Whenever people hear about individuals who are stuck in toxic or abusive relationships, often one of the first questions they ask is “why don’t they just leave?” or “why did they choose to stay?” From the outside, it may appear like leaving is an easy option, but at times it is not as easy as it looks. To understand this, we need to understand the dynamics of a toxic relationship. At the start of a relationship, abusive people don’t reveal their true selves and project a false image of themselves.

They engage in something called love bombing, where they give their partners a lot of affection and attention, exaggerated compliments like “you are the best person I have ever met” or “our love is no one else’s”, they want to move very quickly in the relationship and make things official soon, they give lots of gifts etc. This hooks people in, especially those who have a history of abuse or neglect, as they didn’t get a lot of these met in childhood.

As relationships progress and people become committed, they gradually withdraw their attention and affection. After this, the next thing they do is gradually begin the abuse in small ways that could look like getting very upset when you set healthy boundaries, accusing you of things you never did, name calling and saying things like “you are crazy, dumb, stupid etc.” Gradually this may even escalate into physical, verbal or psychological abuse. While such things happen at times abusers may suddenly start behaving very nicely just after the abuse and engage in love bombing again. This is known as intermittent reinforcement where in the abuse is never consistent at times such people are very abusive and at times they behave very well.

This confuses the people stuck in such relationships as they believe since this person is not consistently abuse and they begin questioning themselves by asking, is it my fault or am I doing something wrong to cause this? This is especially the case with people who already had negative past experiences that has affected their self-esteem or it could be people who keep on giving benefit of doubt to this person hoping things will go back to how good they were in the past even though that hope never comes true. Also intermittent reinforcement is addictive as it works on the same principle as slot machines, keeping people stuck.

At times there are cultural and financial barriers as well that make it hard for people to leave these relationships. Also abusive people also isolate their victims from other people like friends, family and other close relationships due to which it is harder for them to receive help from others. Lot of times abusive people might create scenarios for people where it is harder for them to leave before they begin the abuse. At times they might threaten victims with severe consequences if they try to leave their relationships.

Since there are a lot of factors involved into why people might find it easy to just leave abusive or toxic relationships. It is important for people to understand their situation instead of asking the question- why don’t you just leave? A better question to ask people who are in toxic or abusive relationships is how can I help you? At times when people who are stuck in such relationships do get professional help they do manage to get insight, awareness, tools to heal their past wounds and eventually feel confident enough to leave these relationships.