Before You Ask Why She Stayed, Put Yourself in Her Shoes

The invisible wounds of emotional abuse, the terrifying weight of the unknown, and the courage it takes to choose yourself.

The Unmasked Journal | Jessica Choate, RN

Before you judge her, put yourself in her shoes.

Before you ask why she stayed, why she tolerated it, why she didn't recognize the signs, or why she didn't just pack her things and leave...

Stop.

And consider what it must feel like to no longer trust your own mind.

To have your reality questioned so many times that you begin questioning it yourself.

To have your intentions twisted, your feelings dismissed, and your reactions scrutinized until you aren't entirely sure what is real anymore.

Imagine being so emotionally exhausted that the smallest decisions feel monumental.

Imagine spending years trying to keep the peace, only to realize that somewhere along the way, you lost your own.

Now imagine someone standing on the outside, looking at your life, and asking:

"Why didn't you just leave?"

As though leaving was simply a matter of opening a door.

As though you hadn't spent countless nights lying awake, wondering how much longer you could survive the life you were living.

As though you hadn't already asked yourself that very question a thousand times.

Before you ask why she stayed, consider how much of herself she may have lost trying to make it work.

When You Can No Longer Trust Yourself

There's a kind of pain that doesn't leave visible bruises.

It doesn't announce itself to the world.

It happens quietly.

Through conversations that leave you confused.

Through constant questioning of your choices.

Through accusations that make you feel compelled to defend your character.

Through having your needs turned into arguments and your feelings treated like inconveniences.

You begin explaining yourself.

Then overexplaining.

Then questioning why you feel the need to explain at all.

You replay conversations.

Analyze your tone.

Examine your intentions.

Search for the moment you might have done something wrong.

And eventually, something devastating happens.

The voice questioning you no longer has to come from another person. It starts coming from inside you.

You become your own interrogator.

You begin doubting your memory, your judgment, your intuition.

The very parts of yourself that once helped you navigate the world begin to feel unreliable.

And when someone has spent enough time questioning her own reality, how can we expect her to confidently make one of the most life-altering decisions she'll ever face?

How can we tell her to trust herself enough to leave when she's spent years learning not to trust herself at all?

This is one of the cruelest consequences of prolonged emotional invalidation.

It doesn't simply make you question the relationship.

It can make you question your capacity to know what's right for you.

The Familiar Pain Versus the Terrifying Unknown

From the outside, the answer seems so obvious.

Just leave.

But to someone who has been living in survival mode, the unknown can feel absolutely terrifying.

Because familiar pain, as painful as it is, comes with a map.

You know what might trigger another argument.

You know when to stay quiet.

You know how to read the room.

You know which parts of yourself to hide.

You know how to anticipate moods, avoid conflict, and attempt to make another day bearable.

You have learned how to survive there.

And while that doesn't make the environment healthy or safe, it does make it predictable in certain ways.

Leaving means stepping into a world where you may have none of those familiar reference points.

Where will you live?

How will you afford everything?

What happens to the children?

Will they have to change schools?

Who will help when you're sick?

What happens when your car breaks down, when a child needs you, when you can't work, or when life becomes overwhelming?

What if you fail?

What if you can't do it alone?

What if the person who has spent years making you question yourself was right about your inability to manage without them?

Now imagine trying to answer those questions while your nervous system is exhausted, your confidence is shattered, and your emotional reserves are nearly empty.

For some women, there are also threats, financial control, isolation, or very real concerns about retaliation.

For others, the barriers are less visible but still overwhelming.

There isn't one reason women stay.

There are often dozens, tangled together with love, fear, responsibility, hope, survival, and the practical realities of everyday life.

Sometimes the unknown doesn't feel like freedom. It feels like another danger you're not sure you have the strength to survive.

And so she stays another day.

Not necessarily because she believes everything is okay.

But because she doesn't yet know how to survive what comes next.

She May Still Love the Person Who Is Hurting Her

This is another part people struggle to understand.

She can recognize that something is hurting her and still love the person involved.

She can remember the tenderness.

The laughter.

The promises.

The moments when she felt chosen.

The person she believed they could become together.

She can understand that someone carries wounds of their own.

And if she's someone who has experienced tremendous pain in her lifetime, she may be particularly sensitive to the suffering underneath another person's behavior.

I know this because I've lived it.

I've spent so much of my life trying to understand why people hurt others.

Trying to find the wound underneath the anger.

The fear underneath the control.

The abandoned child underneath the emotionally unavailable adult.

In The Portal of Love, I explored the shadow side of this very gift.

I wrote:

"Empathy without discernment becomes self-abandonment."

And those words have taken on an entirely different depth for me now.

Because sometimes we understand someone's suffering so deeply that we lose sight of the suffering their behavior is causing us.

We become so committed to not abandoning them that we begin abandoning ourselves.

We tell ourselves they're trying.

That they're wounded.

That they didn't mean it.

That maybe we could have communicated differently.

That maybe if we heal enough, love enough, understand enough, things will finally change.

But understanding why someone hurts you doesn't make the hurt disappear.

You can have compassion for someone's wounds without volunteering to become the place where those wounds continue to land.

And learning that distinction can take time.

Sometimes years.

When Even the Smallest Tasks Feel Impossible

I wish more people understood what prolonged emotional distress can do to a person's ability to function.

Because from the outside, she may look perfectly capable.

She goes to work.

She cares for her children.

She pays the bills.

She smiles when she needs to.

She shows up for everyone.

She may even be the strongest, most dependable person you know.

But you don't see what happens when she's alone.

You don't see the mental exhaustion.

The constant overthinking.

The way her body braces for another conflict.

The way she rehearses conversations before having them.

The way she struggles to make decisions because she's terrified of making the wrong one.

You don't see how much energy it takes just to get through another ordinary day.

And when you're already using nearly everything you have to survive the present, planning an entirely different future can feel impossible.

Not because you're incapable.

But because you're depleted.

Because you've been running on empty for so long that you've forgotten what it feels like to have something left over for yourself.

And the world looks at this woman, barely holding herself together behind closed doors, and asks why she hasn't made a plan.

Why she hasn't saved enough money.

Why she hasn't found another place to live.

Why she hasn't figured it out.

As though she isn't already trying to function beneath a weight nobody else can see.

Sometimes what looks like indecision is a woman whose entire system is overwhelmed by the magnitude of what she's being asked to do.

She doesn't need another person telling her what she should have done.

She needs someone who understands why it feels so hard.

Please Stop Mistaking Survival for Weakness

We have a habit of calling women strong when they finally leave.

And they are.

But I wonder how often we overlook the strength it took for them to survive the days before that.

The mornings they got out of bed while emotionally exhausted.

The nights they comforted their children while quietly carrying their own grief.

The times they went to work with a smile after spending the night crying.

The countless responsibilities they continued to carry while questioning whether they had anything left to give.

None of this means enduring mistreatment should be celebrated or expected.

It means her suffering was real long before anyone else recognized it.

And she deserved compassion then, too.

She shouldn't have to leave before we decide she's worthy of our understanding.

She shouldn't have to prove how bad things were.

She shouldn't have to disclose every painful detail to justify her decisions.

And she shouldn't have to defend the timeline of her healing.

Because the truth is, you do not know what it took for her to arrive at the place she's standing today.

Maybe today she recognized something wasn't right.

Maybe today she told someone the truth.

Maybe today she stopped blaming herself for the first time.

Maybe today she opened a separate bank account.

Maybe today she made a phone call.

Maybe today she simply admitted, quietly, to herself:

"I don't think I can keep living like this."

And maybe that admission took every ounce of courage she had.

Do not underestimate the significance of these moments.

Sometimes the smallest act of self-trust is the beginning of an entirely different life.

I've Been Her

I've been the woman who stayed.

The woman who believed love could overcome anything if she just worked hard enough.

The woman who saw the good in someone while struggling to acknowledge what was happening to herself.

The woman who blamed her own wounds for every emotional reaction.

Who wondered whether she was too sensitive.

Too needy.

Too much.

Who tried to communicate better.

Regulate better.

Heal more.

Become easier to love.

I've been the woman who was so afraid of causing someone else pain that I tolerated far too much of my own.

I've been the woman who felt responsible for everyone else's emotional well-being while quietly losing touch with her own.

And I've been the woman who finally realized that understanding another person's pain was never supposed to require sacrificing herself.

When I eventually left, I didn't suddenly have all the answers.

I didn't have a perfectly organized future waiting on the other side.

I had children to care for.

Practical decisions to make.

A sense of home and stability to rebuild.

And an enormous amount of uncertainty.

I still do.

Leaving didn't magically remove the responsibilities, grief, or fear.

It meant facing some of them without the life I'd grown accustomed to.

And I want to be clear about something.

I didn't leave because I suddenly became stronger than the woman who stayed.

I left when I reached a point where I could begin trusting the part of myself that had been asking to be heard.

The woman who stayed deserved love and protection just as much as the woman who eventually walked away.

She wasn't less worthy.

She wasn't stupid.

She wasn't choosing to be hurt.

She was trying to navigate circumstances she didn't yet know how to escape.

And when I look back at her now, I don't want to shame her for how long it took.

I want to understand her.

I want to hold compassion for the fear she carried.

For the ways she tried to keep everyone together.

For the unbearable responsibility she felt.

For how hard she worked to make something better.

And for the courage it took to finally acknowledge that she needed something different.

Because I've spent enough of my life being hard on her.

She deserves tenderness now.

If You Love Her, Meet Her Where She Is

If someone you love is in a relationship that concerns you, please understand this:

You cannot shame someone into feeling safe.

You cannot criticize them into self-trust.

You cannot force clarity into a mind that is overwhelmed with fear.

And you cannot demand that someone leave simply because you've reached the end of your patience watching them struggle.

You can be honest about what you see.

You can express concern.

You can offer practical help.

You can support her access to resources, safety planning, housing, or professional guidance.

You can respect her autonomy while remaining clear that she doesn't deserve mistreatment.

And you can remind her, consistently, that she has people who will care about her whether she stays, leaves, returns, or isn't sure what to do next.

Don't make your love another thing she has to earn by making the choices you want her to make.

Because she may already be living in a world where she feels she can never make the right decision.

Be the person who helps her remember that she is allowed to have a choice.

You don't have to agree with every decision to remain compassionate.

You don't have to understand every detail to recognize someone's pain.

And you don't have to rescue her to stand beside her.

Sometimes the most meaningful thing you can offer is a relationship where her feelings are not questioned, her reality is not constantly debated, and her worth is not conditional on her compliance.

A place where she can begin hearing herself again.

And to the Woman Who Is Still There

Sweet love,

If you're reading this while questioning your relationship, I want you to hear me.

You are not weak because you're afraid.

You are not foolish because you hoped things would change.

You are not undeserving of support because you've stayed longer than someone else thinks you should have.

You don't have to prove how much you've suffered before your experience matters.

And you don't have to make a life-changing decision today to deserve compassion today.

You are allowed to take your experience seriously.

You are allowed to ask for help.

You are allowed to make a safety plan, even if you're not ready to leave.

You are allowed to love someone and still recognize that the relationship may be hurting you.

And if you have already left, but find yourself overwhelmed by grief, uncertainty, or the desire to return to what is familiar, that doesn't erase the courage it took to walk away.

Healing is not always a straight line.

Sometimes freedom feels frightening before it feels peaceful.

Sometimes the unfamiliar quiet feels lonelier than the chaos you once knew.

Sometimes you grieve a person you also needed distance from.

And sometimes you find yourself wondering whether you've made a terrible mistake, even while remembering the reasons you needed change.

Those feelings deserve understanding, not shame.

You do not have to turn your healing into a performance of strength.

You are allowed to be scared.

You are allowed to be uncertain.

You are allowed to rebuild slowly.

And you are allowed to seek safety and support before you feel strong enough to do everything on your own.

I hope you eventually discover something I am only beginning to understand myself.

Your ability to survive pain was never proof that you were meant to keep enduring it.

You deserve tenderness.

You deserve autonomy.

You deserve relationships where your reality is respected and your needs are allowed to exist.

You deserve a life where peace isn't something you must continually negotiate.

And no matter where you are in your journey, you deserve to be treated as a whole human being.

Not a cautionary tale.

Not a collection of poor decisions.

Not a woman who should have known better.

A woman with a story.

A woman who has been trying.

A woman who deserves compassion.

Before You Judge Her

The next time you find yourself wondering why a woman stayed in a relationship that was hurting her, I hope you consider asking different questions.

What was she afraid of losing?

What had happened to her confidence?

What responsibilities was she carrying?

What resources did she have?

What might she have needed that nobody knew to offer?

And rather than demanding to know why she didn't leave sooner, consider acknowledging the courage it took to reach wherever she is today.

Because sometimes leaving isn't one brave moment.

Sometimes it's a thousand tiny moments of remembering.

Remembering that your feelings matter.

Remembering that you can trust yourself.

Remembering that your needs are not unreasonable.

Remembering that love should not demand your disappearance.

Remembering the woman you were before you began questioning every part of yourself.

And choosing, slowly, to come home to her.

Before you ask why she stayed, remember that you were watching her life from the outside. She was trying to survive it from within.

Before you judge her, put yourself in her shoes.

And if you can't understand her choices, at least honor the humanity behind them.

I've been her.

And I will never look at her the same way again.

With love,

Jessica Choate, RN
The Mystic Midwife | Founder of Plant Medicine Healing

When you spiral, come here first.

A Gentle Place to Begin

If this story resonates with you and you're questioning patterns in your own relationship, Plant Medicine Healing offers a free Relationship Safety Check.

It's a private self-reflection tool designed to help you recognize concerning patterns, consider their impact, and reconnect with your own observations. It is not a diagnosis or a substitute for individualized safety support.

Visit www.plant-medicine-healing.com.

You don't have to have everything figured out to begin listening to yourself.