Why Would Someone Marry an Abuser?
It can be hard to see a relationship you voluntarily chose to join believing you would be loved and cared for turn into a nightmare because of emotional abuse.
You may wonder how things changed and why they did, or even how this person you love can justify acting in ways that hurt you.
Regardless of the explanations for the emotional abuse, it’s important to remember that it isn’t your fault — there’s nothing that you did to deserve being abused.
Emotionally abusive relationships never start out that way.
Think about it — the odds of someone staying in a relationship that was abusive during the dating and courtship aren’t very good. That is why a potential emotional abuser is on his or her best behavior during the informal period of getting to know one another.
The beginning of an abusive relationship starts like any other — flirting, acts of kindness, physical passion, and fun. You’re falling in love with who this person presents themselves to be, not who they will be once you are living with him or her and committed to one another.
Typically within the first year of marriage, the victim of emotional abuse is ambushed by the onset of criticism, insults, neglect, and anger.
The real truth is that nobody would marry an abuser! But they might marry a ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ — someone they believed would be loving and kind and turned out to be the opposite.
