This is the kind of thing I was just kidding about earlier today.
Things have to be getting pretty bad when one of the "problems" is that men just aren't fearful enough of being subjected to domestic violence. I've only been involved in one relationship in which someone tried to get violent, and it wasn't me. And, as far as I was concerned, that relationship ended that day.
How can people live like that?
Well, I can't speak to why men do, but I have a good idea why women do - because for a little while in my early twenties, I did.
I was financially and professionally dependent on my partner. He was a sharp-tongued man with movie-star looks, and for a year and a half, he slowly turned me into a shell of my former self - I had no self-confidence once he was through with me. No self-confidence, no way (I thought) to make money that didn't involve working with him, isolated from my family for a year and a half, living half-way across the country from them...then one day, in my most vulnerable moment, he surprised me by giving me a bloody nose and choking me.
At that point, I was no longer the person I was when I met him. I lived like that for another year and a half until a friend and co-worker practically kidnapped me to get me out of there. After that, he cried on my doorstep for another good year and a half, begging me to come back.
So it's complicated.
I'm glad you got out though. : )