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How do abusive relationships start?
The way all relationships start -- with two people falling in love. Abusiveness -- on the part of either partner or both -- may be there from the start. But, more often, it only emerges later, after the romance has worn off and the stresses of everyday life begin to mount.
A first episode can erupt over a trivial matter, and cool down as quickly as it heated up. For this reason, the person on the receiving end of the violence may rationalize it, thinking that he or she somehow provoked it or assume that their partner was just having a "bad day."
An abuser often helps such rationalizations along by being apologetic, charming, minimizing the incident, or swearing it will never happen again. The problem is that once a pattern of abuse begins, it can recur and escalate in intensity, and even follow a predictable cycle.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------How many kinds of abuse are there?
Too many.
It's almost like the old Paul Simon song, "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover," except when it comes to abuse, there are at least 50 ways to hurt your lover.
Some examples of the main types of abuse include:
- Physical: Pushing, hitting, slapping, battering, rape or sexual violence, kidnap, or neglect.
- Emotional/Verbal: Shouting, taunting, verbal insults, obscenities or demeaning language, sarcasm, belligerence, contempt, and other psychological ploys.
- Financial: Misuse of money or other financial resources by a person in a relationship.
- Personal Rights: Denial of needed medical care to an incapacitated person, or refusal to provide adequate nutrition or shelter.
Even though all forms of abuse are serious, we'll focus on the dynamics of physical and emotional violence in an intimate love-partner relationship. The factors that lead to violence are more alike than different in intimate relationships, and ways of preventing them are similar, too.
NATIONALTOLL-FREE 24 HOUR DOMESTIC VIOLENCNE
HOTLINE 1-800-799-7233
There is no excuse for abuse.
Women may be afraid of strangers, but it's a Husband, a lover, a boyfriend, or someone they know who is most likely to hurt them. According to a U.S. Justice Department study, two-thirds of violent attacks against women are committed by someone the woman knows. In the United States, one of the most dangerous places for a woman is her own home. Approximately 1,500 women are killed each year by husbands or boyfriends. About 2 million men per year beat their partners, according to the F.B.I.
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Today another woman died
and not on a foreign field
and not with a rifle strapped to her back,
and not with a large defense of tanks
rumbling and rolling behind her.
She died without CNN covering her war.
She died without talk of intelligent bombs
and strategic targets
The target was simply her face, her back
her pregnant belly.
The target was her precious flesh
that was once composed like music
in her mother’s body and sung
in the anthem of birth.
The target was this life
that had lived its own dear wildness,
had been loved and not loved,
had danced and not danced.
A life like yours or mine
that had stumbled up
from a beginning
and had learned to walk
and had learned to read.
and had learned to sing.
Another woman died today.
not far from where you live;
Just there, next door where the tall light
falls across the pavement.
Just there, a few steps away
where you’ve often heard shouting,
Another woman died today.
She was the same girl
her mother used to kiss;
the same child you dreamed
beside in school.
The same baby her parents
walked in the night with
and listened and listened and listened
For her cries even while they slept.
And someone has confused his rage
with this woman’s only life.
-Carol Geneya Kaplan
Death Penalty
Statement Opposing the Death Penalty
The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) is dedicated to the empowerment of battered women and their children and is, therefore, committed to ending all forms of personal and societal violence. NCADV recognizes that abuses of power in society foster battering and intimate partner violence by perpetuating conditions that condone violence. NCADV believes that violence results from the use of force or threat of violence to maintain control over others and from societal abuse of power and domination in the form of sexism, racism, heterosexism, classism, anti-Semitism, adultism, ageism, nationalism and other forms of oppression. NCADV has historically opposed the use of violence as means of control over others and, to that end NCADV opposes capital punishment under all circumstances.
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