I need some help with a book I'm writing....

Part of the story involves the protagonist and her husband. He's an a**hole and can at times be emotionally abusive (never physical!)

My main character is a strong woman who tolerates her husbands bad behaviour but I'm struggling to think why.
I need to make it clear what her motivation is for staying with someone who is a d*ck.

She has a 5 year old son so that is one reason to stay.
Can anyone identify any reasons why a strong woman would stay with an emotionally abusive man?

Also, I need reasons why she fell in love with him in the first place. He is charismatic and charming but I need to give him some more appeal or the story won't sound believable.

All suggestions welcome!

Thanks :-) x

Do we get to share writing credit?

maybe she's the maternal type who figures she can fix him and help him get over his issues. Maybe she figures he's actually a really great guy under all his insecurities that cause him to act out . . . . Maybe he's super hot and and maybe she thinks the good, charming, charasmatic side of him, out weighs the annoying, whiny, hurtful side of him. Maybe she's the type of person who loves drama, addicted to the emotional roller coaster that is her life, and if she's not feeling big giant emotions, good or bad, she doesn't really feel alive. None of the above are healthy places to be . . .

Part of the story involves the protagonist and her husband. He's an a**hole and can at times be emotionally abusive (never physical!)

My main character is a strong woman who tolerates her husbands bad behaviour but I'm struggling to think why.
I need to make it clear what her motivation is for staying with someone who is a d*ck.

She has a 5 year old son so that is one reason to stay.
Can anyone identify any reasons why a strong woman would stay with an emotionally abusive man?

Also, I need reasons why she fell in love with him in the first place. He is charismatic and charming but I need to give him some more appeal or the story won't sound believable.

All suggestions welcome!

Thanks :-) x

"strong" women who stay with emotionally abusive husbands are not strong. They may appear to be strong, but they're not.
They typically stay for a few reasons;
1; This is how their daddy was, so it's what they're used to. It's normal behavior, and they don't even realize it's abuse.
2;They're in denial about the humiliation and what not
2B; "It's not like he HITS me or anything" mentality
2C "It's somehow better than being a single mom
3; the humiliation of a divorce is worse than the divorce
4; staying for "the sake of the kids"
5; Low self-esteem and self worth

"Never physical" it's still abuse and can be equally as hurtful. There may be no broken bones or bruises, but there is no self respect or self esteem, either.

Why she fell in love with him in the first place;
1; he's a lot like her daddy.
2; He wasn't like this when they first met.
3; no one taught her about "red flags" growing up.
4; she was young and naive, he was a bit older and more experienced and easily manipulated.
5; she has little self esteem, which he encourages, and plays on.

Having a son is a reason to leave, not stay! Quickest way to teach your son to be an abusive adult, or to teach your daughter
to put up with this is to stay.

You can't really have a "strong" character stay married to an emotionally abusive husband, it doesn't work that way. If she was strong, she would have left years ago. Or she became stronger in the course of the marriage despite what was going on, and this can be an on-going tangent on the story with a side character of a mentor.

I really do dislike the whole "But he doesn't hit me"

Forgot the age old reason to put up with bullsh!t; $$$$. but strong women don't go that route

In my own experience it is because I keep waiting for the man I married to magically reappear again. Do get glimpses of him at times. Def for the kids and because financially I can't make it on my own. And I am a strong person too in so many areas of my life, but weak when it comes to leaving him. I am on disability for bipolar disorder and can't work right now. I have no immediate family around. Live 1000 miles away. And in 2 1/2 years my youngest will turn 18. I always tell myself I can hold on till then.

addiction to peanut butter even though she's allergic to nuts....

he has the last supplies of antidote left after the quickening, a time where bees gained a collective consciousness and attempted to exterminate the human race, and in doing so disrupted the natural balance due to their mass suicide / holy war - causing the collapse of human civilisation due to food scarcity.

honey is the most valuable substance on the planet as it is so rare due to the extinction of bees.

the time after the quickening is known as AB.... After Bees.

"I could't leave. the butter was like a drug to me. It made me weak and giddy. in this new world this was my only reprise. in the old world a man like this would not have been tolerated... but here... in the second year of AB there was no kindness. Here a woman needs a man"

wanna write a different book now? yep. bet ya do. lool.

Have you already fully developed the male character and the whole story? If yes, don't read on and ignore this comment.

If not: she may have fallen in love with him because he used to be different, a nice, strong, reliable character. He may have changed because of an illness, for example a brain tumour. That could also be a reason why she's staying with him, because she knows that it's not really HE who is so abusive, but it's because of the tumour changing him.

She knows she's strong and smart, so she thinks - I can fix this, I can make it better, I just need to keep trying different things, reading different books, work on my communication with him....

Have you already fully developed the male character and the whole story? If yes, don't read on and ignore this comment.

If not: she may have fallen in love with him because he used to be different, a nice, strong, reliable character. He may have changed because of an illness, for example a brain tumour. That could also be a reason why she's staying with him, because she knows that it's not really HE who is so abusive, but it's because of the tumour changing him.

Great idea! It sounds like your character is younger but dementia does it to.

Codependency? Perhaps it's how she grew up.. as much as it's a hardship
Perhaps it's also a comfort because it's so familiar..

She has a 5 year old son so that is one reason to stay.

Having children is not reason to stay in an abusive relationship. In fact it's on of the best reasons to get out of one.

By staying in the relationship, it implies to the child that it's okay for one parent to abuse the other. Second, it increases the chances that the child will grow up with the same bad habits of one of the parents, either the abuser or the abused.

I completely, completely agree with this statement!!

I know it doesn't help the OP with her story dilemma, but it's such an important thing for people to know. Staying together for the kids, staying in a bad relationship for the kids...its the worst thing you can ever do.

I was brought up by two amazing people who did NOT belong together, but stayed together "for the kids." All it taught me was not to believe in marriage, and to get the idea, via osmosis, that your own happiness should be subjugated for someone else's, and that it is ok to waste a life being unhappy if you think you are helping someone else.

Would you really want your kid to live like that? Is that really the message you want to send?

Again, apologies to the OP for hacking this. Just needs to be said more often!!

Have you already fully developed the male character and the whole story? If yes, don't read on and ignore this comment.

If not: she may have fallen in love with him because he used to be different, a nice, strong, reliable character. He may have changed because of an illness, for example a brain tumour. That could also be a reason why she's staying with him, because she knows that it's not really HE who is so abusive, but it's because of the tumour changing him.

Great idea! It sounds like your character is younger but dementia does it to.

are you nicholas sparks?

Maybe she's afraid she wouldn't be able to support her son and herself on her own or end up in the street. Maybe she thinks they can work on his problems and things would get better. Maybe she doesn't want her son to grow up without a dad. Maybe she's worried he might turn violent if she leaves him.
Probably that man isn't evil and it's not black and white since life doesn't go that way - he's a man with some serious issues who is sometimes hurtful and, probably, sometimes compassionate, like people are. I think that in order to understand why she stays, you have to first work on his character and make sure he's complex and that you can use many more words to describe him rather than "abusive". Why does he act the way he does? What's his background and what lead him down this road? Is he aware that what he's doing is hurtful, does he want or try to change? I think all those things will get you closer.

Good luck, I hope this helped.