To pop in 3 months after the fact: I'm a man and I was once in an abusive relationship, which I left for reasons unrelated to the abuse.
Nancy hit the nail on the head when she emphasized the effect of emotional abuse; the reason I didn't "just leave" that abusive relationship was that I had been convinced that it wasn't in my best interest. (I'm making a conscious effort here to not generalize from my experience, though I suspect that the situation was fairly typical.) The most devastating psychological tactic my abuser used was convincing me that in each conflict that led to physical abuse, I was to blame. If I had only behaved better (by, say, not voicing a disagreement in front of our friends), then the violence wouldn't have happened; it didn't matter that I wasn't the one that escalated things to that level. After all, I started it.
By refusing to let me walk away from an argument without admitting fault (using violence, if necessary), my abuser then ensured that every conflict ended with another grievance that could be used as ammunition in later arguments. If I tried to go back on my previous admittance of fault on the grounds that it had been coerced, then the problem became that I was lying in our arguments because it was convenient.
I think that one of the reasons that it's so hard to "just leave" an abusive relationship is that abusers taboo criticizing them. And if you have an opinion that you can't speak aloud to anyone (because abusers often cut off the ability to have private conversations with friends, because if you ever want to do anything without them you're demonstrating you don't love them), it becomes very hard to feel confident enough about that opinion to act on it. Abusers can just throw lots of bad arguments at you as to why they're and you're wrong, and trying to argue is just further proof of your unworthiness. They win on volume, not by being anything that resembles rational.
In an atmosphere of abuse, it's very hard to find the will to leave. If I hadn't had other reasons for leaving that relationship, I'm afraid I'd still be trapped in it today. And it's worth noting that I'm smarter/more rational than most people. (I really dislike how arrogant that sounds, but I can't think of a better way of formulating the idea without equivocating.)
Sometimes in an argument, an older opponent might claim that perhaps as I grow older, my opinions will change, or that I'll come around on the topic. Implicit in this claim is the assumption that age or quantity of experience is a proxy for legitimate authority. In and of itself, such "life experience" is necessary for an informed rational worldview, but it is not sufficient.
The claim that more "life experience" will completely reverse an opinion indicates that the person making such a claim believes that opinions from others are based primarily on accumulating anecdotes, perhaps derived from extensive availability bias. It actually is a pretty decent assumption that other people aren't Bayesian, because for the most part, they aren't. Many can confirm this, including Haidt, Kahneman, and Tversky.
When an opponent appeals to more "life experience," it's a last resort, and it's a conversation halter. This tactic is used when an opponent is cornered. The claim is nearly an outright acknowledgment of moving to exit the realm of rational debate. Why stick to rational discourse when you can shift to trading anecdotes? It levels the playing field, because anecdotes, while Bayesian evidence, are easily abused, especially for complex moral, social, and political claims. As rhetoric, this is frustratingly effective, but it's logically rude.
Although it might be rude and rhetorically weak, it would be authoritatively appropriate for a Bayesian to be condescending to a non-Bayesian in an argument. Conversely, it can be downright maddening for a non-Bayesian to be condescending to a Bayesian, because the non-Bayesian lacks the epistemological authority to warrant such condescension. E.T. Jaynes wrote in Probability Theory about the arrogance of the uninformed, "The semiliterate on the next bar stool will tell you with absolute, arrogant assurance just how to solve the world's problems; while the scholar who has spent a lifetime studying their causes is not at all sure how to do this."