Abusive Relationships

On a serious note, throughout almost everyone’s life, we have either witnessed an abusive relationship or have been involved in one. Either way, both are extremely painful. The reason I want to talk about abusive relationships and friendships is because I have had similar experiences, and sometimes I wish I had someone who had slapped me in the face when I was in middle school and said, “This is not a good relationship!” However, I think that, sometimes, we have to go through something the hard way in order to actually learn a life lesson.

Today, we will be discussing why it is so hard for women to escape abusive marriages. I found an article that told stories about women in married relationships, and it also explains the reasons why it took these women so long to leave. This kind of research is fairly difficult to come by because most researchers are nervous to discuss these particular issues because that means getting both sides of the story, which can be debatably dangerous.

In this article, a main topic is the fact that emotional abuse can be equal or more damaging than physical abuse because this can remind the woman that they can be physically abused anytime, having them live in constant fear. In fact, these researchers created a “code” to identify the prescense of emotional abuse (Jacobson, 2007, pg. 34). With this code, they collected some interesting data about men in the relationships. In one statistic, whenever the couples got into heated arguments, 20 percent of the men who were batterers had their heart rate go down (Jacobson, 2007, pg. 35). In the end, these men were far more emotionally aggressive compared to the men who got aroused in arguments. However, they were proven to be far more dangerous to their wives compared to the other men. They were referred to as “Cobras” in this study (Jacobson, 2007, pg. 35). Furthermore, this study revealed that these “Cobra” men did not have one divorce or abandonment at the end of this study. Instead of being constantly threatened with fear like most abusers, these “Cobras” controlled and manipulated their wives to their biding.

The stereotype for many abusive relationships is that women have a problem with leaving these relationships. Ironically, this study reveals that women in domestic violence marriages actually leave. The divorce rate is very high in these relationships (Jacobson, 2007, pg. 136). In terms of how women got out of these marriages, the researchers of this article suggested that these women had a realization that their dream for the marriage was never going to happen. Therefore, they were determined to get out. In their research, these women’s moods went from “fearful and sad to disgusted and contemptuous of their husbands” (Jacobson, 2007, pg. 139). However, despite the growing percentages of women leaving their husbands, it is still incredibly difficult for them to leave. Cobras, as we discussed earlier, are incredibly manipulative. The study says that they keep their wives by isolating them, and this is highly effective because, in turn, they do not have any support system besides their abusive husband, and ultimately is incredibly lonely. There was even a slight discussion about marital rape, which is often swept under the rug for many law officials because of some states saying that there is “no such thing as rape in marriage.”

Personally, I found this article fascinating and eye-opening about the conditions of women in abusive relationships. In the future, I want to find some articles about abusive relationships where the man is the abused in the relationships. I hope that this article was helpful to you, and it possibly helped with your own personal situations.

On a side note, I am sorry I did not post last week! I started to not feel well, and I was not feeling up to posting anything! Thank you guys for your patience!

Works Cited

Jacobson, Neil S., and John Mordechai Gottman. When Men Batter Women: New Insights into Ending Abusive Relationships. Simon Et Schuster, 2007.