How can power relationships be abusive?

Trust and intimacy are foreign to abusive relationships, so they are the dynamics previous abuse victims must reacquaint themselves with as soon as possible. read more

The lesser powered person will feel abused and generally put up with the controlling and manipulative ways of the person in higher power. The person in higher power may say,"you can't leave me, I will kill myself." so the lesser powered- person will stay in the relationship out of fear that the higher powered person will kill themselves. read more

There is a coercive factor that keeps the abused party stuck in the relationship and the power imbalance sustained. This is the locus of your question, I believe.* If so, people remain abused in relationships of imbalanced power for many reasons, chief among them remains the insecurity involved in leaving their gravitational pulls, so to speak. read more

Powerlessness early in life tends to produce a later undue interest in power, sometimes in ‘power to’ but most commonly in 'power over'. A strong interest in achieving power and control in a relationship, ironically, can produce in a primary aggressor, the ‘feeling’ of being controlled. read more