The Real Choice II

Okay so I stayed with my abuser because I couldn't risk him getting visitation rights if I left and I thought I could protect them better from him if I was there. Of course as in all things this was just one factor, but it was the one thing that always stopped me. Yes, I hoped he would change, yes I tried to get him to change, yes I still loved him. I still do. So it wasn't some cold calculated step on my part. It was the final deciding factor. So many times people outside an abusive relationship make judgements about what the person being abused should do, without necessarily thinking through the possible consequences of those choices. Many women stay out of a very realistic fear that they will be killed if they try to leave, or that their children will be forcibly taken from then and they will never see them again. Many with children leave and find that their relationship with the children's father worsens and the father takes it out on the children. These are not easy choices and those who judge really don't know what they themselves would do when faced with such choices