Why domestic violence victims don’t leave

“Why doesn’t she just leave?”

It’s a question that people ask all the time of women that are living with an abuser: living in a relationship shrouded by domestic violence.

I have asked that question myself of other women, “Why doesn’t she just leave him?”.

Yesterday I found the answer. I was surfing YouTube and I found this powerful video and I had to share it with you. (Please watch the video below)

In America, one in four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. Similarly, in Australia, one in three women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence perpetrated by someone known to them.

So I had to share this video because statistics show that YOU know someone who is in or has been in a violent relationship. Maybe YOU are living with domestic violence yourself.

I had to share it because knowledge is power and if we understand the process of how women fall into a violent situation from which they struggle to leave, we can figure out how we can help and support them.

I had to share this video because the speaker, Leslie Morgan Steiner, is a courageous, intelligent, beautiful woman and her story while heartbreaking is also so inspirational. Leslie goes through the step-by-step process of how women come to find themselves in a violent relationship and why they don’t leave. But she also shows that victims of domestic violence can rebuild their lives and go on to have happy, healthy relationships and create a joyous life.

I ask YOU, please share this with other women. As the statistics show, chances are YOU know someone who is in an abusive relationship. YOU may not know it, they may not realise it. As Leslie says, she didn’t think of herself as a battered wife…even though she was viciously beaten weekly and had a gun put to her head numerous times.

By sharing this video post, a woman somewhere may see it and it may help give her the courage and confidence to leave an abusive relationship herself.

Remember, abuse survives only in silence.

Mel xx