Why didn’t you leave?

Nov 13 2021 Updated February 20, 2022

Deborah Thomson

Victims of abuse are asked this: why didn't/don’t you leave? Or: if it is so bad at home, why do you leave and then go back?

They are the wrong questions.

These are questions that stigmatise victims of family abuse. The conversation needs to change. We should be asking, “Why did that man perpetrate violence towards that woman?” (Physical violence is a gendered issue. Statistics show males physically abusing females in greater numbers than the reverse.)

Those outside of an abusive relationship, as well as asking why the victim does not leave their abuser, also question why acts of violence are often not reported to police at the time they occur. In my case (see below for an extract from my book Whose Life Is It Anyway? Recognising and Surviving Domestic Violence), abuses perpetrated from 1986-2003 were not reported within a reasonable time after the event nor were the injuries I sustained, made known because:

I was afraid of his violence if the police became involved.
I feared him immensely. In my eyes he had become immensely powerful.
He threatened to kill me on several occasions and swore he would shoot me if I tried to take the children with me.
His family, particularly his mother compounded my fear of losing the children by telling me that they would do whatever it took to keep the girls with their father. I had no rights as far as members of Wayne’s family were concerned and I had no allies outside that family with whom to find support.
After beginning a relationship with Wayne (not his real name), I quickly developed low self-esteem and became paralysed into doing nothing to help myself. Learned helplessness reinforced by my belief that I was worthless, that no one would believe me if I disclosed his abuse. I was an outsider, isolated in Wayne’s town. I was completely alone without my own family and friends to help strengthen me emotionally. As soon as I married him, Wayne restricted contact with my family interstate and was so rude to my friends that I associated only with his family and friends.
I was physically isolated and controlled. The children and I were locked in on our property with no means to leave unless we walked.
I didn’t leave for so long because communication was made virtually impossible. In many abusive situations, victims aren’t always willing or able to communicate with family, friends or others. Sometimes guilt and shame, or fear, may prevent victims communicating to others. Apart from guilt or fear, an abuser will take away or hinder their victim’s ability to communicate. This could be by removing or controlling phone or computer usage, and monitored, timed phone calls.
I felt that others would judge me if I told them about my abuse or would think that I was unable to keep the one long-term relationship I had, intact. Societal pressures at the time reinforced the idea that it was a woman’s job to keep the man in the relationship happy.
I was afraid that others would blame me for being abused.
I was afraid that my children would be taken from me because I would be perceived as being the bad parent for not leaving.
I wrongly believed that Wayne was normal deep down, so he would stop responding to me in an abnormal way and realise his behaviours were hurting me, or he would stop being abusive if I became the woman, he said he wanted. I was desperate to be that ideal, thinking that if I were, he would stop his abuse.
I felt so alone after being isolated for so long by the abuser, and I did not know who to reach out to. The one person I told in the early stages, Wayne’s mother, told me I had nothing to complain about and that anything Wayne might have done was my fault, that I wasn’t looking after him properly, or I wasn’t a good wife. Her words made me feel guilty and responsible. I accepted her criticism and didn’t tell anyone else about the abuse, thinking they’d have the same reaction.
As mentioned, the abuser often isolates a victim physically and removes contact with a victim’s friends, family, and work associates. In my case, we worked together in our business so the only time I did not spend with him and his friends and family, were the once-a-year visits by my family to our home, and the once-a-week shopping day in town. (I found out that the movements I made on that one day in town for shopping were being monitored by Wayne’s friend.)
I lost my identity. I existed only for him and his family to abuse me and vent their anger and frustrations out on. I had no friends left and saw my family for three days once a year. I only talked to people he allowed me to talk to, I lived my life within the limited confines he gave me permission to live, so it felt as if I was in solitary confinement, completely under another’s control.
I would like to add that family violence is a complex issue. Although these are my reasons for not leaving, they may not necessarily be the experience of every victim suffering in silence under such circumstances. However, there are typical arguments for why almost all victims do not leave their abuser, when they should. And as we are now aware; a victim, especially a female victim and their children, are most at risk of an escalation of violence in the relationship at the point of leaving, as an abuser senses they are losing control.

They are overwhelmingly compelled to regain that control, often at any cost. (And my argument for victims not leaving an abuser is mainly in the context of the female victim and male perpetrator, because most often a victim does not leave their abuser due to the intense fear they experience under the threat of extreme physical violence from the abusive partner. Men who are abused more often experience emotional, psychological, and financial abuse. While these forms of abuse are by no means less trauma-inducing than physical abuse, the immediate risk of escalated violence against the victim when considering leaving an abusive relationship, adds a heightened danger to the situation.)

To give the reader more clarity to the question “why doesn’t she leave?” I append an extract from my first book Whose Life Is It Anyway? Recognising and Surviving Domestic Violence.

“This book is an attempt to explain what is perhaps the unexplainable: why the abuse I was subjected to didn't compel me to leave, particularly in the beginning, when it should have been so much easier to leave.

Deborah Thomson moved to Tasmania with her daughter in 2010, and now lives with her partner of nine years and a parrot. She moved to escape domestic violence and, inspired by her new partner, wrote her first book, Whose Life Is It Anyway? Recognising and Surviving Domestic Violence, to help others recognise abuse (and in particular coercive control), in the home, and to increase their motivation to leave earlier. After publishing her first book, she became a trained advocate through Engender Equality, a non-government Tasmanian organisation working with people and communities impacted by family violence. Deborah Thomson advocates for survivors of family violence, speaking at domestic violence events across Tasmania, through media channels and podcasts. She recently completed a second book, detailing lived experience with domestic violence by her then husband, spanning 17 years from 1985 to 2003. This book is now used in Tasmania as an information resource for family violence counsellors and students on practicals.