• Name-calling or put-downs
• Isolation from family or friends
• Withholding of money
• Actual or threatened physical harm
• Sexual assault

What is Abuse?

• Destructive Criticism/ Verbal Attacks - Name calling, mocking, accusing, blaming, yelling, swearing, making humiliating remarks or gestures.
• Pressure Tactics - Rushing you to make decisions through "guilt tripping" and other forms of intimidation, sulking, threatening to withhold money, manipulating the children, telling you what to do.
• Abusing Authority - Always claiming to be right, telling you what to do, making all the big decisions.
• Disrespect - Interrupting, changing topics, not listening or responding, twisting your words, putting you down in front of others, saying bad things about your friends and family, making you feel stupid.
• Abusing Trust - Lying, withholding information, cheating on you, being overly jealous.
• Breaking Promises - Not following through on agreements, not taking a fair share of responsibility, refusing to help with childcare or housework.
• Emotional Withholding - Not expressing feelings, not giving support, attention, or compliments, not respecting feelings, rights, or opinions.
• Minimizing, Denying, Blaming - Making light of behavior and not taking your concerns about it seriously, saying the abuse did not happen, shifting responsibility for abusive behavior, saying you caused it.
• Economic Control - Interfering with your work or not letting you work, refusing to give you or taking your money, taking your car keys or otherwise preventing you from using the car, threatening to report you to welfare or other social service agencies.
• Self Destructive Behavior - Abusing drugs or alcohol, threatening suicide or other forms of self harm, deliberately saying or doing things that will have negative consequences.
• Isolation - Preventing or making it difficult for you to see friends or relatives, monitoring phone calls, telling you where you can and cannot go, checking the odometer on the car to see how far you've gone.
• Harassment - Making uninvited visits or calls, following you, checking up on you, embarrassing you in public, refusing to leave when asked.

Acts of Violence

• Intimidation - Making angry or threatening gestures, use of physical size to intimidate, standing in a doorway during arguments, out shouting you, driving recklessly.
• Destruction - Destroying your possessions (eg. furniture), punching walls, throwing and/or breaking things.
• Threats - Making and/or carrying out threats to hurt others.
• Sexual Violence - Degrading treatment or discrimination based on your sex or sexual orientation, using force, threats or coercion to obtain sex or perform sexual acts.
• Physical Violence - Being violent to you, your children, household pets or others, slapping, punching, grabbing, kicking, choking, pushing, biting, burning, stabbing, shooting, etc...
• Weapons - Use of weapons, keeping weapons around which frighten you, threatening or attempting to kill you or those you love.

Characteristics of Abusers

• 80% were abused as children or saw their mothers abused
• blame partners for their abusive behavior
• place enormous expectations on partners to feel good about themselves
• are very jealous and possessive of partners
• tend not to trust other people, and therefore tend not to share inner world with others
• have limited or no social networks; partner is closest person he knows. highly emotionally dependent on partner; subject to depression known only to family.
• have low self-esteem
• tend to express all negative feelings as anger
• get needs met by control, such as violence and threats
• may threaten suicide if partner leaves
• come from all socioeconomic levels; all educational levels; all racial, age and ethnic groups
• can be very pleasant outside of the home and very unkind at home
• frequently demanding and assaultive in sexual behavior
• hold very traditional, stereotyped views of male - female roles in relationships
• lack of sympathy for partner's physical and emotional pain
• tend to minimize and deny the abuse

Why would a woman stay?

One of the biggest misconceptions and tragedies is society's willingness to blame the victim. We must place responsibility for the crimes on the offenders and stop blaming the victims. "Why doesn't she just leave him?" Well, there are lots reasons why women stay.

• she loves the partner, not the violence
• she made a commitment she feels she can't break
• she has nowhere else to go
• she has no money, or fears the poverty that may result for her and her children if she leaves
• relatives and in-laws want her to stay
• she believes her partner can't get along without her - he may have threatened suicide if she leaves
• she wants her children to grow up with their father
• he takes her confidence away so she doesn't think she can make it on her own
• she believes her partner will change
• she is afraid or ashamed
• he makes her feel guilty and tells her the abuse is her fault
• she believes she deserves the abuse
• she's afraid for her own and her children's lives

If You are Abused