Many women tolerate abuse from their men, both physically and mentally. Even now as I am writing this article, women are being abused. The statistics is frightening and alarming. Did you know that " around the world one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during their lifetime." (US Department of Justice, 1995) Even more disturbing is that this abuse from men could be fatal. One report conducted on American women stated, "in the year 2000, 1,247 women were killed by an intimate partner." (Bearu of justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, 2003)

I believe that there are several reasons behind why women tolerate abuse from their men. Unfortunately I have insight into this area as I was a victim of physical violence by my partner at the time for 16 years. The primary reason why I think women put up with this abuse is because they think that they love them. They fear leaving them, as they do not want to lose them. Their self esteem is so low after suffering years of abuse that they believe that noone else will want them. Men often put women down in these situations and call them every name under the sun, degrading them until they feel worthless. Common thoughts running through your head at the time, is nobody will ever want me, I am not good enough.

In addition, another reason women stay in these volatile relationships is that they hope that they will change. I wish now that I listened to friends and families advice, "a leopard never changes its spots." Sure they may stop for a short while but in the end they always end up abusing again. Unless of course they have had serious help from counselors and psychologists. Women in this scenario often hang onto any ray of hope that they can, any glimpse of a change so they can save their relationship.

Furthermore, another factor is that it becomes a vicious cycle. Women don't know how to leave, they are so use to being physically and emotionally abused. You start to forget what is a normal relationship. You often don't look at it from an outsider's perspective. Sadly some women believe that most men abuse their partners, I know this was one of my common beliefs. It is not until you separate from the relationship, you can then take the blindfolds off and see the relationship for what is was.

Things become more complicated on the other hand if you share children together. I have 2 children, one of which was his child. I was scared to leave as I thought at the time I was doing the wrong thing by my child taking her away from her daddy. But I am so thankful now that I decided to leave I have saved my children many years of suffering and psychological damage.

As you can see from the above points, there are numerous reasons why women tolerate abuse from men. These reasons listed above have not even touched the surface, there are many more. However there is hope for these women. If they can get family support and help from domestic violence groups and most importantly work on building their self esteem, so they can realize that they no longer have to put up with the garbage that their abusive partners dish out.

Learn more about this author, Kiran Mckenzie.
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