National Domestic Violence 24 Hour Hotline:  1-800-SAFE (7233)

What is Domestic Violence?

Domestic violence (also known as spouse abuse, partner violence, intimate-partner violence, battering, and numerous other terms) is a pattern of coercion used by one person to exert power and control over another person in the context of a dating, family, or household relationship. The spectrum of domestic violence includes much more than physical assault. Domestic violence encompasses a number of controlling behaviors that include:

• Actual or threatened physical harm, psychological abuse, and forced sexual contact; 

• Economic control;

• Social isolation;

• Destruction of a victim’s property, keepsakes, or personal possessions;

• Abuse of animals/pets;

• Misuse of divine beings or religious beliefs, practices, teachings and traditions as well as asserting gender superiority and attributing abusive behavior to cultural traditions.

These behaviors can occur in any combination, sporadically or chronically, over a period of up to several decades.

Who Are the Victims of Domestic Violence?

25% of American women will experience domestic violence at some point in their lives.  8% of American men will experience domestic violence at some point in their lives.  Children are very often witnesses and victims themselves.  Both men and women in heterosexual and same-sex relationships can experience domestic violence.  These statistics do not include the vast number of unreported incidents of domestic violence. 

Domestic Violence – Why?

Why Partners Abuse

Those who abuse generally learn to do so through observation, experience, and reinforcement.  They may have been abused themselves.  They seek power and control, and believe they have a right to use violence.  Alcohol and drugs are often associated with the abuse, but they do not cause it.  Those who abuse often blame their behavior on someone else, including their partners.  Those who abuse may say things like “you made me do this.”

Why the Partner Who Experiences Abuse Stays

FEAR:  for themselves, their children, that they cannot support themselves.

DISBELIEF:  Those who are abused are often incredulous that it happened and believe it will not happen again, even when it does.  Many partners who are abused think that they can stop the abuse if they just act differently.

SHAME:  The partner who is abused may be ashamed to admit the person they love is terrorizing them.  Some cannot admit or do not realize that they are abused.

They may mistakenly think that they have caused the abuse.  BUT THEY ARE MISTAKEN.  NO ONE EVER “DESERVES” OR “CAUSES THEMSELVES” TO BE ABUSED.

What Are the Causes of Domestic Violence?   

Domestic violence is learned, purposeful behavior.  It reflects a need to achieve and maintain power and control over his or her partner.  Abusive behavior is learned and reinforced:

• Through observation

• Through experience

• In culture and in society

• In the family

• In communities, including peer groups

• Through our failure to hold those who abuse accountable for their actions.

The single most influential factor of domestic violence in adulthood is domestic violence in the household in which the person was reared. Children who grow up in an environment where control is maintained through verbal threats and intimidation and where conflicts escalate into physical violence, are more likely to resort to the same methods of abuse as adults. 

Domestic violence is not caused by stress or anger.

It is not caused by the behavior or actions of the person being abused.

Simply put, there is no valid excuse for domestic violence.