Why doesn’t she just leave? 

She would if she could. 

Leaving isn’t a single decision — it’s a hundred impossible ones stacked on top of each other. Leaving is more than knowing what door to use and when to use it. 

When you’re in an abusive “relationship” built on coercive control, you don’t just lose your freedom — you lose everything that makes freedom possible. This is not a relationship. It has never been one. 

I wasn’t locked in a basement or handcuffed to a wall. I didn’t have to be. He made sure the things I needed to survive were thingshe controlled: Access to money, good credit, transportation, the roof over my head, food in my belly, and my dogs. 

He lowered credit limits when I disobeyed. He disputed charges to humiliate me, create more chaos in my life, and make it impossible for me to get one more thing in my name, on my own, without his help. He cut me off from money for gas and food — not because he didn’t have it, but because controlling when and how I got it is part of the trap. He refused to give me money when I had 5 miles of gas left in my gas tank, even though he had wads of cash hidden everywhere. He has told me he’s broke since I met him. He has thrown in my face every dime he has given me, collectively, on a regular — sometimes daily — basis. He made sure my name was tied to just enough debt to keep me tethered to him legally and financially. He tried to make me doubt my abilities to do even the simplest of things. He tried to make me doubt my abilities to care for my dogs, which is so ironic it’s infuriating — we’re all dying because of him. 

Leaving means more than walking out the door. It means having no money for a deposit, no credit to get a loan or put anything in my name, no transportation to get somewhere safe, and no way to survive without repeating the same pattern and falling back into another dangerous situation. Speaking of — the most dangerous time for a victim is when they try to leave. Abusers know they are losing control, and they will do anything — anything — to get it back. For some, that means legal threats, stalking, and public smearing. For others, it means violence. 

So no, it’s not as simple as “just leave.” It’s leaving while the ground is crumbling beneath your feet and you’re questioning whether or not you can do it. It’s leaving when you have to find safety, stability, sense of self and strength while looking over your shoulder. 

Sometimes, staying is survival. Sometimes, the only way out is to move quietly, strategically, a little bit at a time. Until the day you can become nothing more than a ghost. Until the day he gets home expecting to see your car in the same place it always is, and you where you always are. But you’re gone — having left no trace behind and no ability to find you. He won’t think anything of it at first. But when days go by and his texts still won’t go through, and you’re not stuck in any of the confinements he trapped you in, that it will hit him. And he will get to live with the gnawing pit in his stomach that won’t go away no matter what he does. It will finally be his turn to live with the pain of loss, of the unknown, of betrayal, and coming to the realization that he was never as powerful or in control as he thought he was. Because the thing that he was certain he would have in his grasp forever, proved him wrong. Your only wish? Being able to watch him spiral and unravel into full narcissistic collapse.