Why Leaving Is Not Always Simple Understanding Hope, Attachment, and Domestic Violence

~By Keli Solomon, MA, LCMHC-A, LCAS-A, EMDR-Trained

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and with that comes an opportunity to talk more honestly about what survivors experience, especially the parts that are often misunderstood from the outside.

One of the questions people ask most often is, “Why didn’t they just leave?” From the outside, leaving can look like the obvious answer. If a relationship is hurting you, frightening you, controlling you, or slowly changing the way you see yourself, then why stay? But relationships are not lived from the outside.

Domestic violence can include physical harm, but it can also look like intimidation, emotional abuse, financial control, isolation, threats, monitoring, coercion, or a pattern of behavior that leaves one person constantly trying to avoid upsetting the other. By the time someone begins seriously thinking about leaving, there may already be years of history between them. There may be children, finances, a home, shared friends, family expectations, memories, promises, fear, and hope all tangled together. Sometimes the person is not only holding on to the relationship they have. They are holding on to the relationship they still believe it could become.

Why Someone May Stay

There is never only one reason someone stays in an abusive relationship. Fear may be part of it. Money may be part of it. Children, housing, isolation, cultural expectations, concern about retaliation, lack of support, or simply not knowing what life will look like on the other side may all matter.

There is also something deeply human that happens when we have invested a large part of ourselves into something. The more time, energy, forgiveness, sacrifice, money, identity, and hope we have poured into a relationship, the harder it can become to imagine walking away from it. Leaving can begin to feel like more than ending a relationship. It can feel like admitting that everything you gave did not create the life you thought it would.

Psychology often talks about this through the idea of sunk cost. The more we have already invested, the harder it can become to stop investing. Another month becomes another year. Another apology becomes another chance. Another promise becomes another reason to wait. The person may begin telling themselves, Maybe this time is different.

When the Good Moments Make It Harder to See

One of the things people sometimes misunderstand about abusive relationships is that they are not always painful every minute of every day. There may still be laughter, affection, apologies, tenderness, gifts, good memories, family vacations, or stretches of time when everything feels calm again.

One way psychology helps explain this is through intermittent reinforcement. When painful experiences are interrupted by positive ones, the positive moments can become especially powerful because they begin to feel like proof that the relationship is changing. A person may think, This is who they really are. Things are finally getting better. Maybe this time will be different.

Then another painful episode happens, and instead of leaving, the person may begin waiting for the good version of the relationship to return. Hope becomes part of the cycle.

When You Begin to Question Your Own Reality

Abuse can also change the way someone understands what is happening to them. If you are repeatedly criticized, blamed, intimidated, or told that you are too sensitive, too emotional, selfish, unstable, difficult, or responsible for someone else’s anger, eventually you may begin to question yourself.

You may wonder whether it was really that bad, whether you caused it, whether you are overreacting, whether you should have handled it differently, or whether changing something about yourself might make the behavior stop.

Over time, your life can begin revolving around someone else’s reactions. You learn what topics to avoid, when not to speak, what mood means danger, and how to read the room before saying what you really think. Eventually, the question becomes less about what you want and more about what you need to do to keep things from getting worse.

The Role of Hope

Hope is not a bad thing. Hope gets people through grief, uncertainty, illness, hardship, and difficult seasons. It allows us to believe that people can grow, relationships can heal, and life can change.

But hope can become complicated when someone is repeatedly being harmed. A survivor may still remember who their partner was at the beginning. They may remember the affection, the promises, or the person who once made them feel safe, seen, or chosen. They may also still be holding on to the future they imagined together: a healthier marriage, a stable home, growing old together, raising children, traveling, or repairing what has been broken.

Sometimes the person is not only grieving the relationship. They are grieving the future they believed the relationship would eventually become. Letting go of that future can be just as painful as letting go of the person.

Why “Just Leave” Misses the Point

Telling someone to “just leave” sounds simple because we are usually looking at one moment. The person living it is often looking at an entire life.

Leaving may mean worrying about safety, housing, money, children, transportation, employment, immigration status, pets, family, community, or retaliation. It may also mean confronting a truth someone has spent years trying not to face.

A person may know something is wrong long before they are ready or able to leave. They may leave and return. They may make plans privately. They may tell one trusted\ person first. They may begin by simply admitting to themselves that what is happening is not okay.

So instead of asking, “Why didn’t they leave?” maybe a better question is, “What made staying feel safer, more possible, or more hopeful than leaving?” That question moves us away from judgment and closer to understanding.

What Support Can Look Like

Supporting someone in an abusive relationship does not always mean telling them what to do. Sometimes support looks like listening. Sometimes it looks like believing them. Sometimes it means helping them think through options, find resources, create a safety plan, or simply giving them space to say out loud what they have been trying to make sense of for a long time.

It may also mean reminding them that they do not have to decide everything today. Respecting autonomy matters because abuse often involves one person taking power, voice, and choice away from another person. Support should not repeat that pattern by taking over the survivor’s decisions.

Healing can begin when someone finally has enough space to tell the truth about what they are experiencing and begin deciding for themselves what safety, dignity, freedom, and peace look like. That is true whether or not they identify with the word survivor.

Support Is Available

If you or someone you know is experiencing relationship abuse, the National Domestic Violence Hotline offers free, confidential help 24/7 at 800-799-SAFE (7233), by texting START to 88788, or through live chat at TheHotline.org. If you are in immediate danger or facing a life-threatening situation, call 911.