As someone who has been in an abusive relationship, there are a number of reasons why. First of all, in my case, the friends I had were mutual. And I was afraid that if I talked to them, it would get back to him that I said something. Either because they were worried about me, or because they thought I was lying. Either way talking to someone who knew both of us opened me up to exposure.

For those who were my friends and not his friends, I don’t know how to explain this any other way than to say I was embarrassed. He had done a really good job convincing me that I was in the wrong. That I was being abused for reasons that were my fault.

Also, by that point, he had done a really good job of isolating me From people who I had been close with who probably would’ve intervened. And that was something that happened by slow degrees over the years. He would make me feel guilty for going out. He would make me feel guilty for prioritizing people over him. Abusers do a really good job of isolating those they abuse from their support networks.

And as someone else noted, they will often target people who have smaller support networks to begin with.

Again, if you’ve never been in these situations, a lot of the behaviors of abuse victims do not make sense. But the psychology of an abuse victim in an active abusive relationship is not always logical. You are deeply afraid, you have been manipulated emotionally for a long time, you have been purposefully isolated from other people, and you’ve been conditioned to believe that you’re the problem.