(Update: All the posts of this series have been collected into one piece, Seven Reasons Women Stay in Abusive Relationships, and How to Defeat Each One of Them.)

I’ve recently been writing on 7 Reasons Women Stay in Bad Relationships. Yesterday morning, in response to What Others Might Think: Reason #3 Women Stay in Bad Relationships, Pt. 2, I received a message on my Facebook page from a woman who, the night before, had been physically abused by her husband.

Below is Marion’s original note to me, as well as the responses to it that came in from others. I’m posting it all here for two reasons. Firstly, I’m amazed at how comprehensively they capture the range of thoughts and emotions that typically surround episodes of domestic violence. Secondly—and much more importantly—I’m hoping that those who read it will leave for Marion comments of prayers and support to help get her through this very difficult time. I know she is looking forward to reading such words of encouragement.

I changed the names of both “Marion” and her respondents, since only my “friends” can see my Facebook page.

So here we go:

Marion Stewart at 9:40am February 25
Well John last night I became one of these women! My husband grabed me by the neck & thru me into the kit. cabnets , when I tryed to move he pushed me again. I tryed to call the police and he grabed the phone and thru it and broke it. I had to hide in my son’s closet and call the Police on my son’s phone. They made him leave our home, now it looks like DIVORCE . After only two months of Marriage. And I know after past relationships this will not work.

John Shore at at 9:56am February 25
Oh, God, Marion: That’s terrible. Just awful. I’m so terribly sorry this happened to you.

Janice Stone at 10:08am February 25
I’m praying for Marion. What a horrific thing to have happen.

John Shore at 10:11am February 25
Thanks, Janice. That’s the way to do it. I hope Marion reads of your prayers.

Sandra Carpenter at 11:11am February 25
Marion, as terrible as your situation is, be proud of the fact that you are standing up for yourself and for your son and not staying in this destructive relationship. God bless and I pray you will find healing and true happiness.

John Shore at 11:22am February 25
That’s exactly right. Thanks, Sandra.

Julie Lipton at 11:26am February 25
Why did we jump from this to divorce?

John Shore at 11:31am February 25
Um … because after being married for only two months he took her by the neck and threw her into some kitchen cabinets, and then shoved her, and then broke their phone when she tried to call for help? I mean … are you serious?

Cathy Butterton at 11:50am February 25
The outcome of constant abuse, especially the kind of violence Marion experienced, is never good. How can staying in a relationship where you are thrown into cabinets, being shoved and bullied … glorify God? Marion, I’m concerned for your safety. Did you get a restraining order and maybe even move? It doesn’t sound like a rational human being you are dealing with—and, Julie Lipton, until you have been treated this way, and walked away while your life and sanity are still in tact, you will never know what kind of courage it takes to not be a victim.

John Shore at 11:59am February 25
Amen to that.

Julie Lipton at 12:09pm February 25
Marion….my heart truly hurts for you and what you are going through. I did not mean for my comment to be offensive in anyway and if it came off like that….I am truly sorry. Thank you Cathy…. I suppose I thought that there might have been some steps in between this and divorce … sorry for the misunderstanding on my part.

Cathy Butterton at 12:58 Februarly 25
My mother-in-law left her abusive husband after a lifetime of violence. But the years of staying with him took its toll on her, as well as her children. Luckily my husband is a loving, Christian man, but his childhood was a trainwreck out of which God rescued him.

Carla Singer at 1:56pm February 25
Julie Lipton, I think I know what you mean. Sometimes there can be steps in between of separation and the chance to get help and repair the relationship. Totally depends on the people involved, and the degree to which the abuser wants to change. And sometimes it can be successful, with a whole BUNCH of accountability and counsel and stuff. Not that I’m implying that’s the case here. Only Marion can know if it’s even a possibility … kinda sounds like not. But I digress. I agree that the most important thing is for Marion to get to a place where she’s safe. We’re supporting & praying for you Marion.

John Shore at 2:13pm February 25
What Ms. Lipton meant (I know because she wrote me on the side) is that the Bible only allows for divorce due to adultery and abandonment, not for physical abuse. She herself is in an abusive relationship, but remains out of fidelity to what she believes the Bible commands her to do.

Carla Singer at 2:15pm February 25
Ah. Bummer.

Marion Spillman at 8:56am February 26
Dear Friends: I am O.K. and the kids are O.K.  just a little shaken!

Thanks for all the sweet calls & notes thoughts & prayers. Although I got a called last night by one of Stevens family members and told that it was not a good Ideal for me to go public with what Steven did in lou of what he might do to me when he finds out.

My Thought is this!

That person has NEVER ever called me even once in the last yr I have lived with Steven not even to say Congradulations on the marrage to her brother, and never even asked if me or the kids are O.K.

But [she] felt it o.K. to criticize me for my actions.

One more reason WE DON”T TELL!

I will not apologize for asking my friends & family for prayers.

Also Steven took apart the home computer so I could not use it. So I have to go to the Library in the next town over. (No Library in Yantis Tx) So I will have to get back to all as I can.

Again thanks for all the heart felt LOVE & SUPPORT to all my friends & family.

Love,

Marion

***************************************************************************************************************

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(Update: All the posts of this series have been collected into one piece, Seven Reasons Women Stay in Abusive Relationships, and How to Defeat Each One of Them.)

I have collected all my posts in this series into a 41-page document, entitled: “Seven Reasons Women Stay in Abusive Relationships (and How To Defeat Each One of Them),” and made it available here on Scribd.com for free downloading and/or online reading.

In my last post I wrote about the (too easily underestimated) role that fear of public embarrassment often plays in keeping a woman mired in a bad relationship. While choosing personal pain over public shame is certainly a human enough choice, it’s one no one should continue to make once the cost of that trade becomes too consistently oppressive. Eventually, it’s just not worth it. If the fire in your house is between you and your clothes, sooner or later you must run out of your house naked. Emergencies prioritize needs, every time.

If you’re a woman who’s beginning to question whether the natural and understandable kinds of fears I wrote about in my last post are worth what it’s costing you to remain in a bad/abusive relationship, consider the following two points:

1. No one cares that much. One of the weirdest things about being human is that we all think we’re starring—or at least have serious supporting roles—in the life of everyone around us. But that’s just a crazy delusion God thought it would be funny to hard-wire into us all. The truth is that we’re each starring in our own show—and there’s just not a lot of room on anyone’s stage for anyone else but them. One of the great things about the intensely focused centrality of everyone in what is to them the ongoing, dazzling production that is their life, is that it means that nobody really cares all that much about what’s happening in the relationships of other people. Sure, they might care for a minute or two; everyone’s always down for a little choice gossip. But, unless they drop dead on the spot, what inevitably happens is that while they’re thinking or talking about you, their life continues—and then they’re right back on their stage again, totally engrossed in the sheer drama of their own life. If everyone around you gets suddenly shocked by your revelation that, instead of being happily married, you’re leaving the man whom you say treated you terribly, they’d totally think and talk about you for about fourteen seconds. And then they’d move on. Think about it: That’s what you always do whenever you learn about some drama in someone else’s life, especially if—as is true with marriages and relationships—that drama was a direct result of what amounts to choices made by the parties involved. If you heard about someone else breaking up with their husband or wife, you’d kind of care. But mostly you wouldn’t. The key is to remember that everyone else is just like you.

2. It’s wonderful to know who your friends are. Let’s say there are some people in your life who condemn you for breaking up with your man. Cool! You want a spotlight on those people, so that you can finally see them for the low-life cretins they are. Think of the money you’ll save by not buying Christmas and birthday presents for those losers! As I said in my last piece: a person not impressed and encouraged by another person radically improving their life is a person wasting away in their own toxicity anyway. One of the great benefits of going through the kind of personal cataclysm that can be breaking up with your man is that all around your life it rattles away the wheat from the chaff. And a big part of what that means is that you really and truly find out who your friends are. And that’s always surprising in two ways: By how destructively useless some of your “friends” turn out to be, and by how many people whom you may have never even considered friends step forward to love and support you. And the latter group always outnumbers the former; for every one “friend” that effectively turns against you, three other people in your life will surprise you by the quality of love they will show you in your time of need. So don’t worry about what other people will think of you if you break up with your man. You want to know how they’ll react, so that you can discover who they really are. You can’t flush out a skunk without beating the bushes. And when the skunk finally does come out, all you can do is hope it doesn’t spray too much on you, and then let it scurry away to stink up someone else’s life.

I have two more huge things I want to say on this on this subject, but this post is already too long. So tomorrow!

Hey, please pass this post along to anyone whom you think it might help. Thanks.

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(Update: All the posts of this series have been collected into one piece, Seven Reasons Women Stay in Abusive Relationships, and How to Defeat Each One of Them.)

Today we’ll consider as a factor that often contributes to women continuing in relat.ionships they should leave the natural desire not to be publicly embarrassed.

The bottom line is that no one likes having their dirty laundry aired in public. But if you’re a woman who is considering breaking up with your husband (or a man with whom you’ve been in a long-term relationship) because he is emotionally or physically abusive to you, then part of what you’re facing is knowing that carrying through with that break-up means that a lot of  people who know you are going to know a lot more about you than it’s likely you ever wanted them to.

And none of what they learn will be pretty. They’ll learn that as a way of life you allowed yourself to be abused, maligned, shamed. They may learn that for all the time you told them how happy you are in your relationship, you were lying. If there are children involved, they may learn that, to whatever degree, you morally transgressed against your maternal obligation by not sooner getting those children out of that situation.

And if you’re a church-going Christian woman then you may understand that once you initiate a divorce from your husband, some members of your church are going to condemn you for so failing to embody the love of Jesus that your marriage fell apart.

Fear of this kind of public humiliation may not be the primary factor keeping a woman in an abusive relationships, but it can carry significant weight. We are all social creatures, and want few things less than we do our private shame becoming public.

At a zoo I once saw an ape who had to pee turn his back on those of us at the observation rail so that he could secure for himself at least that much privacy.

If an ape so desires to keep his business private, how much more must we? (Relax, creationists: this isn’t the same as saying we come from apes. Though, in truth, looking at the embarrassed expression on that ape’s face as he looked back over his shoulder at us whilst tending to his biological need made it a little difficult to imagine we’re not in some profoundly organic way connected to that particular order of being. I sure never noticed my dog minding who sees him pee.)

So. More Monday on how to overcome the fear of what you must do in private becoming known in public. For now, let me just say to any woman who might be in need of immediate galvanization: [expletive deleted] what other people think. A person not impressed and encouraged by another person radically improving their life is a person wasting away in their own toxicity anyway. Caring what such a person thinks of you is like deciding that dog doo-doo on them enhances the appeal of your new pair of shoes.

More Monday. (Next piece on John tomorrow.) Thanks.

Please forward this post or any of the others from this series to anyone whom you think it might help. Thank you.

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(Update: All the posts of this series have been collected into one piece, Seven Reasons Women Stay in Abusive Relationships, and How to Defeat Each One of Them.)

Yesterday, instead of writing about my third reason women stay in bad relationships (which is that it’s embarrassing to have a relationship to which you’ve been long committed go publicly down in flames), I wrote Women in Bad Relationships: Eve’s Curse Isn’t Yours. At the end of that post I said that today I’d write a bit more on that subject. So here we are!

The additional thing I wanted to say about the fact that oftentimes bad men use the love of their women as tools against their women is that the reason bad men do this is because all men, to a degree lots of women have all kinds of good reasons not to fully appreciate, want power. And men don’t want power in the way they want a great pair of shoes, or a boat someday, or that cool car with the spinning hubcaps, or whatever. Men want power with a sustained, instinctive intensity with which they want little if anything else in their lives. A man’s need for power is a low-level but constant hunger that never leaves him alone, that is never too far off his registering radar.

And men crave power so much they’ll take it in virtually any form they can get it. And they won’t give up an iota of their power that they don’t absolutely have to—and whenever they do have to surrender any of their power, they’ll harbor resentment against that offense like Packo the Wonder Elephant will remember the time Snarko the Clown teased him with a peanut he then ate himself. (Um … forgive the totally made-up metaphor. I’m in a bit of a hurry here: the beans I’m using in my soup for tonight are almost ready! And I still have to prepare the vegetables!)

Yes, we macho men crave power.

And here’s the thing about that: all men, in one way or another, feel, deep in their … well, bones … that they’re macho men. Because it’s about the testosterone—not the height, or the shoulder-spread, or … the belt notches, or whatever.

Every man, by virtue of his gonads and hormones and muscles and all that, feels … manly. And pretty much the descriptor of “manly” is Almost Desperately Craves Power.

A healthy man excercies his drive for power to the benefit of The Good.

An unhealthy man couldn’t care less about what’s good. “Good” is something outside of him—something greater than him, something beyond him. So he hates it—because what’s “good” isn’t about him. An unhealthy man seeks to exert his power in a very personal, focused, one-on-one sort of way (that’s usually done in private because he knows it makes him look weak to the rest of the world). An unhealthy man likes to see those with less power than he squirm beneath him. He gets off putting fear into the eyes of others. He likes to belittle people whom he knows will, for whatever reason, take it. He’s addicted to the little thrill he gets degrading those with less power than he; he loves to keep them guessing, keep them dancing, keep them doubting.

And one of the main things about an unhealthy man of this sort is that he can smell a woman who will succumb to him. It’s manna to him. He knows that smell like he knows … well, the smell of his own mother, usually.

God, I have a feeling I’m never going to blog about anything else. I could write about this stuff until my fingers drop off.

So. More tomorrow. (And I promise I’ll get back on track with this series.)

The point, for now, is that if you are a woman who just can’t seem to extricate yourself from a relationship with a man who is emotionally or physically abusive to you, then you’ve got to understand that what you’re doing is allowing a man who is too lazy to accrue unto himself any real power in the world an opportunity to enjoy the most attractive and terrible kind of power there is: The absolute power of one human being over another.

Do me a favor, and join my Facebook page so I can keep writing this kind of stuff, instead of … having to do other work I’d rather not. Knowing people like you matters to publishers.

(Update: All the posts of this series have been collected into one piece, Seven Reasons Women Stay in Abusive Relationships, and How to Defeat Each One of Them.)

Last time we identified four fears that often keep women in bad relationships: “Things could always get worse”; “I’ve never been alone”; “Will I ever find another man?”; and finally, “I’ll have no money.” So let’s take those one by one, and see if we can’t strip them of their power.

“Things could always get worse for me if I leave this bad relationship I’m in.” No, they really couldn’t. Being in a bad relationship is the worse. Being every single day in a million little ways discouraged, dismissed, belittled, ignored, angered, disappointed, condescended to and/or emotionally or physically abused is as bad as it gets. If that describes your life, then congratulations! You’ve bottomed out! From where you’re at, you can only go up. Allowing yourself to be consistently maligned by someone who is supposed to love and support you is hell, pure and simple. There is no place worse than hell. Get out.

“I’ve never been alone.” But that’s a bad thing. You will love living alone. There are deep, true, ever-resonating rewards to living alone that simply cannot be had any other way. Your car. Your house. Your fridge, filled with your food, prepared the way you like it. Your bed, your furniture, your TV shows, your pet, your plants, your chair where you sit every morning and enjoy your cup of coffee. Your life. It’s absolutely glorious. You’ll love it.

“Will I ever find another man?” Right now, do you really care? Is that really your #1 concern these days? Don’t let it be. For now, just get out of the bad relationship you’re in, make a new life for yourself, and let “finding” a man take care of itself. You’ll meet someone; there’s a world of good men out there also looking for mates. You can relax about that. Besides, the best way to “find” a man is to quit looking for one. (On this topic you might also want to read my Looking for Mr. Right? You’re Missing the Point, and God Doesn’t Care if You’re Married or Not).

“But I’ll have no money.” The first thing about this fear is to make sure you’re being realistic about it. It’s too easy to see money as an emotional issue instead of what it is, which is something in the world that’s real, tangible, and of absolute, objective value. So get real about it. Will you actually starve out there? If you divorce your husband, won’t that leave you with enough money to at least get started? Will you really be out of money—or will you just have less of it than you’re used to? If it’s the former, then that’s a real thing that needs to be addressed. If it’s the latter, then realize that you’re putting money, of all things, ahead of your own spirit, heart, and self.

Also, ask yourself where you’ll be in ten years. If you stay in the bad relationship you’re in, how will your life be better ten years from now? Because if you leave—even if you leave with just the clothes on your back—in ten years your life will be quantum leaps better. In ten years you’ll have a whole new life. You can always get money. But you can’t get back one day of your life. If you’re worried about the effect money will have on you leaving, think instead of what it’s costing you to stay.

Also, plan. If you know you’re going to leave your man, and you know doing so is going to take money you don’t have, then get money. Tell your husband you want to work part or full-time—and then squirrel away as much of your paycheck as you can. Yes, it’s deceitful. But nothing less than your life is at stake. If the cost of saving your own life is lying to a man who’s been treating you poorly every day and has proved himself someone you have to lie to in order to secure your own well-being, then lie to him till your smile muscles ache. God will forgive you. But get money, and take as much time as you need (or can) to get as much as you can. (And to that end, do well at that job you get. Get raises. Get promotions. Create as full a world as you can for yourself to step into, come the time.) Talk about your plans with your trusted family member; see if they can help. Confide in your true friends; they may have good advice and/or Actual Resources for you. Avail yourself of the fact that people love to help people who are trying to improve their lives—and especially people they care about. Generally, go animal. This is about survival. So look into every area of your life that might prove a resource to you, make it a resource, and start collecting, on the side, what you need in order to make it on your own in the world.

Finally, if you’re in a situation where your husband won’t let you work, then you’re in a special and dire category of concern. You need to call the domestic violence shelter in your area, and get them involved. They know exactly what to do in cases like yours; please trust that you’ll be absolutely amazed at the sheer experience they have helping people just like you safely extricate themselves from situations just like yours. Once you call a domestic violence agency—or any “We Help People” non-profit type of agency in your area—you’ll immediately be plugged into the whole network of organizations in your area that are functionally connected with whatever agency you contacted. It’s awesome, because then you’ll be into state money and resources. Those people will have you in a nice place safely hidden from your husband as soon as you can pack your bags and catch the cab they’ll send out to get you. And they want to help you—to rescue you, to give you a place to live, to teach you whatever life skills you want or need to learn—because that’s how they get paid. Their funding depends upon helping individuals like you. So never worry that you can in any way be an inconvenience to an organization like that. Just the opposite is true. They need you to call them. You’re part of their purpose.

One of the main ways bad men keep their women where and how they want them to remain is by isolating them from the rest of the world. If you’re a woman whose husband/man has done that to you, understand that the idea you may have in your head that you are alone in the world is pure, 100% illusion. No one is alone in this world. There are a ton of good people out here eager for the chance to help you. Pick up the phone; get a job; make your plans; collect your finances—do whatever you have to do. But please: Join us. You make all of us stronger when you decide to be.

One last thing: It’s okay to be afraid. Don’t think that being afraid means you’re weak, or stupid, or anything like that. It just means you’re human. Everyone is afraid of all kinds of things in life; a lot of things in life are scary. So forgive yourself for being afraid, if you are. It’s normal. Don’t let your fears paralyze you; don’t let them define you. But give them their place. Acknowledge them—and then, one by one, start dismantling them.

Pleeeeeease pass this post along to anyone you think it might help.

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(Update: All the posts of this series have been collected into one piece, Seven Reasons Women Stay in Abusive Relationships, and How to Defeat Each One of Them.)

In From Selfless to Selfish: 1 Reason Women Remain in Bad Relationships and From Selflessness to Selfishness: Go, Xena, Go!, we looked at one reason women too often stay in bad relationships. Today we’ll look at another factor that tends to keep women rooted in relationships from which they really should extract themselves: Fear of the unknown. There are few things in life as paralyzing as fear of the unknown. “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t” goes the old saying—and that’s a song to which many dance in place their whole lives long. But fear is real; and a woman in a bad relationship can have a lot of fears that are as legitimate as wanting to know where her and/or her kids’ next meal is coming from. Let’s now take a look at four of the different forms or aspects of the one Big Fear that tends to freeze women in relationships from which they know they should break out. 1. Things could always get worse. A lot of women in bad and especially abusive relationships know this all too well; very often their lives haven’t exactly been leaping up from one fantastic plateau to the next. There is comfort in the devil you know: the fangs of the next one might be longer, the nail sharper. 2. “I’ve never been alone.” This one’s massive. A lot of women have never been on their own: they went from their father’s home to their husband’s. You take a woman who’s never from the ground up had to build an Actual Life for herself, and you’ve got someone who (besides perhaps lacking the practical knowledge of things like doing taxes, or fixing fuse boxes or water heaters, or whatever) likely lacks a paradigm of herself in the kind of leadership role she needs to assume if she’s going to become captain of her own ship. She simply can’t imagine herself being the final authority in her own life. She tries to imagine that—and gets a blank. And a blank is unknown. And the unknown is frightening. unknown future 3. “Will I ever find another man?” This is a huge swath of the Big Unknown. Few women want to be perennially single—and yet most cringe at imagining themselves hittin’ the ol’ dating scene. There’s so much competition out there. All the decent guys are already married or in committed relationships. I’d embarrass myself on a dance floor. What if I never find anyone? What if I die single? These and a thousand similar thoughts ricochet through the minds of a lot of women when they think of themselves newly alone. And it tends to make them a lot more interested in sticking with whatever they’ve got. 4. Money, Honey. Lots of women who’ve spent too much of their lives dominated by men lack marketable job skills. Being financially dependant upon their husbands is of course the reason so many women stay right where they are, no matter how bad that place may be. Better to eat in prison than starve while free. That’s a terrible formula; but, alas, it’s one that defines the core dynamics of many women’s lives. Tomorrow we’ll talk about how each of these fears can be addressed and absolutely overcome. Please pass this piece—or any piece from the series—to anyone whom you think it might help. Thank you. Help me by joining my Facebook fan page here.

(Update: All the posts of this series have been collected into one piece, Seven Reasons Women Stay in Abusive Relationships, and How to Defeat Each One of Them.)

If you saw yourself in yesterday’s description of a woman who stays in a bad relationship because she’s resistant to changing her self-image from Healing Nurturer to Selfless Terminator, then it is absolutely vital for you to understand that the least healing and nurturing thing you can do for yourself and the people you love is to remain in a bad relationship. There’s virtually nothing you can do that’s more healing to yourself and those around you than to once and for all kick a bad man out of your life. Here are some reasons that’s true:

1. It’s extremely encouraging to others. The people who care about you want both you and them to be okay. You having the inner strength and wisdom to rid yourself of a bad man not only shows them that you’re okay, it also models for them how they can be okay, too. Seeing others take definitive steps toward healing themselves greatly encourages others to do the same thing in their own lives. Healing begets healing.

2. It refutes the Women as Victims model. Children grow up to build relationships just like the ones their parents had. Mothers who remains in bad relationships every single day teach their children that the natural role of women is to be hurt and demeaned by men, and that the natural role of men is to treat women like garbage.

3. Enabling a person to act poorly only hurts them. You do a man no favors by allowing him to continue to treat you shabbily. You don’t train a dog to stop biting by letting it chew on your leg. Enabling dysfunctional behavior can’t help but make it worse.

4. No one changes anyone. You can think, imagine, and dream that somehow, some day, you will change him. But he will only change when, how, where, and if he wants to. Period, end of story, close that lame, ancient fairy tale.

5. You are in a life and death situation. Just because it’s happening slowly, bit by bit every day, doesn’t mean that remaining with a bad man isn’t destroying your life. Drowning an inch at a time is still drowning. You don’t get another life. This is your life. Get desperate about improving it.

6.You are alone. You have exactly two choices: Take the steps necessary to save yourself, or suffer till you die. No one is going to come riding in on a white horse and make your life all better for you. Either do it yourself, or you wait till you die for someone else to. (Even when it comes to turning to God for peace and understanding: that’s something you have to do. God doesn’t make a habit of entering rooms into which he hasn’t been invited.)

Please forward this article along to anyone you think it might help or encourage.

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(Update: All the posts of this series have been collected into one piece, Seven Reasons Women Stay in Abusive Relationships, and How to Defeat Each One of Them.)

You know how when your driver’s license expires, you put off going to the DMV for so long you end up on “America’s Most Procrastinating”? And why do you so resist getting a new I.D.? Because, pleasant-wise, it ranks right up there with getting your hair caught in an egg beater.

And that’s just getting a new card identifying who you are. How much more painful is it to acquire an actual new identify?

A new identity is what a lot of women think they’re going to have to assume if they force a break-up with their man. In their heart of hearts, many women believe that initiating and securing a permanent separation from their former Mr. Right means irrevocably transmogrifying from the Selfless Conciliator they’ve always been, to a Selfish Terminator they never imagined themselves being.

Whether via nurture or nature, a lot of women identify themselves as Uplifting, Self-Sacrificing Healer. Their understanding of who they are is deeply vested in their fulfillment of the role of dutiful daughter, supportive mate, loving mother. They’re the ones to whom others turn for comfort and counsel. They heal. They support. They sustain. They forgive. They sacrifice. They reconcile. They … well, take to the role of Emotional Martyr like Flipper takes to water. Which in a great many ways is certainly a beautiful thing. Where would any of us be if none of us knew how to put others first?

But you take a woman whose identity is inextricably bound up with her self-image as a Sacrificing Giver, put her in the position of really having to choose between herself and the man to whom she once pledged her love, and what very often happens is her internal life splits. She’ll have no idea what to do. She’ll have no internal emotional paradigm for assuming the role of Xena, Relationship Terminator.

Selfless, she knows. But selfish? Not so much.

I think I’ll leave this here for now. Maybe for each of these seven reasons women stay in bad relationships I’ll do two posts: the first for defining the problem, and the next for articulating its solution. Trying to do both in one post will make that post too long. So. Two for each. Sound good?

If you think anyone you know might benefit from this series, please pass it along to them. Thank you.

The follow-up to this post is From Selflessness to Selfishness: Go, Xena, Go!

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(Update: All the posts of this series have been collected into one piece, Seven Reasons Women Stay in Abusive Relationships, and How to Defeat Each One of Them.)

Just a quick note to say that tomorrow on this blog I’m going to begin a series of seven posts, each dealing with one of the seven reasons I think women tend to stay in relationships they should leave. Though I may not write them in exactly this order, those seven reasons will be:

1. Having to Create a New Self Image. (Nurturing, forgiving, healing, self-sacrificing martyr: OUT. Self-Preserving, selfish [bad word that rhymes with "itch']: IN. Not an identity switch a lot of women are comfortable making.)

2. Fear of the Unknown. (Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, and all that.)

3. Too Embarrassing. (Ah, the allures of public failure.)

4. Playing Your Family’s Old Tapes. (So often succeeding in life means psychologically breaking with—betraying, really—one’s family. Tough stuff.)

5. You Love the Lovable in Him. (Everybody’s got an angel in them; you keep loving the one in him. It’s real; it’s there; it’s not helping.)

6. How Could He Be So Different From You? (You simply can’t fathom that he really is exactly the person he keeps proving himself to be.)

7. He lies.

Lately I’ve received some very touching testimonies from women seeking input from me and my readers about difficult relationships they’re in, so here and there I may interrupt this series in order to present such letters. Please don’t hesitate to send in such a story of your own if that’s something you’ve been wanting to do; I’ll be sure to deal with it in whatever way you request.

All right, then! Until tomorrow! Be here! Or be … well, somewhere else.

Here’s the follow-up to this post: From Selfless to Selfish: 1 Reason Women Remain in Bad Relationships