and let him have access to her child. This means that he continues to have a hold over her and SHE could lose custody if she refuses to give him visitation. Makes it much more difficult to “just leave” when the law says you have to allow him access to your child.

    I was fortunate to have family in another state, so when I left my abusive now-ex, I took my daughter and a couple of bags of clothes and drove 2,500 miles to get away. I couldn’t face letting my ex have unsupervised visitation, and the courts would have mandated it. Fortunately, once I left, he decided that we weren’t worth bothering with and went away. Never paid child support, but that ended up being a small price to pay.

    Having seen my mother in an abusive relationship, you’d have thought I’d see the signs….. but no. It took more than a decade of marriage to realize that I didn’t have to take it.

    Maybe that’s part of it, now that I think of it – even if I’m the bad, bad person he tried to convince me I was (which I’m not), no one has the right to treat me badly. Hard to get to the done-with-this-shit point, though.

26. Thank you melle. I think people aren’t neccesarily victim blamers. When I think “what can be done to prevent DV?” I come up with answers like educate people about the nature of abuse, provide sympathetic support networks to help people get out. I obviously find this case very confusing because that all seems to have been there, but none of it did any good.

    Asking “How could such a smart girl be with a guy like that?” is clearly not the best way of presenting these concerns. But none of the stuff she’d been taught or was teaching others helped her. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask why. I think some of what people are calling victim blaming is perhaps just understandable bewilderment about the ineffectivess of these interventions.

    I have to say that when I read TheHolyFatman ask: “What can be done to help women understand the cycle of violence early in life?” I now find myself wondering whether this is really a solution. From what I understand the victim here pretty much knew it all, but was murdered none the less.

27. I really liked what Shinobi had to say. Then again, maybe I’m being naive (seriously). I certainly didn’t want to call anyone out – lord knows I’ve done my share of angry commenting. On on this topic it’s hard not to feel anger.

28. I wanted to add, too, that there are probably hundreds of women who are or were in Jana’s situation who were reading that thread. And this one. And some of them trust their own instincts enough to know that they aren’t stupid or whatever for having been in that situation. But some of them aren’t at that point of self-trust yet, and they internalize that shit.
    Which is why I’m kind of a hardliner on this stuff.
    …which (in turn) is why I emphasize that we ALL have ideas and make statements and take actions that can be classified as bad or wrong, but that does NOT mean that we all are Bad People. It just means we all grew up in the same fucked-up society.

29. I used to facilitate an accountability group for court-ordered batterers, and we actually had a list we’d hand out of something like a hundred reasons people don’t leave abusive relationships (oddly enough, the abusers often asked us that question, despite the fact that they personally had threatened their partner and her kids, taken away her money, etc. etc.)

    Here is a similar list, though it’s not as extensive.

    Another thing people forget is that abusers are most likely to kill their partners when the partner tries to leave, not when their partner is controlled and in the relationship. The fear a lot of people feel about leaving an abusive relationship is completely legit and reasonable.

30. (oddly enough, the abusers often asked us that question, despite the fact that they personally had threatened their partner and her kids, taken away her money, etc. etc.)

    Maybe they were trying to see if there was anything more they could do make them not leave?

31. Some of those who are jumping to the defense of commenters who ask variations of, “Why did she stay?” seem to be falling into the trap of making baseless excuses for the questioners. This reminds me of the types of excuses I’ve heard people make for abusers which invalidates the abused person’s experience and reactions.

    “Oh, I’m sure he didn’t mean to shove you. You shouldn’t jump to these nasty conclusions about him without proof.”

    This attempt to get people to be sympathetic to the maker of offensive remarks/actions contributes to people who are abused not leaving at the first indicators that the other person is willing to be abusive.

    Some of these questioners may be lousy communicators but that is not the cause of people asking, “Why did she stay?”

    This question assumes that the victim did something wrong and is at least partly responsible for the violence that person was subjected to. That assumption is so widely accepted that many people haven’t thought about what ideas they have internalized and what ideas they communicate.

    Victim blaming questions need to be challenged flat out no matter how nice of a person the asker is.

    If those who ask “why did she stay?” are serious about stopping DV, they won’t abandon this effort because someone called them on their implicit support of dangerous beliefs which help support abusers. That means learning to ask better questions which don’t make dangerous assumptions.

32. I heard something on NPR the other day about alternate ways to approach DV for the couple and their immediate bystanders. The author of the book (I’m too lazy to look it up) suggested a kind of counseling for the people who couldn’t or wouldn’t leave the relationship, usually at this point after they’ve entered into the court system for domestic violence — which presumes the law has intervened in some way, though it often doesn’t. But one of the things that struck me true is the tendency as a bystander to hold onto the get-away trope, you need to get away from him, and then the frustration with the victim leads the bystander to move away from the victim because she can’t handle seeing her loved one enmeshed in the cycle of abuse, further alienating the victim when what she needs is support.

    The other part that stuck out to me is the research that shows that in many abusive relationships, the partners share a portion of responsibility for abusive actions — although men are more likely to be physically violent — which rankled me because it seemed to be a way to encourage outsiders toward the “equally responsible parties” rule which is too close to “she asked for it” for me. That’s really off-topic though, so I’ll let that rest.

    In any case, many of the feminist men’s lit that I’ve read on domestic violence encourage men to isolate the abuser, not the abused. This became an issue among friends a few years ago when a couple in the group started getting rough with one another, culminating in a very public session in the morning light after bar hours where police were involved. Everyone around them were making excuses for the man while shaming his behavior to everyone except him and blaming her inability to break up with him and stay broken up. I kept beating that drum — you don’t like his behavior, you tell him so, and you stay away from him until it stops. Lay some stigma on it instead of pretending it doesn’t happen because you don’t want to hurt his feelings. Nothing happened from it. Eventually she did leave him, sort of.

    In my case with the babydaddy, everyone listened patiently until their concerns were unmet with me leaving, because circumstances meant I couldn’t do so and keep us safe and housed and fed while E was a baby, and then they stopped coming around. When I left I did it on my own, tail tucked between my legs, back to my parents house feeling like a loser, and only because that was the moment my parents let me. I’d been begging for a room for months.

    I’m rambling.

33. The other part that stuck out to me is the research that shows that in many abusive relationships, the partners share a portion of responsibility for abusive actions — although men are more likely to be physically violent — which rankled me…

    Yeah, it grates on me too. Here’s the thing, though — there is an unpleasant truth about abuse, which is: victims sometimes take on (quasi-)abusive habits just to be able to get through life with the abuse going on.

    Think, for instance, of an easily-angered, aggressive man and his wife. She may begin to use passive aggressive tactics to be able to communicate and get through life with her husband — that way she can express criticism but in a way that doesn’t raise his hackles.
    (Think about what this does when there are kids involved. The wife is a victim herself, but the tactics she ends up using may border on emotional abuse with the kids, depending on the situation.)

    It’s never an easy situation with these things. It’s messy. It’s murky. It’s hard to understand.

    And yeah — I have definitely seen the situations where a bystander gets fed up with hir friend (family member, whatev) not immediately getting rid of the abuser, and drift away. There’s also the matter of friends who are too aggressive in expressing their dislike for the abuser, which just raises the defenses of the victim — because, after all, this IS the person sie loves that they’re talking shit about — and especially if the victim is still stuck deep in the abused mindset (think Stockholm syndrome), the victim will push the bystander away, further isolating hirself from hir support system.

    Again, complicated.

    Usually the best thing to do when you *ARE* a bystander is to express gently that you feel bad when your friend is hurt (emotionally OR physically), trying your hardest not to make it feel personal to hir — so don’t go badmouthing the abuser hirself, don’t talk about how you hate hir, and take SPECIAL care not to make your friend feel like sie is doing anything wrong (and pressuring hir to leave is going to do exactly that). Someone who is really stuck in an abusive situation is going to have a lot of self-doubt going on anyway, so you don’t want to reinforce that if you can help it.

    Just be hir friend. Take hir out for lunch or shopping or a movie or whatever, hang out together, share your lives, just like you would with any other friend. Don’t make a point of bringing hir relationship up. If the topic comes up, express sympathy with hir when sie complains, again without indicting the abuser (so it should be, “That sucks! That’s awful, how frustrating for you, etc.” not “What an asshole! Sie’s [the abuser] so mean, sie scares me, etc.”), or if sie doesn’t complain — if sie gives the impression that she isn’t really ready to believe it’s abuse — then tread carefully, just a concerned look or an “I’m sorry” but don’t press the matter too hard — just enough to give hir backup if sie’s starting to think something’s wrong, but without pushing hir emotional process faster than sie can handle it. Beyond that — don’t bring it up.

    That way, if and when sie is ready to leave, sie knows sie can lean on you for support, without also feeling like there’s going to be an “I told you so” dynamic (which is a HUGE discouragement for the victim to try to leave — sie might not have anywhere to go where sie’s not going to be humiliated for it). That is honestly the BEST thing you can do for hir.

34. It’s also important to keep in mind that when you live under abuse, you don’t have a whole lot of mental energy to devote to much else. So the emotional process of realizing that it IS abuse, that it IS wrong, that you DON’T deserve it, and even that you CAN leave — it takes a long time. It may take years. Which means that the victim isn’t going to leave the moment you tell hir that sie should. It takes a long time to process that stuff.

35. Thank you for shutting that down, Jill. The comments that are left up are very disturbing in the way they start to address Jana’s “role” in the ending of her life.

36. I wish I could remember the exact phrase. It was something like this:

    “The question should never be ‘Why do so many women choose abusive men?’, the question SHOULD be ‘Why are there so many abusive men to choose from?'”

37. I’ve been having arguments with my best friend along these lines. See, she works in a day care, and a couple months ago a mother showed up with a restraining order and told them under no circumstances were they to let her kid go home with her ex (kid’s father). Well, apparently they’re back together, because now the mother is picking up the kid with the father with her, and I never seem to hear the end of it from my friend. What really gets to me is that she always talks about what a terrible mother the woman is, for putting her kid in danger by being around him. Finally, I pointed out to her that he’s a parent too, and wouldn’t he be a worse parent since he’s actually an abuser, as opposed to a parent who won’t/can’t/doesn’t know how to stop the abuse? Her response? They’re both bad, but one isn’t worse than the other. The irony? When she first found out about the restraining order, she said she wouldn’t enforce it because the guy’s the kid’s father and technically the restraining order was for the mom, not the kid. I don’t even know what to say to her anymore.

38. What abyss2hope said. Some of the “explanations” on this thread for why people are asking victim-blaming questions about why a woman stays, no matter your intentions, are not helping. We don’t allow these questions when talking about rape or other forms of abuse, so why do we fall into that trap when talking about DV? I was raised by a ball-busting mother who instilled in me that I am strong and should not take any crap or abuse from others. I’m an extremely intelligent woman and yet I found myself in an abusive relationship for 5 years. I still think any variation of “Why did she stay?” is victim-blaming and unhelpful. Once again the question should be: “What makes people treat others in this way?” I can’t remove myself from my experiences but I won’t apologize for being “too sensitive” when abuse has been my reality and is a part of my past. I really don’t care what your intentions are in trying to be helpful when asking questions about what I could have done to not get myself into an abusive situation…it’s still victim-blaming.

39. Like one of your previous commenters, I never considered myself a domestic violence victim until I was re-introduced to the concept almost 8 years later. I didn’t get into fist combat with my perpetrator, so I separated myself from the abused category. I am currently detailing my experiences on a newly created site randijames.com and am anticipating dealing with harsh comments in the future.

40. That said, reading through the original post just now, I found it a little disturbing the negative, and really quick, reactions to some of the comments. (And, these were the comments that Jill felt ok to leave in.)
    

    This. Not just negative and quick but entirely content-free. I’m not sure why “FUCK YOU BLARGH BLARGH” is an appropriate comment.

    I’m thinking of a certain person in particular, whose particpation in a thread nearly always marks its immediate decline, not just at Feministe but at a half-dozen sites.

    It seems that if you pay melodramtic lip-service to feminist ideals you can get away with anything.

    /derail

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43. A lot of people have made the good point of questioning why we ask why the victim wasn’t “smarter” instead of asking why the abuser was abusive.

    I think part of the issue is that there is a fear of really asking why abusers are the way they are – any answer other than “they’re just evil people” can sound dangerously close to being an apologist for abusers.

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