Why Can't I Just Leave? The Question That Gets It Wrong.
For the woman who is tired of being asked. And for the people who love her and genuinely do not understand why she is still there.
For the woman who is tired of being asked. And for the people who love her and genuinely do not understand why she is still there.
For the woman who is tired of being asked. And for the people who love her and genuinely do not understand why she is still there.
It is the question asked by well-meaning friends, bewildered family members and frustrated colleagues who watch someone they love stay in a situation that is clearly hurting her. It is also the question that plays on a loop inside her own head at 2am when she cannot sleep.
The word just is doing a lot of work in that sentence. It implies simplicity. A door. A decision. A bag packed and a life resumed on the other side. None of that is true. This article is written for two people at once. For her, so she can see her own experience reflected without judgement. And for the people around her, so they can finally understand what they are actually asking.
Not the generalised fear that gets talked about in statistics. The specific, personalised fear that comes from knowing exactly what he is capable of and exactly what he has promised to do.
He has told me in every argument what will happen if I try to leave. He is very specific about it. I believe him.
He said he would make it hell. That he would make me pay. Those are not empty words. I know him.
I still felt anxious every time my phone lit up with his name.
I thought once I left the control would stop. It just changed shape.
The relationship ended. The negotiations, tension and emotional exhaustion did not.
The fear is rational. The period immediately after leaving is statistically the most dangerous time for women in abusive relationships. She has calculated the risk more carefully than you know.
If you are reading this as someone who loves her: She is not being dramatic. The threats she has described to you, if she has described them at all, are likely a fraction of what has been said. Her fear is not irrational. It is informed.
Money is one of the most powerful mechanisms of control in abusive relationships. And even when a woman has her own income, the financial complexity of leaving a shared life built over years is genuinely daunting.
I have a lifestyle. A house. A life that looks a certain way from the outside. I do not know what the other side of this looks like.
I cannot afford to fight this legally. He has already told me he will take me to the cleaners.
I do not know what I am entitled to. I do not know what is in my own name.
If you are reading this as someone who loves her: When she says she cannot afford to leave she is not talking about not having enough money for a hotel room. She is talking about the financial warfare that follows. What she needs is someone who can help her understand what her actual options are.
This is the part that makes leaving hardest to explain to anyone on the outside. Because the man they know is not the man she lives with.
Sometimes the most confusing part was that he could also be funny, charming and loving and I truly loved him. That made it harder to trust my own fear.
At the dinner party he was charming and kind and I watched him and I thought: maybe I am the problem. Maybe I am imagining it.
He is so good at being the person everyone thinks he is. And then the door closes.
The flowers arrived at work the next day and everyone said you are so lucky. I smiled and said thank you.
The next morning there would be flowers sent to work. Everyone thought it was romantic. I remember feeling sick when they arrived.
He never apologised. The gifts were supposed to erase the night before without ever having to acknowledge what actually happened.
I became more worried about protecting people's perception of him than protecting myself.
Who is going to believe me? My word against his. His word comes with twenty years of being the most likeable person in every room he walks into.
I will lose most of our combined friends. He will tell his story first and he will tell it well.
If you are reading this as someone who loves her: The man you know and the man she lives with are genuinely different people. His reputation is his alibi. If you find it hard to reconcile the man you know with what she is describing, understand that this is by design.
There is a layer to this that rarely gets named. The specific shame of coming from a background where adults were expected to work things out. Where you did not air your problems publicly. Where marriage was something you committed to and maintained, regardless of what it cost you privately.
I come from a household where adults just worked out their differences. What does it say about me that I am here?
What does it say about me that I chose him? That I did not see it sooner? That I have been here this long?
I genuinely thought the problem was me. I went looking for help to be a better wife, not understanding I had been adapting to abuse.
The people who know me well enough to help are the ones I am most ashamed to tell.
If you are reading this as someone who loves her: The fact that she has not told you may have nothing to do with trust. It may be pure protection of her own dignity. Reaching out first, consistently and without pressure, matters more than waiting for her to be ready.
If there are children, every calculation doubles in complexity. These are not excuses. They are the thoughts of a woman who loves her children and is trying to protect them in an impossible situation.
I never brought my children into this world to suffer or to witness this. That thought is with me every single day.
Is it easier when they are younger, or when they have finished school? When they are young they need stability. When they are older they have their own relationships with him. Neither feels like a good time.
Which does more damage? Staying and having them grow up watching this? Or leaving and putting them through a separation that he will make as destructive as possible?
Every custody handover felt traumatic. My son would cling to me crying, begging not to go and I still carry the look in his eyes 15 years later.
Whose side will they take? They love him. They see the version everyone sees. What if they choose him?
Maybe I can hold on long enough for them to finish school. Old enough to understand. Old enough to choose for themselves.
I was so focused on protecting the children from conflict that I forgot how much conflict I was absorbing myself.
The hardest part was watching my children learn to suppress what they really felt in order to keep the peace, and carrying the guilt of knowing what that did to them.
I can still see the moments my children chose emotional survival over honesty because they were trying to keep everyone safe.
One of the hardest things to face is that children do not need to understand abuse intellectually to be shaped by living inside it.
If you are reading this as someone who loves her: Do not tell her the children need her to be safe and leave it at that. She knows. What she needs is help understanding what custody and parenting arrangements actually look like in practice so the fear of losing her children becomes something she can plan around.
Everyone focuses on the practical barriers. Very few people acknowledge the emotional ones.
I am not sure I am emotionally ready. I do not actually know what ready feels like.
The hardest thing to admit was that I was scared of someone I still loved.
I still love him. Or I love the version of him I married. I grieve for that person even while I am afraid of the person he has become.
What if I leave and I fall apart completely? At least right now I am functioning. What happens when I stop?
Emotional readiness is not a destination she arrives at and then acts. It is something that develops in the presence of support, safety and genuine options. Waiting until she feels ready before seeking help is like waiting until you feel well before seeing a doctor.
If you are reading this as someone who loves her: Asking her if she is ready to leave is the wrong question. Ask her what support would make the next step feel possible.
For professional women there is an additional weight. The job has to keep going. The performance has to continue. None of it pauses because her personal life is in crisis.
I have to hold my job together at the same time as holding all of this.
I worked harder and harder professionally because work was the only place I still felt competent and safe.
My job is my financial independence. It is my identity. It is the one thing I have that is completely mine. I cannot let him take that too.
If you are reading this as someone who loves her: Her career is not something she is prioritising over her safety. It is part of her safety plan, even if she has not named it as such yet.
Even when a woman has decided she wants to leave, the question of where to start can be paralysing.
I do not know where to start. I genuinely do not know what the first step is.
Every time I try to think through the process I get overwhelmed and stop. There are too many pieces.
I need someone who can tell me what to do in what order. Not information. A person. A person who has done this before.
This is precisely what a navigation service exists for. The first step is never leave. The first step is a conversation.
I learned that fear does not always look like bruises. Sometimes it looks like monitoring tone, managing moods and trying not to trigger another night you have to recover from.
Because fear is not irrational when the threat is real.
Because financial complexity is not an excuse when the entanglement is deliberate.
Because the man everyone else sees is genuinely charming, and her word against his is not the straightforward calculation it looks like from the outside.
Because embarrassment is a real and powerful force when your values told you to work it out.
Because children complicate every calculation in ways that deserve to be taken seriously.
Because emotional readiness is not a switch. It is a process that requires support to develop.
Because she is holding her professional life together simultaneously and that is not nothing.
Because she does not know where to start and nobody has sat with her to figure it out.
She is not weak. She is not choosing this. She is navigating one of the most complex situations a person can face, largely alone, largely invisibly, largely without being asked the right questions by the people around her.
There is no clean answer. Research consistently shows that children living with coercive control are experiencing harm regardless of age, even when they are not the direct target. The question is not when is the best time. The question is what support and legal structure can make the transition as safe as possible for them.
He may. Post-separation abuse through legal proceedings, child support, custody disputes and financial warfare is a recognised and common pattern. It is also one that can be anticipated, documented and legally managed with the right support in place before you leave. The threat is real. It is also not unsurvivable with proper preparation.
Some of them, possibly. People who have known him for years will find it difficult to reconcile your account with their experience of him. That is a real loss and it deserves to be grieved. What is also true is that the friendships that survive will be ones that were genuinely yours.
Readiness is not a requirement for reaching out. A conversation with someone who understands the pattern is not a commitment to leave immediately. It is information. It is options. You do not have to be ready. You just have to be curious enough to find out what ready could look like.
Her Pathway Forward is built specifically for this concern. Completely confidential, no workplace involvement, consultations appear as HPF on statements and calendars. Many of the women we support are managing active professional lives throughout the process.
With one conversation. Private, confidential, no obligation. You do not need to have made a decision. You do not need to know what you want. You just need to reach out to someone who can help you understand what your options actually are.
A free, confidential 30-minute conversation. Just you and Tanya.
No pressure, no obligation, no one else involved.
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Her Pathway Forward is a specialist domestic violence navigation service. We are not lawyers, therapists, financial advisors or mental health professionals. This article is provided for general information only and does not constitute professional advice. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, please call 000.