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

26th June 2026Mags Lesiak, Doctoral Researcher, University of Cambridge 1 Comment

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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