(Update: All the posts of this series have been collected into one piece, Seven Reasons Women Stay in Abusive Relationships, and How to Defeat Each One of Them.)
Just a quick note to say that tomorrow on this blog I’m going to begin a series of seven posts, each dealing with one of the seven reasons I think women tend to stay in relationships they should leave. Though I may not write them in exactly this order, those seven reasons will be:
1. Having to Create a New Self Image. (Nurturing, forgiving, healing, self-sacrificing martyr: OUT. Self-Preserving, selfish [bad word that rhymes with “itch’]: IN. Not an identity switch a lot of women are comfortable making.)
2. Fear of the Unknown. (Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, and all that.)
3. Too Embarrassing. (Ah, the allures of public failure.)
4. Playing Your Family’s Old Tapes. (So often succeeding in life means psychologically breaking with—betraying, really—one’s family. Tough stuff.)
5. You Love the Lovable in Him. (Everybody’s got an angel in them; you keep loving the one in him. It’s real; it’s there; it’s not helping.)
6. How Could He Be So Different From You? (You simply can’t fathom that he really is exactly the person he keeps proving himself to be.)
7. He lies.
Lately I’ve received some very touching testimonies from women seeking input from me and my readers about difficult relationships they’re in, so here and there I may interrupt this series in order to present such letters. Please don’t hesitate to send in such a story of your own if that’s something you’ve been wanting to do; I’ll be sure to deal with it in whatever way you request.
All right, then! Until tomorrow! Be here! Or be … well, somewhere else.
Here’s the follow-up to this post: From Selfless to Selfish: 1 Reason Women Remain in Bad Relationships
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In