Learn More:

About Domestic Violence

- Is Something Wrong in Your Relationship?
- What is Domestic Violence?
- What Causes Domestic Violence?
- What are the Barriers to Leaving?

Is Something Wrong in Your Relationship?

Do you feel...

Confused about your relationship?
Like you are going crazy?
That you are “walking on eggshells”?
It is hard for you to spend time with family or friends?
As if you can’t do anything right?
That your partner decides when and where you have sex?
Like you are in a relationship with two completely different people?
That you need to justify everything you do?
Drained?

Does your partner...

Call you names or put you down?
Want to know what you’re doing and who you’re with all the time?
Act extremely jealous?
Find excuses to keep you from getting enough sleep?
Push, shove, or grab you?
Keep you from leaving when you want to leave?
Force you to do things sexually you don’t feel comfortable doing?
Promise to change (get counseling, go to AA, etc.)?

What is Domestic Violence?

Although usually understood as a punch or a slap, domestic violence is a pattern of physical assaults, threats, and coercive behaviors used to maintain control over a current or former intimate partner. Behaviors can include ongoing verbal, emotional, sexual, physical, psychological, and economic abuse, and typically get worse over time. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence and a study published by the American Journal of Health, 2000, domestic violence is a crime that affects up to 30% of American women.

Examples of abusive tactics include:

Hitting, kicking, and punching
Preventing access to family finances
Threatening to take custody of the children or threatening to take the children away
Harming children as a punishment to one’s partner or spouse
Destroying property
Harming pets
Berating
Threatening violence
Restricting access to family and friends
Accusing her of infidelity
Forcing her to do sexual things she doesn’t want to or is uncomfortable with

Domestic violence results in death, serious injury, isolation, emotional damage, medical issues, and poverty for victims. Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women, and the leading cause of women’s visits to hospital emergency rooms. Nationally, one half of all homeless women and children are fleeing domestic violence.

What Causes Domestic Violence?

While stress, alcohol, drugs, and anger may seem to cause domestic violence, this is not the case. Domestic violence is caused by the perceived right of one person to dominate another. In most domestic violence cases, the abuser believes that men should have power and control over women.

What are the Barriers to Leaving?

People often wonder why a woman stays with an abusive partner. By asking why she stays, we hold her responsible for the problem, when responsibility for violence always rests squarely with the abuser. A more appropriate question is “Why does this person abuse his partner?” Still, there are innumerable reasons for a woman to stay in an abusive relationship. Abusers don’t just let their partners leave relationships, and they will use violence and other tactics to maintain the relationship.

The reasons for staying in a violent relationship are many, and vary for each person. They include:

Fear of the perpetrator’s violence.
The risk of being killed when leaving.
Fear that protection orders and the criminal justice system will not protect her.
Lack of economic resources with which to support herself and her children.
The desire to keep her children with their father.
Being told by family or friends that the abuse would stop if she changed.
Suicide threats from the perpetrator.
Threats of violence to others by the perpetrator.
Dependence on the perpetrator for healthcare.
Lack of affordable housing.
Lack of affordable legal assistance necessary to obtain a divorce, custody/visitation plan, or protection order.
Lack of faith in systems designed to help victims.
Inability to speak English fluently.
Lack of access to resources due to physical isolation.

Seventy-five percent of women killed by partners or ex-partners are murdered while attempting to leave or after leaving the relationship. One theory suggests that batterers see a partner’s efforts to leave as an ultimate refusal to be controlled. Killing her may be the only way to maintain control. Leaving can be dangerous.

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