From the outside, people may look into abusive relationships and wonder how the victim stuck around for so long. One of the answers is something called "trauma bonding."
Manipulative, abusive people tend to be cruel to their partners, and hurl insults at them. They sometimes are also physically violent. However, they didn't start off this way when they were reeling in their victim.
Manipulators also give their partners intermittent periods of love and compliments to get them to stick around. These moments are given when the partner has "behaved" or has done something right. It's a way of being conditioned, and the victim gets biologically addicted to the emotional push and pull.
"You have this back and forth, and the body becomes addicted," said Shannon Thomas, a therapist and author of Healing from Hidden Abuse. "When we're looking for something that we want, that we once had, which is a connection with somebody, and they are playing cat and mouse where they are pulling it back and forth, then the body really does become dependent on having that approval."