Why Do We Ask Women to Stay in Abusive Marriages?
Sometimes, the first question a woman hears after opening up about abuse isn’t "Are you okay?" It’s "What about your marriage?"
Have you ever noticed how quickly people become concerned about a marriage when a woman says she is being abused?
Suddenly, everybody has something to say.
"Think about your children."
"Marriage is a like a school where you learn"
"No marriage is perfect."
"Have you tried to make it work?"
"Don't leave your husband because of a small misunderstanding."
And, of course, the ever-present reminder that she made a vow to stay with him through good times and bad.
But somewhere in all these conversations, I find myself wondering something.
When did keeping a marriage become more important than the well-being of the people inside it?
Why is the first instinct to convince a woman to stay, even when she has explained that staying is hurting her?
Why do we sometimes spend more time discussing how she can save her marriage than asking what is happening to her?
And why does a woman sometimes have to reach the point of physical injury before people begin to take her situation seriously?
These are questions worth asking because the pressure to remain in an abusive marriage doesn't always come from the person causing the abuse.
Sometimes, it comes from the people who claim to love the woman.
“Think About Your Children”
This is one of the first things people say to a woman who is considering leaving an abusive marriage.
And I understand why.
Children are involved.
Their emotional well-being matters.
Their stability matters.
Nobody wants to see children grow up in a broken home.
But I think we need to ask ourselves what we mean when we tell a woman to stay for her children.
Are we considering the kind of environment those children are growing up in?
Are we thinking about what happens when they regularly witness their mother being insulted, threatened, humiliated, or physically hurt?
Are we considering the lessons they might learn about love, marriage, and how people should treat one another?
Children can be affected by abuse in the home even when they are not the direct targets.
They may learn to stay quiet when someone is angry. They may begin to see intimidation as a normal part of a relationship. They may become anxious about conflict or feel responsible for keeping the peace between their parents.
Of course, every child and family situation is different. Leaving an abusive home can also bring practical and emotional challenges, and a child's safety needs careful consideration.
But telling a woman to stay simply because she has children doesn't automatically protect those children.
Sometimes, we need to look beyond whether both parents are living under the same roof and ask whether that home is safe.
A home is not automatically a healthy home because the family is still together.
And preserving a marriage should never mean pretending that what happens inside it doesn't matter.
“Every Marriage Has Problems”
Yes, every marriage has problems.
Two people can love each other and still disagree. They can argue over finances, parenting, household responsibilities, and countless other things.
Marriage requires patience, communication, compromise, and the willingness to work through difficult seasons.
But we need to stop putting every marital problem in the same category.
There is a difference between two people having an argument and one person repeatedly using intimidation, threats, humiliation, or violence to control the other.
There is a difference between a disagreement in which both people can speak freely and a situation in which one person is afraid of what will happen if they disagree.
There is a difference between a difficult season in a marriage and a repeated pattern of abuse.
When a woman says she is being abused, responding with "Every marriage has problems" can make her feel as though she is exaggerating something that should simply be endured.
It can also make her question her own experience.
Perhaps she begins to think she is being too sensitive. Maybe she tells herself that other women have it worse. Perhaps she decides to keep quiet because nobody seems to understand the difference between what she is experiencing and an ordinary marital disagreement.
And so the conversation ends without anybody addressing the actual problem.
We need to understand that acknowledging abuse is not the same as declaring every imperfect marriage a failure.
It is recognising that some situations require more than patience and compromise.
Sometimes, what is needed is safety, external support, and serious intervention.
When Family Becomes Part of the Pressure
Imagine finding the courage to tell someone what is happening in your marriage.
Perhaps you tell your mother.
Perhaps you confide in a sibling or a close friend.
You are not necessarily asking them to make the decision for you. Maybe you simply need someone to listen, someone who will take you seriously, or someone who can help you figure out what to do next.
Instead, the conversation becomes about how you can avoid bringing shame to the family.
Your parents worry about what people will say.
Someone tells you that you cannot abandon your marriage because of what outsiders might think.
Another person insists that you should be patient because all men have their shortcomings.
And before you know it, the burden has suddenly shifted from you coming to look for support because you were being hurt, to you now being made to feel responsible for protecting everybody else’s reputation.
This is one of the difficult things about abuse, the person experiencing it may have to deal with the behaviour itself and the pressure from people who don’t want the situation to become public.
In some families and communities, divorce or separation carries a stigma. People may worry about family honour, religious expectations, or the possibility that younger relatives will be judged because an older relative's marriage has ended.
Those concerns may be deeply rooted, but they do not make abuse acceptable.
A woman's suffering should not become the price her family pays to maintain a respectable image.
And if someone trusts you enough to tell you that they are being abused, perhaps the first thing they need is not a lecture about protecting the family name.
Perhaps they need to know that their safety matters to you.
The Role of Religion and the Idea of Endurance
For many people, marriage is not just a relationship. It is a sacred commitment.
Their faith shapes how they understand marriage, forgiveness, commitment, and the responsibilities of a husband and wife.
There is nothing wrong with valuing those principles.
The problem begins when religious teachings or interpretations are used to convince someone that enduring abuse is their duty.
A woman may be told to pray harder, submit more, forgive again, or trust that her husband will eventually change.
She may be reminded that leaving is wrong without anyone asking whether she is safe.
She may even begin to believe that speaking up means she has failed as a wife or failed in her faith.
Forgiveness does not require someone to remain exposed to harm.
Prayer does not mean ignoring danger.
And the value someone places on marriage should not be used to silence them when they are being abused.
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People can hold different religious beliefs about marriage and separation. However, those conversations should not be used to dismiss someone's safety or prevent them from seeking help.
If a woman approaches a religious leader for support, she should be able to speak honestly about what she is experiencing without being pressured to return to an unsafe situation before her concerns have been taken seriously.
Faith can be a source of comfort and strength.
It should not become another reason a woman is afraid to ask for help.
Sometimes, She Doesn't Have the Money to Leave
This is the part of the conversation I wish more people would consider before asking a woman why she hasn't left.
Leaving an abusive marriage can be complicated, particularly when a woman depends financially on her partner.
Where will she live?
How will she feed herself and her children?
Who will pay their school fees?
Does she have a job or a reliable source of income?
Does she have somewhere safe to go?
Will her family support her, or will they send her back?
These are not small questions.
For someone with savings, a secure job, and a reliable support system, leaving may be difficult but financially possible.
For someone who has spent years outside the workforce, has no savings, and is responsible for children, the situation can look very different.
She may know that what is happening to her is wrong and still struggle to see a practical way out.
She may have considered leaving several times.
She may have even tried before, only to return because she could not afford to sustain herself and her children.
And when people ask, "Why does she keep going back?" they may not understand the circumstances she is trying to navigate.
Financial dependence can make a person vulnerable to control, especially when their partner restricts their access to money, prevents them from working, or uses financial support as a way to threaten them.
This is why simply telling a woman to leave is not always enough.
Sometimes, meaningful support means helping her identify safe accommodation, access financial assistance, obtain legal advice, find childcare, or connect with organisations that support survivors of domestic abuse.
It means understanding that the decision to leave may require planning, resources, and time.
And it means not judging someone simply because their circumstances do not allow them to make the decision others think they should make.
Why Do We Hold Women Responsible for Fixing the Abuse?
Something else I have noticed about conversations surrounding abusive marriages is how quickly the focus shifts to what the woman should do differently.
Perhaps she should communicate better.
Perhaps she should be more patient.
Perhaps she should stop doing things that make her husband angry.
Perhaps she should learn how to handle him.
But why is the person experiencing the abuse so often expected to find the solution to someone else's behaviour?
Of course, people in relationships can reflect on their actions and learn healthier ways to communicate.
But there is a difference between working through a disagreement together and asking one person to manage another person's abusive behaviour.
A woman can communicate respectfully and still be abused.
She can be patient and still be threatened.
She can fulfil her responsibilities as a wife and still experience violence.
There is no perfect way for a woman to behave that guarantees another person will never abuse her.
Responsibility for abusive behaviour belongs to the person choosing to engage in it.
We can encourage people to seek help, establish boundaries where safe, and make informed decisions about their circumstances without suggesting that they caused the abuse or could have prevented it by being a better spouse.
And perhaps this is one of the most important changes we need to make in these conversations.
Instead of asking only what the woman can do to save her marriage, we should also ask what the person causing the harm is doing to stop it.
Because a marriage cannot become healthy simply because one person learns to tolerate more pain.
What Should We Do When a Woman Tells Us She Is Being Abused?
I don't think there is one response that fits every situation.
Some women may be ready to seek help immediately. Others may still be trying to understand what is happening to them.
Some may want to leave but lack the resources to do so safely. Others may be afraid of what their partners will do if they discover that they are seeking help.
Their circumstances will differ.
But there are things we can do that are more helpful than immediately telling them to stay or leave.
We can listen without blaming them.
We can take their concerns seriously instead of dismissing them as ordinary marital problems.
We can ask whether they are safe and what kind of support they need.
We can help them identify trusted people and appropriate services.
Most importantly, we can respect their dignity.
A woman experiencing abuse does not need to be humiliated for remaining in the relationship.
She does not need to be called foolish for struggling to leave.
And she does not need people making every decision for her in the name of helping her.
She needs support that recognises her circumstances and helps her understand the options available to her.
We may not be able to solve every problem she faces, but we can stop making it harder for her to speak about it.
A Marriage Is Not More Important Than the People in It
I keep coming back to the same question.
Why are we sometimes more concerned about whether a marriage survives than whether the people in it are safe?
Why do we worry so much about what the community will say when a woman leaves, but so little about what she has been enduring behind closed doors?
Why is it sometimes easier to advise a woman to forgive than to ask the person hurting her to take responsibility?
And why do we sometimes treat a woman leaving an abusive marriage as a greater tragedy than the abuse that made her consider leaving in the first place?
I understand that marriage is important to many people. I understand that families want to remain together and that separation can bring emotional, financial, and practical difficulties.
But we need to be honest about something.
The goal should not be to keep every marriage together at any cost. The goal should be to ensure that the people in those marriages are treated with dignity and are safe.
A marriage is a relationship between people. It should not become an institution whose survival matters more than their well-being.
If a marriage is struggling, support, counselling, communication, and mutual effort may help.
But where abuse is present, safety must come first. Joint counselling or reconciliation should not be treated as a substitute for addressing abuse, particularly where intimidation or violence makes it unsafe for a person to speak freely.
And if a woman decides that she cannot remain in an abusive marriage, she should not have to carry the additional burden of convincing everybody around her that her safety matters.
We need to stop making women feel that protecting themselves means they have failed.
We need to stop treating endurance as the highest measure of a woman's worth.
And we need to understand that supporting marriage should never mean excusing abuse.
Because sometimes, the question we should be asking is not, "What can she do to save her marriage?"
Sometimes, it is simply,
"What has she been going through, and how can we help her be safe?"
