Do women volunteer for abusive relationships?

When I wrote my book "The Simplicity Primer"a few years ago, I said that one of the biggest factors for a simple life is a strong, solid marriage. I've been blessed to be married to my husband for 23 years (so far). My parents have been going strong for 55 years.

My mother came from a childhood of brutal abuse, but she had the sense to break that cycle and marry a good man, creating a legacy of stability for my brothers and me. My husband and I hope to pass that same legacy to our own daughters.

But what happens when women cannot or will not break a cycle of abuse?

I just read an older but heart-wrenching article in City Journal by an English doctor working in a toxicology ward, where he routinely treated women who had been victims of horrific domestic violence. This physician could determine at a glance men who were likely to be or become abusers.

"[A] man's propensity to violence is as immediately legible in his face and bearing as any other strongly marked character trait," he wrote. "In truth, the clues are not particularly subtle. A closely shaven head with many scars on the scalp from collisions with broken bottles or glasses; a broken nose; blue tattoos on the hands, arms, and neck, relaying messages of love, hate, and challenge; but above all, a facial expression of concentrated malignity, outraged egotism, and feral suspiciousness – all these give the game away." [Emphasis added.]

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But to this doctor's astonishment, women did not seem able to pick up on the same cues of potential violence. It wasn't just the poor and uneducated women who refused to see the clues; his educated female colleagues also seemed oblivious. "They do not see a man's violence in his face, his gestures, his deportment, and his bodily adornments, even though they have the same experience of the patients as I. They hear the same stories, they see the same signs, but they do not make the same judgments."

After years of seeing the same thing over and over, this physician was brave enough to conclude that a woman's willingness to stay in a violent subculture is willful. He writes, "[F]or the abused women, the failure to perceive in advance the violence of their chosen men serves to absolve them of all responsibility for whatever happens thereafter, allowing them to think of themselves as victims alone rather than the victims and accomplices they are. Moreover, it licenses them to obey their impulses and whims, allowing them to suppose that sexual attractiveness is the measure of all things and that prudence in the selection of a male companion is neither possible nor desirable." [Emphasis added.]

So do men just snap and become abusive with no prior clues? This doctor didn't think so. He wrote, "At first, of course, my female patients deny that the violence of their men was foreseeable. But when I ask them whether they think I would have recognized it in advance, the great majority – nine out of 10 – reply, yes, of course. And when asked how they think I would have done so, they enumerate precisely the factors that would have led me to that conclusion. So their blindness is willful."

By seeking and/or staying in abusive situations, these women can blame men and remain pure and innocent in their own eyes. In other words, it's almost as if victimhood becomes a career.

Never one to excuse women, Vox Day writes, "This is why one need spare no sympathy for most women who are in 'abusive' relationships. They knew perfectly well what they were getting into. They knowingly chose to take the risk in order to reap the benefits of a relationship with a dangerous man rather than forgo them in choosing a relationship with a man they found less exciting. The fact that they pretend otherwise only makes them dishonest, it doesn't make them innocent victims."

Harsh as these words are from both the physician and the commentator, it does beg the question – at what point do you give up trying to help women who seem unwilling to help themselves?

I don't mean to sound unsympathetic to abused women, but having been raised by a woman who came from a horrifically abusive childhood, I can't help but wonder why everyone can't strive for better things and make the choices that will improve, rather than worsen, their lives. If my mother can do it, why can't others? It does seem as if too many people are in denial about the voluntary nature of abuse.

A couple of years ago, our rural area had a rare murder in which a young woman (18) was shot in the face by her jealous and controlling boyfriend (29). Three days before her death, the young victim assured her worried mother that just because her boyfriend choked her and held a gun to her head, it meant nothing. "I know he really loves me," the victim said, dismissing her mother's fears. The murder shook our county because it was so … violent. Senseless. And above all, preventable.

I have no training in psychology or counseling and would probably be useless if a friend came to me and told me that her boyfriend/fiancé/husband was beating her, because I would have a simple piece of advice: LEAVE.

The corollary question, of course, is why do men become abusers? America is not a nation where female abuse is permitted by law, so why do abusive men exist?

One of the reasons no one wants to admit is that bad behavior in men is reinforced by women. Women who tolerate and choose to grant sexual favors to abusive men are doing society a disservice by teaching men that there is a positive benefit to being an abuser. Being abusive is a choice, just like it's a choice for women to tolerate it. If there is a perceived benefit to that choice, some men will continue the behavior because they receive a benefit. The "civilizing" of men has always been controlled by women.

So what am I missing? Why do women stay with abusive men despite red flags waving in their face? If some women can rise above a legacy of abuse and choose a man who won't beat them, why can't others? I don't mean to sound harsh or insensitive – I'm quite serious when I say I don't understand why women stay with abusers.

Who can help me out?

Media wishing to interview Patrice Lewis, please contact [email protected].