How to leave an abusive relationship: plan before you speak

What happens when you say you want to leave?

A partner who controls you hears a threat to the arrangement, and answers it.

• The test. Most people say it once as a test: a break, or a few weeks apart.
• The answer. The reply is pressure, aimed at reopening the decision you have just made.
• What it tells you. That reply is the most useful information you will get about what leaving involves.

You owe your partner no announcement. I would rather you were safe than honest.

Why is the moment you leave so risky?

Leaving is the one move that control cannot absorb. The monitoring, the sulking and the arguments that end with you apologising all depend on you staying inside the arrangement.

• The study. Campbell and colleagues compared 220 women killed by a partner with 343 abused women in 11 American cities.
• Separation. Separating after living together was associated with more than 3 times the risk of being killed.
• Control and separation. Where the partner was also highly controlling, the risk was about 9 times higher.
• What it argues for. The finding argues for planning and for telling somebody, and it gives no argument for staying.

The study covers homicides in the United States from 1994 to 2000 and says nothing about any one relationship, including yours.

What do the threats sound like?

Most threats are shaped to make leaving feel impossible.

• To leave first. Going becomes their idea, and you become the one who was left.
• The children. You are told you will not see them, or that others will hear what you are really like.
• Money and the home. You are told you will have nothing, and that your name is on nothing that counts.
• Your standing. Your family or your employer are given a version of you that takes years to correct.
• Your right to stay. If you moved to Denmark for this relationship, your residence becomes the lever.
• Their own safety. It is said in a way that makes you responsible for it.
• To hurt you. The plain threat is the one people repeat least afterwards.

Each threat moves the subject from what you want to what you will be blamed for. Seeing that leaves the threat serious and makes it readable.

What if my partner threatens to hurt themselves?

You cannot keep another adult safe by staying in a relationship with them.

• The timing. Notice whether the threat arrives when leaving is mentioned and at no other time.
• The effect. This threat keeps more people in place than any other.
• In the room. I take the responsibility off you before anything practical is discussed.

Why is couples therapy the wrong room for this?

Couples therapy asks 2 people to be honest in front of each other and then go home together.

• The frightened partner. You put material on the table that you pay for later.
• The controlling partner. Your partner collects a new vocabulary to use at home.
• My position. I take no couple into joint sessions where one partner is afraid of the other.
• The right room. Individual psychotherapy is the room for this, whether you leave or stay.

Read more about walking on eggshells and about red flags in a relationship.

How do you leave an abusive relationship safely?

Put the arrangements in place before the conversation, so the conversation is never also the emergency.

• One person. Tell one person outside the house, and ask them to note the date and what you said.
• Somewhere to go. Know where you would sleep on the first night.
• Papers. Copy passports, residence documents, birth certificates and bank details, and keep the copies outside the house.
• Money and contact. Hold money and a phone or an account your partner cannot see or stop.
• The conversation. Decide whether to hold one at all, and hold it away from home if you do.
• Going back. A review of the research finds that many people leave and return more than once before the final separation.

The plan then exists outside your own head, where nobody talks you out of it.

These steps fail when you are watched too closely to prepare, or when the fear is too large to plan through alone. That is what the session is for, and you come alone.

Questions people ask

Is leaving the most dangerous time in an abusive relationship?

The period around a separation carries more risk than the period before it. That is an argument for planning, and none for staying.

Should I tell my partner I am leaving?

You owe your partner no announcement. Where you are frightened, the conversation comes last or does not happen.

What if my partner threatens to take the children?

The threat works because you do not know where you stand. Treat it as pressure, and treat what you were told as your partner’s version.

Why do I keep going back to an abusive partner?

Most people leave in stages. Research on leaving describes several shifts in thinking before the final separation.

Does therapy help if I have not decided to leave?

Yes, and that is most of the work. You arrive without a decision and I start with what frightens you.

Sources

• Campbell, J. C., Webster, D., Koziol-McLain, J. and colleagues, Risk factors for femicide in abusive relationships, American Journal of Public Health, 2003
• Anderson, D. K. and Saunders, D. G., Leaving an abusive partner: an empirical review, Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 2003, record at the US Office of Justice Programs

How this article was written. I choose the subject and the angle. An AI assistant researches and drafts. Nothing is published until I have read it, corrected it and stood behind every clinical statement in it. The professional and clinical judgement is mine and mine alone.