Have you ever wondered why anyone might become addicted to an abusive partner and simply cannot leave them for long?
As most adults know, a lot of women seem to have a great deal of emotional difficulty leaving an abusive spouse. In fact, some women will stay forever with such a spouse, though he (or she) destroys their mental and emotional well-being, crushes their self-esteem, and — perhaps — even threatens their lives or the lives of their children. And, sometimes, abused men have much the same problem leaving an abusive spouse as abused women do.
However, it now appears that science is in the process of revealing the underlying reasons why (1) women seem to have such difficulty leaving an abusive spouse, and why (2) women seem to have much greater difficulty than men leaving an abusive spouse. But to understand what science has to say about it, we must begin by discussing popular notions of love.
If you ask most people who are in lasting relationships — including marriage — to describe love to you, they will most often describe the warm and fuzzy feelings that oxytocin produces in us of trust, love, and so forth. Oxytocin is a neurochemical that creates in us the emotions we usually associate with our most important emotional bonds to other people. Such as our warm and fuzzy emotional bonds to our kids, to our parents, to our siblings, and to our spouses. When people talk about their feelings of love for someone, they quite often describe the emotions produced by oxytocin.
Oxytocin is highly addictive. Some scientists even describe oxytocin as being more addictive than heroin. And — although it doesn’t have all that much to do with newly minted romantic love, oxytocin seems to very frequently dominate the feelings we have in long-term, lasting relationships. It’s addictive qualities are cumulative. That is, the longer you are physically with someone, the more oxytocin will bond you to them.
Like many addictive chemicals, oxytocin does not immediately produce withdrawal symptoms. Usually, there’s about a three (3) day wait between your last oxytocin fix and the onset of withdrawal symptoms. So, if you are like most of us, then you can expect to go from two to four days before you start missing — painfully missing — someone to whom you are heavily bonded.
To put all of the above in context, a woman leaving an abusive relationship has roughly three days before the onset of oxytocin withdrawal symptoms, when she will discover that she is painfully missing her ex. And, according to some scientists, those withdrawal symptoms, when they hit her, can even at times be more severe than if she were withdrawing from an heroine addiction.
But the above is further compounded by the fact the poor woman — the woman leaving an abusive relationship — has been taught her entire life to call the feelings produced by oxytocin — to call those feelings, “love”.
So, three days after she leaves the person who is beating her, and/or in some other ways abusing her, she starts to crave him. She starts to miss him painfully. And she thinks — she believes — that her painful feelings of oxytocin withdrawal mean she is still in love with him.
Both her feelings and her beliefs about her feelings encourage her to return to her abuser.
Up to a point, abused men go through the same process as women. But there is one major difference between men and women here. It seems that the effects of oxytocin on us are significantly stronger in women than in men. Studies have now shown that estrogen, the so-called “female hormone”, multiplies the effects on us of oxytocin by — at the very least — a factor of 10. Hence, women usually find it far, far more emotionally difficult to permanently leave an abusive partner than men do.
At any rate, that seems to be the most recent, up to date, explanation that science currently offers as to why anyone might become addicted to an abusive partner, and why women tend to become more addicted to abusive partners than men. Do you think the science on this matter sheds any light at all on any relationships you have known about? Why or why not?
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This type of behavior in women is fostered by Christianity, which encourages women to be considered as less than human. For example, you will find very high percentages of assaults on women in Latin America which is very, very rigidly religious. Truth be told, things are so bad in El Salvador that a woman’s genitals are considered a crime scene subject to penetrating inspection by the belief police to make sure that a woman hasn’t had an abortion.
“There are other countries in the world that, like El Salvador, completely ban abortion, including Malta, Chile and Colombia. El Salvador, however, has not only a total ban on abortion but also an active law-enforcement apparatus — the police, investigators, medical spies, forensic vagina inspectors and a special division of the prosecutor’s office responsible for Crimes Against Minors and Women, a unit charged with capturing, trying and incarcerating an unusual kind of criminal. Like the woman I was waiting to meet.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/magazine/09abortion.html
I was brought up in a relatively non-religious Scandinavian household where women were respected — and I did not experience violence from a man until I moved to Alburquerque, New Mexico, which has a distinctly non-Scandinavian aura. I was absolutely stunned by my treatment by a puto of a man and I was extremely angry for quite a while, frightening therapists and others who could not comprehend that a woman could be angry about such a thing instead of merely accepting violence.
In a casual chat with two women co-workers in Alburquerque, I discovered that both of them had been assaulted. Sixty-six percent. I joined their number very shortly thereafter, 100%.
But how does this make women leaving abusive relationships different that women leaving a regular relationship? Presumably there is the same oxytocin effect in non-abusive relationships.
A love drug? Ha. Good try to get science to explain love. Women or men who are addicted to abusers think that if they were more (insert physical or mental quality here) they could fix the abuser and cause the abuser to become normal.
Well – it might just be about oxy-cotton-candy addiction? Ha.
I don’t believe this study. Correlation does not mean causation, and that is the flaw of this work. These relationships go in cycles of abuse and then flowers and perfume make-up sex. These women were all abused by fathers and/or older brothers and they believe it is all they can expect and/or deserve. It takes some years and years to leave for good, and when they do, they look back at the horror with enormous guilt that they didn’t rescue their children sooner, usually because they were afraid for their lives.
Christian households, no doubt, where men are next to God and women are slightly higher than animals. Perhaps these households do not associate with a church, but their heritage is Christian, and women in such households are desperate to be valued and men in this sort of culture are skilled at manipulating and lying to women.
If a woman is brought up in a household where women are respected and valued, she is not so likely to connect with violent men — unless the surrounding culture overwhelms the values of her immediate family, not to mention the oppressive message of American media.
If it were really based on a hormone which causes contractions of the uterus, then giving battered women a good vibrator (with batteries
would go a long way to solving the problem!
I was in an abusive relationship for a few years. I know the guy experienced more lovey-dovey feelings than I did.
I had been conditioned by my church to think of myself as worthless scum. When this guy told me that I was worthless scum, it felt like home. It seemed true. He also held out the promise that if I stayed with him and did what he wanted, then I would be redeemed – I had potential. (Just like my Christian god)
I kept breaking up with him, but would take him back out of sheer exhaustion since he was so persistant. The fears of being alone, unlovable, and a complete failure didn’t help either. Finally I ran away to another continent to get away from the mind torture.
When I started spending time with my now husband, it was such a relief. I felt guilty for being treated so well. I ‘knew’ I didn’t deserve it, but I wanted it. I tried to push him away and prove to him that I was scum too.
Thankfully, it didn’t work.
I would have taken confidence over a vibrator.
The irony of all this is that Jesus himself was a lover of women.
For example, Jesus and Mary of Magdala. For centuries, Mary of Magdala has been portrayed by the church as a prostitute. One must note that an older tradition, the Coptic Christians of Egypt had no such concept of Mary of Magdala. According to Coptic tradition, Mary of Magdala was a woman of wealth and position who had a great kindness for Jesus and his followers and fed them and hosted them.
The Roman Catholic Church, however, because of its fear and hatred of women, decided to portray Mary of Magdala as a “fallen” women, creating the Magdalene asylums for “fallen” women, where so-called “fallen” women were rounded up to be essentially imprisoned and enslaved, reaching an exquisitely high level of evil in Roman Catholic Ireland:
“The Magdalen laundries were workhouses in which many Irish women and girls were effectively imprisoned because they were perceived to be a threat to the moral fiber of society. Mandated by the Irish state beginning in the eighteenth century, they were operated by various orders of the Catholic Church until the last laundry closed in 1996. A few years earlier, in 1993, an order of nuns in Dublin sold part of their Magdalen convent to a real estate developer. The remains of 155 inmates, buried in unmarked graves on the property, were exhumed, cremated, and buried elsewhere in a mass grave. This triggered a public scandal in Ireland and since then the Magdalen laundries have become an important issue in Irish culture, especially with the 2002 release of the film “The Magdalene Sisters.”
“Focusing on the ten Catholic Magdalen laundries operating between 1922 and 1996, Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of Containment offers the first history of women entering these institutions in the twentieth century. Because the religious orders have not opened their archival records, Smith argues that Ireland’s Magdalen institutions continue to exist in the public mind primarily at the level of story (cultural representation and survivor testimony) rather than history (archival history and documentation).”
http://undpress.nd.edu/book/P01180/
Women in these institutions were sexually abused by priests and nuns alike, starved and otherwise abused.
I have never forgiven the Roman Catholic Church for this monstrous lie about Mary of Magdala and for their satanic abuse of women.
I worked very closely with shelters for abused women for 8 years, even sat on one’s board for several years. When these women mustered the courage to come to the shelter they were in a state of despair and feared for their lives and those of their chidren.
And to coumpound things they were financially destitute. The shelter workers had to arrange for welfare, lawyers to take care of the legal aspects and they had to protect the secrecy about the women being there.
The shelters had a phone number but no address listed.
In rural areas the problem was even how to get out of the home and get to the shelter many miles away, very often at night time when the husband was out with friends drinking and cavorting. Often the police became taxi drivers for the fleeing family.
It took much courage for these women and adrenalin played a much greater role than oxytocin. Some eventually returned to the abusive spouse for lack of other resources only to run away again. Usually the third time was the final breakaway.
This is not scientific, just plain experience of daily life.
I have been in a very abusive relationship for about three years. The guy kicked me out many times, humiliated me both publicly and privately but still I loved him and held on until one Saturday morning he physically threw me, our two year old son and our belongings out and brought another woman in.
Anyway my observation is that it is just as difficult for some people to leave abusive partners as it is for the to leave non-abusive partners. They “love” too much and get completely emotionally involved with their partners thus clinging onto them for life.
I understand there is some research that shows that people get the an adrenalin rush when they talk about traumatic incidents in therapy. It may have something to do with our system’s getting their adrenalin up just at the memory. It may also account for some people’s inability to “get past” their traumas and leave therapy. It has long been accepted that talk therapy feels good because it releases pent-up negative feelings, including those associated with past trauma. Perhaps, then, it’s a matter of degree, with the optimum situation being one where the therapy doesn’t dwell on the traumatic memories at the expense of working on concrete strategies for living with trauma and avoiding it in the future. It can be a tricky balancing act, however, because understanding the traumatic situation and understanding one’s own functioning as a trauma survivor inevitably require recalling the trauma. I am guessing that once the therapist has full information about the traumatic events, therapy might be more affective if therapist and patient just reference the events, without actually detailing them.
Speaking for myself, I used to find it very cathartic to “vent” about situational problems. It it still of some use to me, especially if the person in whom I am confiding is able to affirm my perspective. Of course, it’s functionally useful if my confidant can offer some constructive criticism. For the most part, however, middle age finds me talking less about things that upset me because it means reliving the upset. It just wears me down. That sounds negative and I suppose it is. However, it comes with an awareness that the most important language in the serenity prayer may be about having “the wisdom to know the difference” between the things we can control and those we cannot. I don’t know that we should always accept the former with serenity, but identifying the uncontrollable things certainly helps me know whether discussing them will only agitate me instead of bringing peace and resolution.
A Tribute to My Papa
I must offer tribute up to my atheist father whom I never addressed as “Papa” or “Daddy” or God forbid “Father” but by his unusual first name “Elis.” We were quite modern and I was on a first name basis with both my parents, my Mom’s name was “Sig.”
Elis was a modest man who besottedly adored my mother and bethought me the fond apple of his eye. He did not come off as a “manly” man, if you please, full of bluster and self-importance. He did not feel he needed a quiverful of children to prove his manhood. I was his only child.
But he would have fought off a thousand dragons of the fiercest sort in my defense. Fortunately, there weren’t any dragons lurking about in the dusty plains of South Dakota.
The most important thing I got from Elis is that I, by damn, did not have to take shit from anyone in the form of any sort of abuse. He never laid a hand on me. He could quetly make a comment and bring me instantly around because he was always righteously in the right – without making a big deal about it.
I’m offering up this portrait of Elis in order to contrast his history and persona with that of the abusive religious demagogue Fred Phelps. This is what Phelps’ son Mark had to say about him:
“’Many people have been asking me, over the past several weeks, about my father. They want to know what I think about him and ‘What is he really like?’ People’s interest in what I think baffles me, but after careful consideration, I decided to respond.
‘”What is he like? Well, it’s been 19 years since I left home, but his behavior still appears to be the same. He considers his environment to be against him without admitting, acknowledging or taking responsibility for how he contributes to that. He likes to show himself as being moral, pro-family, pro-Bible, but his actions just don’t add up to that. I believe in God and the Bible, and my father’s behavior doesn’t fit the description of behavior that would show in the life of one who loves God; behavior characteristics such as Love, Joy, Peace, Longsuffering, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, Self-control. Instead, my father’s behavior characterizes, I believe, Hate, Outbursts of Wrath, Contention, Jealousy, Vengefulness, Misery, Harshness, and Selfish ambition. He mis-states the truth about his own behavior, about others, about the Bible, with apparent ease and regularity. He behaves with a viciousness the likes of which I have never seen. He accepts no genuine accountability in his life and is subject to no one. His lifestyle betrays the sacred trust of what a pastor, husband, father and grandfather should be. I suppose if a comparison were made between the life of Jesus Christ and my father, there would not be much to compare.’”
http://www.plattsburghforpeace.com/fredphelps.htm
And this is from Phelps’ gay son Nate:
“‘He used his fists. He used his knees and he used … the handle of a mattock [a pick-like digging tool]. He used that in such a way that it split the skin on the back of the kid’s legs so they bled.
“‘If they want to call that discipline, that’s fine. But I call it abuse,’ Phelps said. He also said that Fred Phelps beat his wife, although not with the mattock.”
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2011/03/18/son-of-anti-gay-pastor-fred-phelps-claims-he-abused-family/
I look at this contrast between fathers and I cannot help but think, Religion is not a good thing.
I apologize for the length of this post but I think it points out why women are abused in our pitiful culture.
Thank you for sharing the tribute, Karen. Really wonderful!
Nice post, just read through the whole thing.
I don’t see any reason why we can’t stipulate that a commonly seen behavior has a lot of ingredients. Biochemistry does influence behavior, and behavior also influences biochemistry. Childhood experience can make abuse seem normal. Social institutions can frame experience in an invalidating way.
The estrogen-oxytocin connection is an interesting one. Women often remark that menopause results in a feeling of independence and freedom not previously felt — right when estrogen levels are dropping and oxytocin bonding is therefore undermined. I think there is validity to this. I knew a guy who liked to bitch and gripe about every instance he encountered of women leaving their husbands at the age of around forty-five or fifty. I would say “that’s the age where we realize we don’t need to put up with your asses unless we actually like you.”
But we are not helpless puppets of our peptides. It is possible to recognize cravings as biological and overrule them, and that is what candor and social support are all about.
Nicely put. And I love “puppets of our peptides”!
I strongly feel that if women are beloved by their parents, that sense of being beloved keeps them safe from abusive men who can never love women.
Our culture has been carefully crafted to hate women — and parents favor sons more than women — this is a stupid and intrinsic part of many backward cultures.
And, frankly, the number of men who feel totally free to love women is not large. There’s a lot of sentimental prosing about “respecting” women and putting them on a pedestal and “protecting” them and doing their thinking for them. When a man speaks disdainfully of whores and harlots — you know he hates women.
It goes way beyond a hormonal response — it’s a cultural and religious thing.