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WrongBot comments on "Life Experience" as a Conversation-Halter - Less Wrong
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Like a lot of relationship-clueless males, I have long thought that, and I accept that I therefore don't "get it". But really, whose fault is that? To me, this looks like Yet Another Case of a large group of people, for reasons of status, not applying the introspection, or the imagination of others' perspectives, that's necessary to articulate the error in "Why don't you just leave?"
If I were to take the perspective of a battered wife and make a genuine effort to articulate the flaw in that thinking, based on the real Silas Barta's best understanding of the psychological and sociological dynamics, I would say something like this:
There, that didn't require you to have been in a violent relationship to appreciate, now, did it?
DISCLAIMER: I obviously don't know if that correctly represents what goes through a battered wife's mind (or otherwise generates her emotions), but it's my best guess, and consistent with the oft-claimed inability to explain it. And, of course, it only handles the case of a marriage with children involved, not other common cases like bf/gf.
What? I suspect women who have "been there" are likely to be counselors, and would certainly understand.
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.)