Why Did “You”
Why did you stay? Why did you go back to him? How could you let him treat you that way? Why are you still talking to him? You are weak. You are showing him that you are stupid.
You.
All of these statements have rolled off the tongue of people closest to you during the abusive relationship and in the months following its demise. The one surviving and enduring an abusive relationship hears: it’s you; you’re the problem. You caused this. You allowed it. But where is he in those questions? Where is the abuser in this equation and line of investigation?
This approach is akin to asking a rape victim how short her skirt was. She might say, I was raped. He raped me. He crossed a line. Response, yeah, but what were you wearing? Were you asking for it?
Asking for it. Asking for it?
Who asks to be taken advantage of, to be hurt by someone you love and someone you thought loved you, to be disregarded and put down after you’ve fallen in love and opened up your heart, to be shamed and blamed and gaslit, to be torn apart day by day when all you’re trying to do is love and be loved – name one person who wants that? I’ll wait.
Or, if someone were trying to drown you, holding your head under water, and you started to fight back for dear life, would it be ok to ask, “why did you let them drown you? Why were you in the water with them? Why did you fight back?”
These questions cannot be applied to abuse because they assume a level of logic and agency that is completely absent in the pattern of abuse and in the abuser. In an abusive relationship, you aren't simply “allowing” bad behavior. You are sucked in a cyclone of devastation. Leaving is a task of epic and seemingly impossible proportions. These questions fail to take into account the feedback loop of: pain, abuse, attack, followed by severe love-bombing and romantic gestures.
Sometimes people say “the highs are high and the lows are low.” In an abusive relationship, this is a grave understatement and mischaracterization. The lows are earth-shattering, extremely painful (mentally, physically, and emotionally), toxic, and scary – you are subject to not only emotional hardship but put in physical danger and your safety is compromised. The highs are the opposite: intense feelings of love, romance, and passion – the stuff romance novels are made of. During the highs, you experience the version of the person you fell in love with, the version you desperately miss and want to experience everyday. In this dynamic you can't discern what is real or fake, or that the version of a man during the “high” times is a fictional character – an illusion of the kind of man he isn't truly capable of being.
This flow is not a smooth coast on idyllic rolling hills, as would occur in an otherwise healthy relationship. This is no classic Sunday drive to sounds of smooth jazz playing on the car stereo. No. Here, the journey is full of severe peaks and nose-diving drops. The result? Living in constant fear, anxiety, and fight-or-flight. Your nervous system is on high alert at all times. You end up surviving physiological addiction to a person who is intentionally and continuously keeping you off-balance.
So, sure, you might ask why someone stayed, why they didn't leave sooner, why it took so long to go? But this type of questioning and thinking only protects the abuser and creates more pain and suffering for the abused. Instead, why aren't we looking upstream, at the monster who handed out the abuse?
Why did he deliver the blows?
Why did he cross the line?
Why did he lie to you when he lied to himself about who he was and what he’s capable of?
Why did he choose to dismantle a person he promised to protect?
Why did he destroy the confidence and peace in someone he said was the “love of his life”?
Why did he take your moments of success and turn them into personal attacks on him to punish you for?
Why did he lack accountability for his behavior?
Why did he become defensive and angry and mean when you brought something up?
Why did he weaponize your vulnerabilities against you and break your trust?
Why. Did. He.
The question isn't “why did she stay?” Absolutely not. The better question is, “why did he abuse?” Stop investigating the choices of the abused – those are reactions to actions shoved upon them. Start acknowledging the criminal, NOT the person who endured the crime. The “skirt” wasn't the problem. He was.
