Victims stay because they know that any sudden move will provoke the bear. They stay because they have developed tools, over the years, that have sometimes worked to calm down an angry partner: pleading, begging, cajoling, promising, and public displays of solidarity, including against the very people—police, advocates, judges, lawyers, family—who might be the only ones capable of saving their lives. They stay because they see the bear coming for them. And they want to live.
