Why is it many abused women cannot get over the love towards their exes that emotionally abused isolated and made them completely dependent on them?

Answer 1

It takes two to tango - and an equal number to sustain a long-term abusive relationship. The abuser and the abused form a bond, a dynamic, and a dependence. Expressions such as "follies a deux" and the "Stockholm Syndrome" capture facets - two of a myriad - of this danse macabre. It often ends fatally. It is always an excruciatingly painful affair.

People - overwhelmingly women - remain in an abusive household for a variety of reasons: economic, parental (to protect the children), and psychological. But the objective obstacles facing the battered spouse cannot be overstated.

The abuser treats his spouse as an object, an extension of himself, devoid of a separate existence and denuded of distinct needs. Thus, typically, the couple's assets are on his name - from real estate to medical insurance policies. The victim has no family or friends because her abusive partner or husband frowns on her initial independence and regards it as a threat. By intimidating, cajoling, charming, and making false promises, the abuser isolates his prey from the rest of society and, thus, makes her dependence on him total. She is often also denied the option to study and acquire marketable skills or augment them.

Abandoning the abusive spouse frequently leads to a prolonged period of destitution and peregrination. Custody is usually denied to parents without a permanent address, a job, income security, and, therefore, stability. Thus, the victim stands to lose not only her mate and nest - but also her off-spring. There is the added menace of violent retribution by the abuser or his proxies - coupled with emphatic contrition on his part and a protracted and irresistible "charm offensive".

Gradually, she is convinced to put up with her spouse's cruelty in order to avoid this harrowing predicament.

But there is more to an abusive dyad than mere pecuniary convenience. The abuser - stealthily but unfailingly - exploits the vulnerabilities in the psychological makeup of his victim. The abused party may have low self-esteem, a fluctuating sense of self-worth, primitive defence mechanisms, phobias, mental health problems, a disability, a history of failure, or a tendency to blame herself, or to feel inadequate (autoplastic neurosis). She may have come from an abusive family or environment - which conditioned her to expect abuse as inevitable and "normal". In extreme and rare cases - the victim is a masochist, possessed of an urge to seek ill-treatment and pain.

First of all they need to research "Trauma Bond". Are the feelings of love they are having actually love or vivid memories of the way that particular love felt? Can they ever realize that their abuser never really loved them and only needed someone to control and feed off of? Can women face the fact that they DID STAY with their abuser and actually DID ALLOW the abuse to continue and then forgive themselves???

First of all they need to research "Trauma Bond". Are the feelings of love they are having actually love or vivid memories of the way that particular love felt? Can they ever realize that their abuser never really loved them and only needed someone to control and feed off of? Can women face the fact that they DID STAY with their abuser and actually DID ALLOW the abuse to continue and then forgive themselves?

To understand this, I think one needs to understand the nature of the abusive relationship and exactly what it is that the abuser has taken away from the victim.

Abusers live in a world where appearances and social approval are everything. And I mean absolutely everything. They have no personalities of their own. Instead, their only aim in life is to find a group to accept them so that they can hide behind other people. Not just any group though - it has to be the "in crowd", a group which is somehow beyond reproach or criticism by society.

Remember the rich, blonde, popular kids at school? The abuser spent all his/her time desperately and pathetically wishing they were part of that golden group, without once wondering what (s)he might actually have in common and without once considering that to be part of that group they might actually have to contribute something themselves. Basically, the abuser imagines that if only (s)he can find the right "trick" or manage to ape the "in crowd" well enough then they'll finally be accepted, and nobody will ever be able to criticise them ever again.

The abuser doesn't realise how transparent he is. He imagines that the whole world thinks like him. And this is where the victim makes an entrance. A lot of people will tell you that victims are chosen for their "weakness". It's absolutely not true - in fact the reverse is the case. The victim is often chosen because, deep down, (s)he doesn't have this pathetic dependence or need for approval that the abuser does. Victims are often the kind of people who laugh at the fake, self-absorbed "in-crowd" and go their own way.

However, this emotional independence presses huge buttons in the abuser, because it completely explodes the abusive world-view. Suddenly the world is not divided into the "perfect" in-crowd and the jealous wannabe's. There appear to be people who don't take part in this game and who think it's laughable. This is utterly unbearable to the abuser. The victim must be "neutralised" otherwise it would lead the abuser to face up to reality and to the fact that his behaviour is obseqious and flattering and weak.

To preseve his own mental illness and denial, the abuser convinces himself that this independence is completely fake and a put-on to try to get attention. "Maybe this is some kind of new "in-crowd", the abuser thinks. Maybe I should be flattering this one instead? So (s)he love-bombs the victim and persuades them to start a relationship. From the victim's point of view, though, they have been honest and open with the abuser and have found someone who genuinely appreciates them for these qualities. Even though something seems "off", they take this interest as honest and get deeply involved in the relationship.

However, an emotionally independent person eventually expects that their partner will be the same way towards them. They don't want flattery and cringing dependence. The abuser is then furious because the "magic" acceptance, that they imagined they could hide behind for the rest of their life, isn't there any more. The victim "flips" in the abuser's mind into being seen as just another jealous dependent wannabe like themselves.

The victim does not understand this, though. They don't understand what changed. Someone who seemed to genuinely understand and "get" them suddenly hates them and it makes no sense. They start to question themselves, because someone who is not mentally ill looks for reasons why things happen. At this point the victim's self esteem and self-reliance becomes absolutely key, because the abuser's whole agenda at this point is to destroy it, to prove to himself that it was "fake" anyway. The more they can destroy it, the harder it is for the victim to get out, because they lose faith in their own ability to read the situation correctly.

In order to get out of the relationship, the victim would have to see the world from the abuser's point of view and realise that the whole entire thing was a lie, and that the abuser never saw anything good in them from the beginning. It is extremely difficult and traumatic for someone to realise this, especially if the relationship was a long or intense one. It puts into question the whole nature of trust and openness and relationships. Victims spend a long time in denial - trying to find some germ of genuine love or interest from the abuser, in order not to have to face the fact that none of it was real, the connection was a lie and the only interest (s)he had in them from the start was to tear them down down and "steal" their independence. That's why they "can't get over it". When they start facing the unbelievable, crass betrayal that's happened to them then that's when they start to get over it.

This is the main dynamic, anyway. Sorry it was long. This also doesn't include the dynamic where two abusers get together and try to extract from each other what they want (although these relationships are generally different and characterised by mutual violence and contempt from the start, and neither of them sit around after the relationship unable to get over it. They're too busy badmouthing the other one to anyone who will listen, and they tend to find another victim quickly).