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 | | Relationship Violence: What Is It? | | Relationship violence is also called: wife beating, battering, family violence and domestic abuse. This violence refers to abuse one person causes another in an intimate relationship. Relationships can be marital, co-habitational or dating; the abuser may be spouse, partner, or significant other, either heterosexual or homosexual. Both men and women may be abusive. The point of abuse is to control through intimidation, humiliation, fear and pain.
Control and Power
Getting power and control--
Physical abuse: hitting, choking, pulling hair, even shooting.
Sexual abuse: forced sex including unwanted behaviors, withholding sex.
Economic abuse: the partner does not allow their significant other to get or keep a job, access to the car and bank accounts, or destroys their belongings.
Emotional abuse: name-calling, lying, using obscenities, insulting or degrading their partner, intimidation, threats, or isolation.
Intimidation creates fear by smashing things, destroying property or using actions or gestures that suggest danger.
Isolation is perpetrated by controlling a partners activities, whom they talk to or see and where the partner goes.
Threats may include yelling, screaming, the promise of physical pain to the partner or children, the threat of suicide, institutionalization or arrest.
Use of the children: creating guilt, making children messengers, manipulating visitation.
Cycles within Relationship Violence
Violence within the relationship itself:
Once the pattern of violence starts, it gets progressively worse and is difficult to stop. Violence may start with yelling or threats but will escalate to more violent forms such as pushing or breaking bones.
The cycle begins with a tension phase. The abused partner senses the building tension but may not understand it. The violence occurs; after the violence erupts, it subsides and the tension within the relationship is reduced. The abuser may act remorseful or may promise never to do it again. However, the violence will recur with increasing levels of violence the longer the two people are together.
Our societal structure A second cycle exists within our societal structure where many people experience violence within their homes as children and may grow up to perpetuate violence within their own homes.
Both cycles are vicious, there is no easy answer for stopping the violence on a personal or a societal level, but there are strategies people can take to address this problem; these strategies will be discussed at a later date on this same web page, so check us out again soon!
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