Trigger Warning: This post contains discussions of domestic abuse, physical violence, coercive control, emotional and psychological abuse, intimidation, threats, fear and the difficulties survivors can face when trying to leave an abusive relationship. It includes descriptions of physical restraint, injury and threats that may be difficult to read, particularly for anyone with personal experience of abuse. Please read at your own pace and take a break if you need to.
“Why didn’t you just leave?” It’s a question survivors of abuse hear far too often. I understand why people ask it. From the outside, leaving can seem like the obvious answer. If someone is hurting you, surely you just walk away, but when you’re actually living through abuse, it isn’t that simple. I asked myself a few times why I stayed. I think the fact that he had moved himself into my house made things harder. I didn’t know what would happen if I left, or how I was supposed to make everything work afterwards. Fortunately for me, no one asked me why I didn’t just leave. No one knew what I was going through, and only my family and my best friend knew when I finally did leave. I’ve only spoken about what happened to a few people since then, but I have heard people ask this question about other survivors, and that’s one of the reasons I want to answer it. So, if someone was asking me, “Why didn’t you just leave?”, this is what I would say.
I did try to leave.
I tried to leave a number of times, but I failed. There was one time when I couldn’t turn the key quickly enough to unlock the door. He physically dragged me back through the hallway, took my keys and hid them from me. There was another time when I did manage to get away. He had gone upstairs and I saw my opportunity. I tried to be as quiet as I could. I got up, went to the door, turned the key and, as soon as I opened it, I ran. I ran to the nearest alleyway. Once I felt far enough away to be safe, I just walked. It wasn’t long before I saw his car. As much as I tried to hide, he found me. I didn’t know what my plan was that night. I don’t remember what time it was, but it was late. I just remember how it felt to be away from him. For that short amount of time, I felt free. It didn’t last long. Once he found me, I knew I was going to end up back home. Except it wasn’t really home anymore. It was hell. A few days later, he told me that he knew people who could make me disappear. I only tried to leave once after that.
Home is meant to be a place of safety, but it wasn’t for me. The physical violence started not long after he moved in. I have no idea how things escalated to that point, but I never fought back. The only time I remember physically reacting was when I was trying to move his hands away from my throat. I dread to think what the neighbours heard, because I was constantly shouting for him to get off me. He would pin me down on the bed or the floor and spit at me. There was also a time when he shut my wrist in a door, and I thought he had actually hurt it. I was in pain for ages afterwards. I knew things were bad when I started taking pictures of the bruises and marks that were left on me. I don’t even know what I was going to do with them. I just felt like I needed to have them. It was the same with screenshotting his texts. Looking back, I think part of me was starting to realise that I might need some kind of proof of what was happening, even though I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, but the thing that made me feel trapped more than anything was when I discovered the kitchen knife he slept with.
It was hidden between the mattress and the bed slats. That kept me awake at night more than anything else. I would have nightmares and wake up multiple times during the night, knowing that the knife was there. It made me feel like I couldn’t escape. That feeling of being trapped was one of the biggest reasons I was so scared to leave. Even now, I sometimes wonder if that is part of why I still wake up multiple times during the night. My body still feels like it needs to be on alert. For me, it became a safety thing. When your home is supposed to be the one place where you should feel safest, but you don’t feel safe there anymore, where are you supposed to go? That was the reality I was living with.
There was a lot going through my head when I thought about what would happen if I left. I thought I would have nowhere to go, which would mean having to come back to the house anyway, and if I did that, I was scared of what the consequences would be. Even the times I did try to escape and he beat me to the door, there was no plan. I didn’t know where I would go or what I would do once I got out. Eventually, I started to believe that this was just how things were. I did look at websites for advice, but that’s where it stopped. I just kind of gave up. I thought about telling my family, but he always told me that no one would believe me. It would take him days to calm down after what I would call an argument, but even calling it an argument feels strange, because half of the time I didn’t know what had caused it in the first place. At first, I would argue back. Eventually, I realised that it was safer not to have a voice. After an argument came the nasty texts. He would call me a c**t. He would shout it at me as well. I can’t stand that word. It is one of the worst words for me, and even now it can take me straight back to him getting in my face and saying it. He would message me things like, “I’m a slag,” and “I’m a nobody,” and tell me that no wonder my dad didn’t want anything to do with me. We would sometimes be in the same house while he was sending me these messages. I would try to ignore them, but that made things worse for me. Eventually, I just agreed with him. By the end of the second or third day, the tears would come. Then came the apologies. Then the “I will change” speeches, and then the cycle would start again. Looking back now, I can see how repetitive it was.
The abuse.
The fear.
The silence.
The apologies.
The promises that things would change.
And then it would happen all over again.
So when you fear that someone genuinely has it in them to kill you, leaving doesn’t feel like a simple choice.
You start looking for other ways to survive.
For many people, finances can play a practical part in why someone stays. When you’re in a relationship, finances are often shared, and leaving can mean suddenly having to work out how you’re going to support yourself. For me, as long as I could stay in that house, finances weren’t really the issue. I was already paying for everything. Having to leave the house, however, would have been a different story. He wasn’t on the contract, but at the time I was only 24 and I wasn’t very aware of my rights or where I stood with things. I didn’t know what I could and couldn’t do, and that uncertainty was another reason I felt like I couldn’t just leave the property. There was also something else that probably sounds silly to some people, but it mattered to me. I was worried about what people would say about me if I left him. When you’re exhausted and you’ve lost all your confidence, your mind can go to some very dark and strange places. I was already questioning myself about everything. What would people think? Would they believe me? Would they think I had overreacted? Would they wonder why I had stayed for so long? I didn’t have the confidence to face any of that. It felt like I was screaming inside. I knew I needed to leave. I just didn’t know how.
From my experience, staying can feel safer than leaving. That might sound strange to someone who has never experienced abuse, but when you have been psychologically worn down, when you have been made to believe that you’re nothing without that person, and when you are frightened of what might happen if you try to leave, staying can feel like the safer option. The abuse had already changed how I saw myself. It changed what I believed I was capable of, what I thought I deserved and what I thought might happen if I tried to stand up for myself. I didn’t stay because I loved him. Hate is a very strong word, and I try to be careful about how I use it, but I hated him. I still do. By that point, every time he tried to be affectionate towards me, I felt sick inside. There was no love left in me for him. There was fear. I knew deep down that things were never going to change, but I also knew that leaving could make things worse. That is the part people don’t always understand. You can know that you are being abused and still not feel able to leave.
I was constantly told that everything was my fault. Eventually, I started to believe it. If everything was my fault, then how could anyone else ever love me? If I was really as awful as he told me I was, then maybe this was all I deserved. That’s what abuse can do to your confidence. It doesn’t just make you afraid of the person hurting you. It can make you afraid of yourself. You stop trusting your own judgement. You stop believing that you can cope on your own. You start believing the things you’ve been told about yourself. So when someone asks, “Why didn’t you just leave?”, I think they’re missing something important. Leaving isn’t just about physically walking out of a door. Sometimes you have to find enough of yourself again to believe that you are allowed to walk through it, and when someone has spent so long trying to convince you that you are nothing, finding that part of yourself again can take time. I wasn’t choosing him. I was trying to survive him.
I will talk about what happened and the circumstances around how I left in the next post but I just wanted to say this. Leaving an abusive relationship isn’t always one brave decision where everything suddenly becomes okay.
Sometimes it’s a process.
Sometimes it takes several attempts.
Sometimes you leave and go back.
Sometimes you are trying to work out how to leave safely while still living with the person you’re afraid of.
And sometimes, the hardest part isn’t physically leaving. It’s believing that you deserve a life where you don’t have to be afraid.
Tomorrow, I’m going to talk about what happens when someone you love finally tells you they’re being abused and what you can say that might actually help.
🧡 Support and Resources
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, support is available.
National Domestic Abuse Helpline (UK)
📞 0808 2000 247
🌐 Refuge National Domestic Abuse Helpline
🌐 Women’s Aid
🌐 Men’s Advice Line
Amy x
