Twisha Sharma | “Why Didn’t She Leave?” |Expert Explains Why Women Stay In Abusive Marriages| Barkha

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]small. It's a it's a it's a pathy yet heartbreaking statement Shivangi that that I feel my efforts were lacking. I wish I'd been able to convince her. It's not that it's easy for women. Women are also socialized to stay in marriage.

[00:00:15]Women are also socialized to make adjustments. In this case, her family has also explained to me that because it was a love marriage, she met him through a dating app. She felt more responsible for her choices. But if we do not learn the lesson that is needed to be learned, there will be more and more thrishas and more and more giri balas. And that lesson is that marriage and romance is not or cannot be at the center of a woman's identity. Um, and I know you've looked at this in great detail. That intractable question, we get it every day in our audience stream. Why did she not leave? Why did she not leave? Right.

[00:00:51]women who have been gaslit to stay in abusive marriages with the cultural conditioning all around us. It isn't that easy. It's very easy to be judgmental but I'm not being judgmental.

[00:01:02]I genuinely want you to share with us your findings on this.

[00:01:06]>> Yeah. So, thank you for having me Barka.

[00:01:09]Um, we have to move the owners from the natal family to what the victim was going through. You have to understand also the agency of the woman. In my experience where I've been closely following the case, she has gone back to the natal family. They have told her and re reiterated that you can come back whenever you want on messages on call.

[00:01:28]She has gone back multiple times. So this means that it wasn't that they completely abandoned her anything. You have to come back to the psychology of the woman, right? Help seeking which is the decision to seek help when you're facing violence is not linear. All right? It changes when you have different situationship situations and external circumstances and it also depends on your positive and negative perception of informal or formal help.

[00:01:53]Informal help is what she was doing in this case which is where you are trying to contact your friends, family etc. Formal help would be police, legal or service providers. Correct?

[00:02:02]uh in theory of violence against women, the most common one is called the learned helplessness theory wherein you say that when the woman is going through extreme severity of violence, there is psychological paralysis that happens within her while it is often criticized that you're pathologizing the woman in the situation but she feels that she is passive and she cannot do anything against when uh violence happens. That is the first theory. The second theory which has happened in Tisha's case is the cycle of violence. Just to explain it, I'll take a little time to explain that there are three uh stages to it.

[00:02:35]One is the honeymoon phase wherein they fall in love and they're very much together. Second is called the tension buildings phase which has happened here which is nitpicking, jealousy, possessiveness, coercive control, isolation, uh verbal abuse, maybe or maybe not slapping, etc. happening. At this point, the woman tries to change herself. So, she might be working hard if she's called her. Let's assume something happened at the honeymoon where they're saying that she was pushed. she has spoken to her brother as per the brother's uh account that uh have I made a mistake should I uh what should I do so what the woman at that moment is doing trying to change herself so maybe she's going for counseling maybe she's trying to change herself maybe trying to go to the gym and you know release some endorphins feel better about the situation that is the tension building phase phase is called the acute phase and the acute explosion phase is when any form of big violence happens such as slapping kicking uh pushing her etc now at that moment is when the woman seeks help. That means at that m moment is when Tisha has contacted her family, her friends to say I am facing violence or he's doing this. What do I do? Do I come back? So she has come back and gone back. This cycle again goes back to the honeymoon phase wherein the man apologizes. Some maybe must have apologized said I'll go for counseling.

[00:03:47]Let's try to have a baby. Things will improve between us. Uh let me try and get intervention from my mom's side.

[00:03:54]This cycle by research repeats seven times before a woman decides to leave.

[00:03:59]So there has to be a threat to her life and her children in certain cases for her to decide. She was stuck in the cycle of violence. It's not happened that many times and this is the minimum seven times that it happens. And that's when the woman actually decides to leave uh a violent marriage. And just to additionally get this point uh when I was looking at another framework I really need to bring it out here because you said the FI has clearly stated that there was some who came in and said something to it. If you look at the intimate partner homicide timeline it has eight stages. It is made by Dr. Smith and she talks about in cases of stage suicide or murders you have to follow the stages. In this stage at stage four is the trigger. Did Tisha somehow mention that she you need to have a separation in the intimate partner relationship? So did she somehow mention listen I'm going to go back to my house I don't want to be here and that is when there was a rage reaction and that is when there is an escalation in the stage five stage six and stage seven is when there is state suicide or homicide. So this framework has to be bought in the conversation of law of the police to understand that researches with objective truth and science have been done on violence against women.

[00:05:08]Sorry, please go ahead.

[00:05:09]>> No, no, no. I think that was an excellent elucidation in a very short period of time. And this idea that there could have been a rage reaction uh becomes even more important when you think of when you look at the the images on your screen. Whatever Twisha was going through and I can say this, I think we've all been in in relationships that haven't been happy uh for us. We've all been in relationships where some many of us have even experienced abuse.

[00:05:34]It doesn't mean your your whole life collapses. It means a part of your life collapses. There could still be that moment as happened with Twisha that she went to get a head massage. And this CCTV footage from the parlor, it really captures that thing that she's alone.

[00:05:48]She's by herself. She's in her own space. Maybe she feels a degree of autonomy because there's no anxiety triggers around her. And and this is hours before she's alleged to have taken her own