The misunderstood reality of staying with an abusive partner

Update - 16-10-2025

Staying is not weakness—it is often the quiet endurance of someone still searching for their way back to freedom.

Staying with an abusive partner is not stupidity. Some people like to claim it is—saying things like, “You can just walk away if you want to.”

But the truth is this: enduring abuse feels like being caught in a pair of pincers. You can’t simply think your way out of it when your mental strength has been eroded. It has nothing to do with intelligence.

Sometimes, because of your emotional or psychological state, your mind chooses to ignore the red flags it already sees. The mind doesn’t operate separately from the rest of our life—it is deeply intertwined with everything we experience.

People stay for many reasons: fear, dependency, children, hope, love, shame, or the belief that things will change. Some stay because they no longer recognize themselves outside the relationship—their self-image has been reshaped by years of control. Others stay because leaving feels more dangerous than enduring. What looks like weakness from the outside is often a complex web of survival, loyalty, and longing for safety.

To understand this complexity is not to justify the abuse, but to recognize the depth of human entanglement—how pain and hope can coexist in the same heart.

Healing begins the moment you believe your freedom matters. It starts quietly, in small acts of self-care, in reaching out, and in remembering your worth.

Freedom is not a sudden escape—it is a slow, steady return to yourself. A soft awakening of strength that was never truly lost.

— Thierry Limpens