Why do I keep going back?

Because leaving is a decision you make once, and staying away is a decision you have to make every day for weeks, against a pull that is strongest exactly when you are least able to resist it. Going back is so common that the people who work in this field build it into their expectations. What it usually means is that you have not yet found the thing that holds.

What pulls people back

The pull is rarely one thing. Common pieces:

• The promise. Your partner, who has been difficult for months, is suddenly the person you first knew. Flowers, apologies, a willingness to talk that was never there before. The contrast does the work.
• The practical wall. You have left with a bag and no plan for the fourth week. Money is short. The children ask when they are going home. The sofa you are sleeping on belongs to someone whose patience is finite.
• Missing them. Love does not switch off because you left. The quiet of a new place is full of them.
• Guilt. For the children, for them, for the mess. A partner who is good at this will make sure the guilt lands on you.
• Doubt. Away from the relationship, the worst of it becomes hard to believe. Was it really that bad? You have been trained to doubt your own account and that training does not stop at the door.
• Fear. Of what they will do if you stay away. For some people going back is the safer-feeling option, and sometimes it is.

Each of these is a reasonable thing to feel. Together, in the second or third week, they can be overwhelming.

Why the pull peaks just after leaving

Your body spent a long time organised around another person's moods. Take that away and the first result is often a kind of free fall rather than relief. Nothing to brace for, nothing to manage, and the absence of the familiar reads as loss even when the familiar was harmful. At the same time your partner is making their strongest case, and your practical situation is at its most fragile. Three things pulling the same way at once.

Knowing this does not make it easier, but it does mean you can plan for it rather than being surprised by it.

Making the next decision differently

The return decision usually gets made alone, fast and in a low moment. The way through is to make as much of it as possible in advance, in a calm one.

Write down why you left, in your own words, with the specific things that happened. Keep it somewhere private and read it when you waver. Decide now what you would need to see before you would consider going back, and give it a timescale. Tell one person your plan and give them permission to remind you of it. Sort the practical ground for the first two months, not the first week: where you will live, how money will work, what the children's routine will be. And if you do go back, keep the record going. Returning with your eyes open is different from returning with them shut.

What this might mean for you

The member module What's really holding you looks at each of the pulls above and asks which are facts about your situation and which are things you have been taught to believe. The first ninety days apart is for the period when the pull is strongest. If you have gone back and are not sure how long for, the free module Staying safer while you decide is built for being inside the relationship while you think.

Each time you leave, the leaving is usually more dangerous than the time before, because your partner has seen it coming. Plan it. National Domestic Abuse Helpline 0808 2000 247 (24 hours), Men's Advice Line 0808 801 0327, Galop 0800 999 5428. In an emergency, 999, and press 55 if you cannot speak. Press Escape twice to leave this site at any time.