Destigmatizing divorce is a necessity in this generation. Divorce is not a sign of failure. Marriage is not the ultimate purpose of this life, being married is not the biggest achievement and the purpose of marriage is to enjoy it and not to fight for it. If you find yourself fighting for your marriage just know that the war may never come to an end and even if you will win few battles you may still end up not winning the war.
A turbulent home is a war without end where a woman will be forced to walk on egg shells every single day and simply issues that can easily be resolved with maturity turn to a time bomb. Living in a turbulent home feels like living in a war front. The slightest issues gets over blown and misinterpreted and used against the woman. Every effort is made to belittle her and degrade her and strip her of every dignity. In a turbulent home, there is always an obvious effort to make the woman not to enjoy the home.
The man is hell bent on not letting her enjoy peace of mind. Abusive partners take everything personal, seeing you triggers them and once you accept it you are simply expected to soak it up and get used to it without complaining and see it as a way of life. What is not easy to understand is why some women choose to stay in an abusive marriage instead of running away.
First, is the Stockholm syndrome. Psychologist have discovered through series of research that when women are abused and they stick with their abusers for too long they tend to become very sympathetic to their abusers. If someone abuses you and you refuse to leave them after a period of time you will develop sympathy for that abusive person, you will tend to overlook their abusive tendencies and start to manage the situation and keep adjusting and squeezing yourself to adapt to the abusive behaviour.
The human mind is tricky and it accepts whatever is dished out to for a long period of time. For instance if you keep calling a child stupid or foolish after a while the child wills tart to exhibit stupid or foolish behaviour. Women who refuse to leave abusive marriages gradually develop Stockholm syndrome which makes them love the abusive partner and trauma bond with them deeply. They become a partner in crime in the abusive dynamics. It becomes part of their love language. They start to expect it and start to see it as part of marriage. You will hear them say something like no man is perfect or that it is better to cry in benz than to cry in keke.
They will come up with so much excuses to defend the abuser. They may even start to believe that the abuser loves them so much that he loose control and starts to hurt them. They simply brainwash themselves to continue with the abusive relationship and cope with them. Stockholm syndrome is simply a coping mechanism borne out of mental manipulation. As a woman you must be able to identify Stockholm syndrome and deal with it before it destroys you.
There is no defence or justification for abusive and even if there is it should not be coming from you as the victim. A victim must not defend evil or make it lesser. Once you stop seeing the boundaries between an abusive behaviour and a love behaviour then you are simply suffering from Stockholm syndrome.
Second, the fear of being alone or the fear of walking away from the marriage is what keeps women in abusive marriages. After a while women build their life around a marriage, the society expects them to leave their own parents, jobs, house, surnames, identity and get absorbed into the world of the man.
Women sacrifice a lot in marriage, they are forced to sacrifice their friends, relatives, families, siblings, career, health, cities they grew up, their womb, their heart, their business, their career, their social support system and a lot of basic survival mechanisms in the hope that their husband will be able to protect and provide for them but sadly many husbands do not understand the difference between being a husband and being a girlfriend. They demand submission without responsibility, they refuse to face the reality of their office as a husband.
They misunderstand the loyalty and submission of their wife and take it for granted. Submission and loyalty of a woman is a heavy sacrifice that must be compensated with huge responsibility and management to ensure that things work out well. A woman who submits to an irresponsible man is like someone throwing gold jewelry to a pig. It is a complete waste of time, emotion, life and resources. It is a very dangerous move that has led to the death of many women. The purpose of submission is protection and provision. It is against human nature to submit to what will kill you.
The only difference between a tree and a human being is that a human being will run away when he sees something that can kill her while a tree cannot run away from whatever is coming to kill it. This is a natural sensation that is even present in animals and more developed in human beings. It is a natural reaction. Women who get killed in abusive relationship have been converted from human beings to trees.
The goal of abusive men is to convert their victims from human beings to something less than a human being. The whole essence of abuse is to degrade and reduce the potential of the woman. There is nothing that a woman will do that will justify abuse because abusive men have a deep problem inside themselves. Abuse comes from deep inside the oppressor and not from the victim. Do not let any man to convince you that they abuse you because of how you trigger them.
They abuse you because of their own internal issues with themselves. Nobody goes around abusing everyone they see on the road, abusive people simply seek for the perfect victim and when you find yourself in an abusive relationship you should remind yourself that you have made a mistake and fallen into the trap of an abusive person who sees you as a perfect victim.
Another reason that makes women to stay in abusive relationship is that they get suckered in by the abusive dynamics. Abusive men are not ignorant of their evil behaviour. They simply hone their abusive skills and trap their victims with an emotional roller coaster of up and down emotional triggers. The brain works with some chemicals called dopamine and it is easy to manipulate and get people to become addicted to it. Nobody gets addicted to cocaine or weed or cigarrete they simply get addicted to the chemical reaction that it triggers.
Abuse partners are experts at triggering intense dopamine reaction in the brains of their victims. Most abusive partners follow up their abusive actions with some charming and loving actions to encapsulate their victim inside a confusing situation. With an abusive person you will always feel confused and not know what next to expect and naturally the brain finds this to be very exciting. The brain hates calm situations and always loves up and down peaks in mood. That is why great movie producers always add suspense in their movies. Research has shown that humans do not like what always stays at one point.
Abusive partners are experts at making the woman's mood to go up and down in an extreme pattern. One second an abusive partner is very very sweet and the next second they are so mean that you as a victim will not mind sticking with them until they become sweet again. This is going to be like a heroine addict, always waiting for the next high. Even though human beings are rational, nobody sits down with a calculator to calculate the rationality of their behaviour.
The best way to escape from abusive behaviour is to break the patterns and this can only be done by identifying abusive behaviour. Once you can identify abusive behaviour then your next job is to set clear boundaries and be firm about it. If you cannot take a firm stand against abusive behaviour then you should get ready to continue to suffer from it. Another thing you should do is to seek outside help. You must build a strong social support system and refuse being isolated by your abuser. Most abusers try to isolate their victims so that the abuse will not be detected. But once you build a strong social support system it will be very easy to find help.
With a strong social support system you will become less vulnerable to abuse and will be able to take a firmer stand against any abuse. Abusive marriages and relationship does not know education, wealth, age, location or any status and it is something that can happen to anyone. We have seen it happen to professors, rich women, and even women living abroad. You must find help and support if you are in an abusive relationship. There is nothing to hide about it and you must be strong and firm and see it as a battle for your survival.
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