Why you still love your abuser--and what to do about it

We don't talk enough about the fact that women often love their abusers.

It’s one of the saddest, and most common, dynamics I see play out in my work with survivors of abuse: A man continues to financially, emotionally, or even physically abuse his partner, and the woman keeps pleading with him to do better, reassuring him that she loves him, and apologizing for actions that warrant no remorse.

No one wants to talk about the fact that women love their abusers. Even ignoring the many reasons women stay trapped in abusive relationships when they want to leave, breakups are extraordinarily painful. Love is a potent drug that can prevent victims from acknowledging abuse, or even leave them blaming themselves, for decades. And even when they begin to see the abuse for what it is, it doesn’t necessarily break the bond to the abuser. It can even make the bond more intense, as a victim desperately tries to change her abuser, to earn his love, to relive the glory days of her relationship.

I see this all the time in the women I work with. On some level, and at some moments, they know their relationship is abusive. But then they go right back into the belly of the beast, asserting the whole time that if they just behave better he will change, and sometimes even believing that she is herself the abuser.

So what’s going on here? And what can you do about it?