OVERVIEW OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Violence occurs when one person exerts any negative power and control over another person.  Domestic violence is a pattern of abusive behavior used to establish power and control over one's partner through fear and intimidation, often including the threat or actual use of violence. Battering happens when one person believes they are entitled to control another.

All of these Forms of Abuse exist on a continuum of violence with varying degrees of abusive behavior.

Physical

• Pushing, shoving, hitting, kicking, and/or choking
• Throwing objects at someone
• Holding someone to keep that person from leaving
• Subjecting someone to reckless driving
• Threatening someone with a weapon
• Refusing to help when a partner is sick, injured, or pregnant
• Murder

• Ignoring your partner's feelings
• Humiliating your partner in front of others
• Withholding approval, appreciation, or affection as punishment
• Name-calling and/or insults
• Punishing or depriving the children or animals when angry with a partner
• Threatening to leave and/or isolating the victim from support system
• Threatening suicide if a partner leaves

• Treating men/women as sex objects
• Minimizing the importance of a partner's feelings about sex
• Criticizing a partner sexually
• Withholding sex and affection
• Insisting on unwanted or uncomfortable touching
• Unwanted use of objects in sexual ways toward/with the victim
• Forced sex

• Taking car keys or money away
• Forbidding the victim from having a job
• Controlling all of the finances, leaving the victim with no access to resources

THE CYCLE OF VIOLENCE

The cycle of violence has three phases.  Tension Building, Explosion, and Hearts and Flowers.  Without intervention, the cycle recurs. Eventually, the "Hearts and Flowers" phase may disappear altogether. Unless there is some intervention or the victim leaves, the phases get closer together and the violence generally escalates.

Click here for a diagram of the Cycle of Violence.

CHARACTERISTICS OF A BATTERER - WARNING SIGNS

Both men and women can be batterers. However, approximately 92% of all domestic violence involves men being violent to women.  Domestic violence can happen to anyone. Batterers and victims come from all walks of life. Domestic violence does not discriminate based on socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, education, race or age.

Batterers tend to:

• Be emotionally dependent, especially on their victim
• Have limited tolerance for frustration and stress combined with an explosive temper
• Possess insatiable ego needs
• Continually make unsubstantiated accusations and experience intense jealousy
• Have no sense of violation of others' personal boundaries
• Accept no blame or responsibility for his or her actions
• Have grown up in a violent home (Generational history of violence)
• Control their victim by threatening homicide and/or suicide - often when their partner attempts to separate or leave
• Move too fast, too soon in new relationships
• Abuse drugs and/or alcohol
• Abuse animals

EXCUSES OFTEN USED BY THE PERPETRATOR

These are common excuses that perpetrators may use to deny responsibility for their actions. In reality, perpetrators are responsible and in control of how they treat others.

• I only pushed her, I didn't hit her.

• She provoked me.

• She bruises easily.

• I hardly touched her.

• I only slapped her, I didn't hit her.

• She was out of control.

• It was an accident; her face hit my face.

• She has mental problems/she is not taking her medication.

• She has thin skin.

• She was hysterical.

• She was high or drunk.

• I had to restrain her.

• I was defending myself.

• I was trying to keep her from leaving.

HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS

Building Healthy Relationships
(Adapted from Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault Manual, Chapter 13)

The basis of a healthy relationship is shared power. Shared power includes:

• Equal power in decision-making.

• Individual freedom to disagree, change or leave the relationship.

• Equal rights to independence and to express one's feelings, needs, thoughts and desires.

• Equal access to support (friends and family), resources and personal space.

• When power is shared between intimate partners, they protect themselves and each other from abuse in relationship.

Essential Tools for Healthy Relationships

• Communication Skills

• Good Personal Boundaries

• Conflict Resolution Skills

• Self-Awareness

CHARACTERISTICS OF HEALTHY VS. UNHEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS

• Respect
• Independence
• Open communication
• Sharing desires and feelings
• Allows personal change and growth
• Based on choice
• Encourage self-care
• Accepts limitations/flaws
• Partners retain sense of self
• Enhances personal qualities
• Appreciation
• Risks vulnerability
• Trust

• Disrespect
• Overly dependent
• Secretiveness
• Deceitfulness
• Promotes stagnancy
• Based on need
• Perfectionist
• Uses denial and avoidance
• Partners lose identity
• Brings out the "worst"
• Selfishness
• Fears intimacy
• Jealousy

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