Something that has always puzzled me about people (and not only women!) in this situation: I can accept that people end up in a prison of their own making, having been so browbeaten that they can't see any escape. After all, that doesn't happen only in relationships - you see the same with bullying in the workplace. Victims seem to lose the very idea of moving jobs, even when objectively they can. But what I can't understand is this: why do people go back to the abuser even after they've escaped? The abuser's been banged up in jail at last, they are free - and once he gets out of jug, they take him back! This happened in my own family. What on earth is that all about? And no wonder workers in the field of domestic abuse suffer so often from burnout themselves.