Why is it that many abused women can't stop loving their abusive ex's?

Answer 1

Several reasons: She has been programmed by shame and guilt to accept responsibility for creating the "bad" side of him and she's not sure that she really didn't. He has become her child that only a mother can love...in spite of his bad behavior. Did she really create this monster? He wasn't like this when he was charming. Is he right?...did she really make him change? Did she cripple him? Is she really so insane that she can't even realize what he tells her over and over might really be true. Is she imagining that his behavior is bad or is he simply responding to her insanity? He doesn't seem to have a grasp of reality...so, is it possible that she's kidding herself when she searches her memory for what she did to create this...and can't find what she did, when or how? He seems like a spoiled child, demanding, yet strangely helpless, but, like a child, he demands to be recognized as a capable adult... despite all proof which negates that reality. He has become her child and, regardless of his screaming demands that she stop trying to "school" him, it appears that he might fold into a helpless little ball if she deserts him...or uses the "tough love" stance to let him fall on his arrogant face. He acts like a child and responds to her as if she is his mother or servant, without realizing he is not independent, but dependant...and she's become co-dependent because she has built a prison around both of them to protect him from himself...and to protect herself from him. She's hooked. Learnt behavour!! My father was abusive. And so were the men I went on and had relationships with. I'm a fighter! Or so I think I put up with it and I fight it. But I wont leave it - because I know the routine -'learnt behavour! The term makes me sick but its true. I'm safe in an abusive relationship because I know what will happen, i read the signs I go with the flow, i take it on the chin, sometimes literally and then its all good again!! And aren't the good times -oh so good! We need to change our way of thinking and accept that placid and kind men actually can be just as much fun!!!! 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.