WHY DON’T THESE WOMEN JUST LEAVE? by Elaine Weiss

WHY DON’T THESE WOMEN JUST LEAVE?

-Elaine Weiss

Why don't women just leave? That is a great question. Now re-married, the speaker divulges the fact that she was in an abusive marriage for relationship/ marriage for about nine years. Sadly, she spent nineteen years after she left trying to figure out why the abuse happened etc. This is a common trend that many abused women have. The abused always try to figure out what they did to become the abused. 

On the other hand, the outside judge's  and jury's. Many people, especially women who have never been abused always have a lot to say. They talk about what they would do in that situation. they would leave, fight him, call the police and many more. They even use this same mind set to say what the party being abused should have done. In reality, but if that situation was to truly happen many of them would not do these same things they are saying. The speaker makes the most valid point about them, it's always what the woman should have or should not have done, but in the midst of gossip you never hear the man should have stopped or never been abusive.

Furthermore, the speaker after many years has come to sympathize with the circumstances of abusers. Just as she said, many abusers are abusers because they were abused. Persons who abuse, especially the previously abused do it to feel power, control, like no one can touch them. The protagonist correlates the need an abuser to abuse to the need of a drug addict or an alcoholic to abuse drugs and alcohol. This is a pretty accurate description, because just like drugs and alcohol, it is a fact that once the abuser starts the cycle it is extremely hard for them to break out of it.

"Abuse wasn't supposed to happen to people like me." said the protagonist. This was how she felt based on the things she was taught growing up pre marriage and during marriage. The speaker grew up being taught a stereotypical way of thinking, that abuse of happened to particular types of people. Abuse living in a particular class bracket and that abusers exhibited certain behaviours. Secondly, the speaker expressed thinking that her being abused was her own fault. The image of what the great marriage of her parents looked like did not match up with what her marriage looked like and for that she blamed herself. Not only did she blame herself, she sat up at night trying to over analyze the situation to try and figure of the moment she went wrong and make excuses of analogies on what she should do the next time. 

Furthermore, the speaker thought that she could have been able to fix her marriage. Due to this thought process she chose another reason to stay. Her husband manipulated her into thinking that something was wrong with her and that she had changed from the person he had dated before marriage. She used the words that he said and thought that he was probably right and that she was unknowingly provoking this behaviour out of him. Additionally, she saying because she thought that she was overreacting. She thought that maybe the situation was not as serious as she initially deemed it. She tried to rationalize the things that he did and did not do to her and what was better than the other.

On top of that, the protagonist stayed because, she did not feel supported, and she got accustomed to living in the life of a battered woman. Then one day she finally decided that she was going to leave... and she did. After seeking more independence in her life, she began the process of taking back her power and when she finally did that, her husband cried and begged her not to leave him.