Why do some victims keep going back to their abusive partners?

26th June 2026Mags Lesiak, Doctoral Researcher, University of Cambridge

Police regularly encounter victims of domestic violence who repeatedly defend, excuse, and return to their abusive partners, a situation that officers can struggle to understand; now new research by the University of Cambridge identifies the perpetrator mechanism behind such behaviour, and gives it a name – weaponised attachment – while a free professional toolkit can help officers better understand behaviours in coercive control investigations, as University of Cambridge Doctoral Researcher Mags Lesiak explains.

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Why do some victims keep going back to their abusive partners?

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