Why do Women continue to have Sex with Abusive Partners?

She knows it hurts. 

She knows it degrades. 

She knows he’s going to ask for things she doesn’t want to do. 

But, She also knows, he’ll be calmer afterward. 

She knows he’ll be kinder to the children. 

She knows he’ll be kinder to her. 

She knows he seems a little more intelligent after. 

She knows what every abused woman has known for eons. 

She just has to get through the painful, degrading part.

She’s learned to effectively seduce her partner even if neither of them is in the mood out of survival. 

Drs have performed SPECT scans on brains before and after sex, and found that the limbic system calms considerably. When the limbic system is overactive, it’s like the librarian in you brain has PMS and files everything (time, emotion, perception.) in a very angry place. 

Thank you Dr Amen, you just learned what women already know. 

In a related thought, Lundy Bancroft wrote in "Why does he do that?" that women know that after her partner has a major rage episode, he is calmer and kinder. 

Sometimes when an abused women sees her partner getting edgier and crueler, she will sometimes intentionally trigger an outburst from him, knowing he'll hurt her, but that the kind period will come sooner.