Such sentiments are obviously nefarious when used as a conversation-halter or as an excuse for bad behavior, but can often be true.
For example, you and I probably just can’t understand what it’s like to be in a violent relationship (if you think “Why don’t they just leave?”, then you don’t get it). Counselors who work with such people don’t get it either, and helping them involves recognizing this fact.
For example, you and I probably just can’t understand what it’s like to be in a violent relationship (if you think “Why don’t they just leave?”, then you don’t get it).
Like a lot of relationship-clueless males, I have long thought that, and I accept that I therefore don’t “get it”. But really, whose fault is that? To me, this looks like Yet Another Case of a large group of people, for reasons of status, not applying the introspection, or the imagination of others’ perspectives, that’s necessary to articulate the error in “Why don’t you just leave?”
If I were to take the perspective of a battered wife and make a genuine effort to articulate the flaw in that thinking, based on the real Silas Barta’s best understanding of the psychological and sociological dynamics, I would say something like this:
“You do not see how much I have to lose by leaving this relationship. While I have suffered violently at the hands of my husband, he is still the best father I can expect my children to have, and my children are far more important to me than anything else.
“Furthermore, as a woman, for well-understood evolutionary reasons, I have a much stronger fear of abandonment and associated harm, which would be triggered by such a drastic measure as terminating the relationship. Also, because my husband is so smart, strong, and influential (part of why I was attracted to him in the first place), I fear reprisals from leaving him, and for me to risk ceding sole control of the children to him would put them in danger as well, which, again, I can’t allow to happen.”
There, that didn’t require you to have been in a violent relationship to appreciate, now, did it?
DISCLAIMER: I obviously don’t know if that correctly represents what goes through a battered wife’s mind (or otherwise generates her emotions), but it’s my best guess, and consistent with the oft-claimed inability to explain it. And, of course, it only handles the case of a marriage with children involved, not other common cases like bf/gf.
Counselors who work with such people don’t get it either, and helping them involves recognizing this fact.
What? I suspect women who have “been there” are likely to be counselors, and would certainly understand.
To pop in 3 months after the fact: I’m a man and I was once in an abusive relationship, which I left for reasons unrelated to the abuse.
Nancy hit the nail on the head when she emphasized the effect of emotional abuse; the reason I didn’t “just leave” that abusive relationship was that I had been convinced that it wasn’t in my best interest. (I’m making a conscious effort here to not generalize from my experience, though I suspect that the situation was fairly typical.) The most devastating psychological tactic my abuser used was convincing me that in each conflict that led to physical abuse, I was to blame. If I had only behaved better (by, say, not voicing a disagreement in front of our friends), then the violence wouldn’t have happened; it didn’t matter that I wasn’t the one that escalated things to that level. After all, I started it.
By refusing to let me walk away from an argument without admitting fault (using violence, if necessary), my abuser then ensured that every conflict ended with another grievance that could be used as ammunition in later arguments. If I tried to go back on my previous admittance of fault on the grounds that it had been coerced, then the problem became that I was lying in our arguments because it was convenient.
I think that one of the reasons that it’s so hard to “just leave” an abusive relationship is that abusers taboo criticizing them. And if you have an opinion that you can’t speak aloud to anyone (because abusers often cut off the ability to have private conversations with friends, because if you ever want to do anything without them you’re demonstrating you don’t love them), it becomes very hard to feel confident enough about that opinion to act on it. Abusers can just throw lots of bad arguments at you as to why they’re and you’re wrong, and trying to argue is just further proof of your unworthiness. They win on volume, not by being anything that resembles rational.
In an atmosphere of abuse, it’s very hard to find the will to leave. If I hadn’t had other reasons for leaving that relationship, I’m afraid I’d still be trapped in it today. And it’s worth noting that I’m smarter/more rational than most people. (I really dislike how arrogant that sounds, but I can’t think of a better way of formulating the idea without equivocating.)
I haven’t been in a violent relationship, but I’ve read a fair amount on why people frequently don’t leave.
One piece is that physical abuse is commonly accompanied by emotional abuse—the abuser keeps saying that the abusee is to incompetent to live on their own and too unattractive to get another mate. It’s not uncommon for people who feel they are in an inferior position, whether because of violence or just because the other person sounds very certain, to accept that sort of assessment.
There are women who stay because the man is the best father they think they can find, and leave when they realize he’s abusing their children.
I’m being gender-non-specific for most of this because, while men are apt to have more financial resources to leave and perhaps less reason to fear extreme violence, the emotional dynamics aren’t too different.
Sometimes the abuse has built up slowly. People can be very bad at judging how bad a situation has become, especially if the problems are intermittent.
Sometimes the abuser is inconsistent—alternating abuse with intense apologies and/or affection. This can make the abusee confused, especially if they’ve bought into the idea that “love” excuses everything. Not just the abuser’s claims of loving them, but that they feel love for the abuser means that the abusee shouldn’t care about their own quality of life. This isn’t just personal pathology, it’s part of the culture.
Also, abusers are apt to isolate their victims from friends and family, thus making practical and emotional help with leaving less likely.
While it’s fading, it’s not uncommon to believe (sometimes for religious reasons) that family stability should completely trump personal quality of life.
It’s financially difficult to leave.
Abusers are apt to become more violent (sometimes to the point of murder) when they feel abandoned.
I agree that it isn’t necessary to have been abused to understand, but there are different kinds of understanding.
There’s the “that makes sense to me” sort of understanding, and there’s the appreciation of feeling, detail, and implication which comes from living through a thing.
I think “you just can’t understand” has a least a few sources. One is giving up if the second sort of understanding can’t be conveyed. One is not yet having a confusing and painful situation clear in one’s mind. Another is dealing with people (and they aren’t rare) who ask painful questions without listening to the answers.
I largely agree. Using your terminology, my dispute is with those who refuse to attempt to convey the first sort of understanding, simply because they can’t convey the second sort of understanding. (Or, more generally, those who use the impossibility of passing on a high, unreachable standard of understanding, as a reason to make no attempt to communicate it to a weaker standard.)
I make a hobby of explaining things and I’m fairly good at it. I just came up with my two kinds of understanding theory when I wrote that comment.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect most people to have a handle on what sorts of understanding there are. If anyone knows of a system which includes the idea, please let me know.
What I’m hoping is clear is that if someone tells you “you just can’t understand”, it may be more about their ability to explain or willingness to expend patience rather than an absolute barrier.
The practical and emotional reasons why people don’t leave abusive relationships aren’t a secret—I can believe you thought you had to figure it out for yourself (and thank you for trying—many would have just stopped at the idea that those who don’t leave are weak or foolish) because the “you can’t understand” contingent implied strongly that there were no sources of information to be had.
Actually, googling on “why doesn’t she leave” turns up quite a bit, though some of the first few hits says it’s the wrong question.
There are many variations on a joke the goes like this:
A physicist, engineer, and mathematician are each captured by Omega and placed in sealed rooms with canned food, but no can openers. The physicist sketches the can and derives where the weakest point is, strikes the can, and opens it. The engineer looks up the weak points of the can in a table of cans, strikes it at the appropriate place, and opens it. The mathematician is found later, nearly starved, mumbling “assume the can is open!”
Suggesting “Why don’t you just leave” is like suggesting “assume the can is open.” The problem is getting to a point where leaving is viable (mentally, emotionally, etc.).
I don’t mean to say it’s impossible to “get it,” but that you, me, and most counselors who are in a situation to professionally assist people probably don’t.
The situation with abusive relationships is not analogous to the joke because it is not obvious to people who ask, why there would be such barriers to leaving a relationship (i.e. why such an assumption would be unjustifiable). People who ask “why don’t you leave” are typically not aware of the usual barriers, nor do they have any reason to be aware of those barriers.
Furthermore, the question often comes up in cases where one party did leave, but kept coming back. So no, I don’t see how the joke is helpful or how it shows poor assumptions.
What about “You just can’t understand what it is like to be an x in this society.” where x is some gender, race or other social classification?
Such sentiments are obviously nefarious when used as a conversation-halter or as an excuse for bad behavior, but can often be true.
For example, you and I probably just can’t understand what it’s like to be in a violent relationship (if you think “Why don’t they just leave?”, then you don’t get it). Counselors who work with such people don’t get it either, and helping them involves recognizing this fact.
Like a lot of relationship-clueless males, I have long thought that, and I accept that I therefore don’t “get it”. But really, whose fault is that? To me, this looks like Yet Another Case of a large group of people, for reasons of status, not applying the introspection, or the imagination of others’ perspectives, that’s necessary to articulate the error in “Why don’t you just leave?”
If I were to take the perspective of a battered wife and make a genuine effort to articulate the flaw in that thinking, based on the real Silas Barta’s best understanding of the psychological and sociological dynamics, I would say something like this:
There, that didn’t require you to have been in a violent relationship to appreciate, now, did it?
DISCLAIMER: I obviously don’t know if that correctly represents what goes through a battered wife’s mind (or otherwise generates her emotions), but it’s my best guess, and consistent with the oft-claimed inability to explain it. And, of course, it only handles the case of a marriage with children involved, not other common cases like bf/gf.
What? I suspect women who have “been there” are likely to be counselors, and would certainly understand.
To pop in 3 months after the fact: I’m a man and I was once in an abusive relationship, which I left for reasons unrelated to the abuse.
Nancy hit the nail on the head when she emphasized the effect of emotional abuse; the reason I didn’t “just leave” that abusive relationship was that I had been convinced that it wasn’t in my best interest. (I’m making a conscious effort here to not generalize from my experience, though I suspect that the situation was fairly typical.) The most devastating psychological tactic my abuser used was convincing me that in each conflict that led to physical abuse, I was to blame. If I had only behaved better (by, say, not voicing a disagreement in front of our friends), then the violence wouldn’t have happened; it didn’t matter that I wasn’t the one that escalated things to that level. After all, I started it.
By refusing to let me walk away from an argument without admitting fault (using violence, if necessary), my abuser then ensured that every conflict ended with another grievance that could be used as ammunition in later arguments. If I tried to go back on my previous admittance of fault on the grounds that it had been coerced, then the problem became that I was lying in our arguments because it was convenient.
I think that one of the reasons that it’s so hard to “just leave” an abusive relationship is that abusers taboo criticizing them. And if you have an opinion that you can’t speak aloud to anyone (because abusers often cut off the ability to have private conversations with friends, because if you ever want to do anything without them you’re demonstrating you don’t love them), it becomes very hard to feel confident enough about that opinion to act on it. Abusers can just throw lots of bad arguments at you as to why they’re and you’re wrong, and trying to argue is just further proof of your unworthiness. They win on volume, not by being anything that resembles rational.
In an atmosphere of abuse, it’s very hard to find the will to leave. If I hadn’t had other reasons for leaving that relationship, I’m afraid I’d still be trapped in it today. And it’s worth noting that I’m smarter/more rational than most people. (I really dislike how arrogant that sounds, but I can’t think of a better way of formulating the idea without equivocating.)
I haven’t been in a violent relationship, but I’ve read a fair amount on why people frequently don’t leave.
One piece is that physical abuse is commonly accompanied by emotional abuse—the abuser keeps saying that the abusee is to incompetent to live on their own and too unattractive to get another mate. It’s not uncommon for people who feel they are in an inferior position, whether because of violence or just because the other person sounds very certain, to accept that sort of assessment.
There are women who stay because the man is the best father they think they can find, and leave when they realize he’s abusing their children.
I’m being gender-non-specific for most of this because, while men are apt to have more financial resources to leave and perhaps less reason to fear extreme violence, the emotional dynamics aren’t too different.
Sometimes the abuse has built up slowly. People can be very bad at judging how bad a situation has become, especially if the problems are intermittent.
Sometimes the abuser is inconsistent—alternating abuse with intense apologies and/or affection. This can make the abusee confused, especially if they’ve bought into the idea that “love” excuses everything. Not just the abuser’s claims of loving them, but that they feel love for the abuser means that the abusee shouldn’t care about their own quality of life. This isn’t just personal pathology, it’s part of the culture.
Also, abusers are apt to isolate their victims from friends and family, thus making practical and emotional help with leaving less likely.
While it’s fading, it’s not uncommon to believe (sometimes for religious reasons) that family stability should completely trump personal quality of life.
It’s financially difficult to leave.
Abusers are apt to become more violent (sometimes to the point of murder) when they feel abandoned.
Thanks, that’s a helpful summary. (And, regarding the topic, I don’t that explanation requires one to have been abused to understand.)
You’re welcome.
I agree that it isn’t necessary to have been abused to understand, but there are different kinds of understanding.
There’s the “that makes sense to me” sort of understanding, and there’s the appreciation of feeling, detail, and implication which comes from living through a thing.
I think “you just can’t understand” has a least a few sources. One is giving up if the second sort of understanding can’t be conveyed. One is not yet having a confusing and painful situation clear in one’s mind. Another is dealing with people (and they aren’t rare) who ask painful questions without listening to the answers.
I largely agree. Using your terminology, my dispute is with those who refuse to attempt to convey the first sort of understanding, simply because they can’t convey the second sort of understanding. (Or, more generally, those who use the impossibility of passing on a high, unreachable standard of understanding, as a reason to make no attempt to communicate it to a weaker standard.)
This living with people thing is complicated.
I make a hobby of explaining things and I’m fairly good at it. I just came up with my two kinds of understanding theory when I wrote that comment.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect most people to have a handle on what sorts of understanding there are. If anyone knows of a system which includes the idea, please let me know.
What I’m hoping is clear is that if someone tells you “you just can’t understand”, it may be more about their ability to explain or willingness to expend patience rather than an absolute barrier.
The practical and emotional reasons why people don’t leave abusive relationships aren’t a secret—I can believe you thought you had to figure it out for yourself (and thank you for trying—many would have just stopped at the idea that those who don’t leave are weak or foolish) because the “you can’t understand” contingent implied strongly that there were no sources of information to be had.
Actually, googling on “why doesn’t she leave” turns up quite a bit, though some of the first few hits says it’s the wrong question.
There are many variations on a joke the goes like this:
Suggesting “Why don’t you just leave” is like suggesting “assume the can is open.” The problem is getting to a point where leaving is viable (mentally, emotionally, etc.).
I don’t mean to say it’s impossible to “get it,” but that you, me, and most counselors who are in a situation to professionally assist people probably don’t.
The situation with abusive relationships is not analogous to the joke because it is not obvious to people who ask, why there would be such barriers to leaving a relationship (i.e. why such an assumption would be unjustifiable). People who ask “why don’t you leave” are typically not aware of the usual barriers, nor do they have any reason to be aware of those barriers.
Furthermore, the question often comes up in cases where one party did leave, but kept coming back. So no, I don’t see how the joke is helpful or how it shows poor assumptions.