(This article is part of an Ethiopian Review weekly series that is intended to highlight and help stop the growing problem of domestic violence in the Ethiopian community.)
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Many people who are abused by their intimate partner just want the violence and abuse to stop, but they don’t want the relationship to end. But even when they do want to get out of the relationship with the abuser, it’s hard.
Under the best of circumstances, it is not easy to end a relationship with an intimate partner. Love, family, shared memories, and commitment are bonds that are hard to break. Cultural or religious beliefs may be barriers to ending a marriage. Immigration status may be another obstacle. While ending a relationship is hard for everyone, women who are abused face the added risks of physical, emotional and psychological harm. There are risks that come with every decision an abused woman makes.
There are many good reasons why it may be difficult to be safe or to end a relationship with an abusive partner. The choices abused women are faced with are not risk-free. Leaving is not always the safest or best option.
Risks of Getting Help or Deciding to Leave
Risks of physical violence and psychological harm
- Threats and violence will get worse, resulting in harm to victim, children, friends, family, or pets.
- Abuser will follow through on suicide threats and harm himself.
- Continued harassment, stalking, and verbal and emotional attacks, especially if the abuser has ongoing contact (such as during court ordered visitation).
- Serious physical harm and/or death.
- Rape or sexual abuse.
Risks to Children
- Emotional, physical, or sexual abuse; possibility of increased risks to children if the abuser has unsupervised or poorly supervised visitation.
- Losing children if the abuser kidnaps them or gets custody of them.
- Negative impact on children as a result of “breaking up the family.”
Risks to Finances
- Concern about being able to pay legal fees.
- Reduced standard of living – possible loss of home, possessions, neighborhood.
- Losing income or job – possible loss of partner’s income, may have to quit a job to relocate or to take care of the children alone, may be prevented from working because of threats and harassment.
Risks to Relationship
- Losing partner, losing the relationship.
- Losing help with children, transportation, household.
- Losing caretaker (for older women or women with disabilities).
Risks to Relationships with Family, Friends and Community
- Negative responses from friends, family members, and helping professionals.
- Not being believed or taken seriously, being blamed, being pressured to take actions that don’t feel right.
- Being judged as a bad wife, partner, or mother.
- Making people feel uncomfortable about “taking sides” or not wanting to get involved.
- Worrying about being a burden to friends and family by asking them for help.
- Being pressured to stay in the relationship because of religious and/or cultural beliefs or because the children “need a father.”
- Worry that actions of people trying to help may actually make the situation more dangerous.
Safety Planning & Risk Assessment
No abused woman has control over her partner’s violence, but women can and do find ways to reduce their risk of harm. Safety planning is a tool to help you to identify options, evaluate those options, and come up with a plan to reduce your risk when faced with the threat of harm or with actual harm.
There’s no right or wrong way to develop a safety plan. Use what applies. Change it or add to it to reflect your particular situation. Make it your own, then review it regularly and make changes as needed.
You may want to write down your safety plan, or you may not. If you think it would be safe for you to have a written safety plan and it would be helpful to you, then by all means do it. But if you think there is a chance your abuser might find it, maybe it is better to just think it all through and not write it down. Do what you think is the safest thing for you.
Use What You Already Know
If you have been abused by an intimate partner, you probably know more about safety planning and risk assessment than you might think. Being in a relationship with an abusive partner – and surviving – takes a lot of skill and resourcefulness. Any time you do or say something as a way to protect yourself and/or your children, you are “safety planning.” “Risk assessment” is when you decide if taking a specific action will make things better or worse. You do it all the time, without even thinking about it.
Think It Through
Now that you know more about what safety planning is, it can be really helpful to assess risks and make safety plans by thinking through all the issues. There are certain things that are helpful to consider when planning for your future safety:
- Staying with your partner.
- Ending your relationship.
- Using services.
- Involving the police.
Safety Planning for Every Situation
Safety plans can be made for a variety of different situations:
- For dealing with an emergency, such as when you are threatened with physical violence or abuse has occurred.
- For continuing to live with or to date a partner who has been abusive.
- For protecting yourself after you have ended a relationship with an abusive partner.
If you are planning to leave your partner or have already left, be aware that abusers are often more violent during times of separation. This couldincrease your risk for harm, including stalking and serious or life-threatening injury. Making a separation safety plan can help reduce the risks to you and your children during and after a separation.
Identify Your Options
The value of any safety plan depends on coming up with options that make sense to you and that you can use. This publication will provide information on the help available from local domestic violence programs and the criminal justice system. But just as important is the help and information you may get from other places, including your own family and social supports. Some of the people and places where you might find support include:
- counselor, social worker, therapist;
- doctor, dentist, nurse;
- friend, family, neighbor;
- a spiritual leader or member of your faith community;
- employee assistance program (EAP), supervisor, union, co-worker;
- staff member at women’s centers or senior centers;
- teacher, school counselor, parent teacher association member; and/or
- department of social services caseworker.
The important thing is for you to identify all the possible people who might be willing and able to help you. You don’t have to wait for an emergency to ask for help. It’s a good idea to talk to people and find out what they’re willing and able to do for you. That way, you’ll know in advance if you have a place to stay, where to go for help with money, or a safe person who can keep copies of important papers for you.
If it is safe for you to do so, you may want to make a list with their phone numbers so that you’ll have it in case of an emergency. If you don’t know where to go in your community, you can call the NYS Domestic and Sexual Violence Hotline for information about a program in your community.Most people really do want to help.
The more specific you can be, the more likely it is that you’ll get the help you need. Sometimes the people you trust may mean well and offer you suggestions that don’t seem right to you. You will have to decide if this information is best for you. It’s your call.
(Source: New York State, Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence)
7 thoughts on “Why do Abused Women Feel Trapped?”
Men are getting abused in western country, our women are getting greedy, to get child, spouse support and to take home,house and money.
That is why they play as ABUSED.
They feel traped because the American legal system backs the men’s allegation and puts women behind bars whether the allegation was founded or not . For example recently Oklahoma City Police arrested a woman accused of stealing a lottery ticket from her sexual partner, while she insisted she received it as payment for sex.
Alemayehu Yitayew, 43, told police he bought a winning lottery ticket worth $750 at JRS Travel Center at Reno and Martin Luther King on Friday, October 21. He said he tried to cash it in at the convenience store, but was told he’d have to do it at the Oklahoma Lottery Commission the following Monday.
Yitayew told police he returned to his room at The Quality Inn across the street from the convenience store. He said the suspect, 25-year-old Kyla Lee Smith, knocked on his door Sunday evening. He invited her in and the two had sex.
Yitayew said Smith left around 5:30 a.m., and at 7:30 a.m. he realized the winning lottery ticket was missing from his pants pocket.
According to the police report, Yitayew went to the lottery commission on Monday, October 24, to report the ticket stolen. He presented his receipt, which showed he bought the ticket. While Yitayew was at the commission, Smith showed up with the lottery ticket and attempted to cash it in.
When police arrived to talk to Smith, she denied stealing the ticket. She told police she ran into Yitayew at the convenience store on Friday and he asked her if she needed anything. She said he handed her the lottery ticket right after he bought it, and the two of them had an understanding that it was a payment for sex sometime in the future. Smith said she’d had sex with Yitayew several times in the past.
An investigator at the lottery commission said Smith had previously told him a different story. He said Smith had told him she received the lottery ticket on Saturday night as payment for sex when she went to Yitayew’s room.
The lottery commission investigator planned to view surveillance video from the convenience store to determine if Yitayew gave the ticket to Smith. Meanwhile, police arrested Smith on a complaint of receiving/stealing stolen property.
Why do Women Stay in Abusive Relationships? Hmmm…
The question, “Why do women stay in abusive relationships?” involves a wide range of complicated issues. Statistical evidence suggests that most women continue to stay with their family despite a constant barrage of domestic violence on them. This can range from verbal abuse to physical abuse and even threats to kill.
It seems so simple and rational that women who are subject to constant abuse would leave their house and live free from fear and violence.
However, women continue to stay in abusive relationships for various reasons.
Why Do Women Stay in Abusive Relationships then?
1. Financial Dependency: Most women are engaged in household work and bearing and raising children. This is the major reason why some women continue to stay in abusive relationships. They do not get a proper education or job-oriented training. As a result, they are dependent upon their partners or other members of their family from financial point of view. Their biggest problem is how to survive if they leave their homes.
2. Lack Information: A number of social and religious organizations work for the rehabilitation of women who escape abusive relationships. However, most women who are subject to domestic abuse are not aware of these rehabilitation programs and continue to stay in their abusive relationships.
3. Emotional Factor: Another answer to the question why do women stay in abusive relationships is that they have deep feelings of love and emotional bondage for their abusive partners. Most of the women believe that their abusive partners will improve their violent actions, and they will eventually lead a peaceful life.
4. Another reason is that the women are more attached to their children. They continue to stay in the abusive relationships for the sake of their children.
5.Social Values: In most societies, women are made to think that their whole life is meant to see after the welfare of their family. They are not supposed to leave their homes under any circumstances. Many times, the women who do leave their homes to escape domestic violence do not get proper treatment or support in society. This social stigma and its subsequent feeling of insecurity is another reason why women continue to stay in abusive relationships.
6. Psychological Dependency: Constant physical and verbal abuse and death threats create a sense of fear among the victims of domestic abuse. Women think that if they leave their home, there is a very real threat to their life and their children. Many women are killed when they try to leave. When a women is leaving is the time when the women is in the greatest danger.Constant abuse makes women so psychologically dependent that they fail to accurately judge what is right and what is wrong for them. They fail to take any independent decision. As a result, they are left with no other option but to stay in abusive relationships.
Why do women stay in abusive relationships? For all the reasons listed above, as well as many others. But at the end of the day there is no reason good enough to actually justify staying.
How can intimate partner domestic abuse be prevented and stopped?
Effective solutions for preventing intimate partner abuse include providing economic opportunity, mentors, role models who are survivors of domestic violence, organized community programs for youth and families and a school environment that promotes prevention of abusiveness in any relationship. Adult family members can help prevent domestic violence by being nurturing and by providing consistent, structured supervision. Raising the awareness about intimate partner violence in society at large, as occurs during Domestic Violence Awareness Months can be invaluable to educating people about this issue.
According to research, everyone can help find ways to stop domestic violence, either by donating money or time to a domestic-violence organizations, associations, community centers,etc. learning more about the problem, teaching children about healthy versus abusive relationships, listening in a nonjudgmental way to a domestic violence victim when he or she shares what they are going through, and giving victims information about where to get help.
Supporters of intimate partner abuse victims can also discourage sexist jokes and remarks, boycott movies that lavishly depict intimate partner violence and violence against women, and write legislators to support laws that protect and otherwise support intimate violence sufferers. Advocacy can further involve encouraging one’s own health-care providers to post information about the issue. In the workplace, those who want to help stop to domestic abuse can organize a drive or fundraiser for goods or money to give to a domestic-violence victims and community support groups, etc.
“Life is all about challenges.To become a successful over comer,you don’t have to allow obstacles become an impediment but rather a stepping stone to your goals.” ~Unknown philosopher
Thank you for highlighting this issue. Please, don’t be discouraged by the luck of comments. From my personal experience I think one of the list talked about problem is luck of respect. I think when people feel weak and disrespected, they go find someone they can exercise they power on.
I greatly appreciate for posting this educational information. it shows how serious you are when it comes to defending our sisters.
thank you.
What a timely subject, I really commend you for hammering on this issue. I just want to add that while women are mostly prone to abuse, there are men who get abused but are not brave enough to come forward for fear that society and the system won’t support them. They just simply continue on living a difficult life. Yes, discussion on this topic will have a major impact in the development of our community. I believe that domestic violence and abuse is a major indicator of where the standing of a community is.
In the west, it is rather the opposite. Women are the ones abusing men. Because of it, men got violent and take unnecessary action over their partners. Women have to live either the western or the ethiopian life. They simply can not have it both ways. The consequences is exactly what we have been witnessing for years. They end up either being killed or abused as never to survive from.