By Morgan Noll, Hello Giggles, December 20, 2019
There’s a common belief that love and relationships should be unconditional and all about compromise—but in reality, love should be conditional. Boundaries are important to maintain healthy relationships and there are many things you should never have to compromise, such as your consent, safety, physical and emotional well-being, and mental health.
In a healthy relationship, these boundaries should be clear and defined. But in the context of an emotionally or physically abusive relationship, these boundaries are repeatedly blurred, compromised, and violated. When an idea of love gets entangled in a cycle of violence, it can form what’s called a traumatic bond, also called a trauma bond. In a 2018 study on intimate partner violence, traumatic bonding is defined as “the compelling emotional attachment forming despite abuse, and because of, power imbalance.”
Understanding the way this bond works can help explain why people stay in violent or abusive relationships. The common but harmful question, “Why don’t you just leave?” doesn’t account for the complexity of a trauma bond and the mental reprogramming it requires to break one. According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline as reported by CNN, it takes a woman in an abusive relationship approximately seven times to leave for good.
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