Commonly Asked Questions on Abuse

What is abuse?

Abuse is taking place when the abuser is hurting, demeaning or humiliating the victim toward the goal of getting what the abuser wants at the expense of what the victim wants, needs or is in the victim’s best interest. Abuse is sometimes an inordinate response (physically, verbally or emotionally) to a problem of life. A person forgets to take out the garbage and their partner throws the garbage all over the kitchen.

How common is abuse in intimate relationships?

When the definition of abuse is that abuse occurs when one partner intentionally uses physical force, words or psychological manipulation to hurt, demean, humiliate or harmfully control their partner, abuse is not uncommon in relationships. We do not keep statistical information on verbal, psychological and emotional abuse so it is difficult to say how common it is.

Are there warning signs in a relationship?

Not always, but often there is evidence of the abusers need to control. In the beginning of a relationship the behavior can be mistaken for caring. The person can present as just wanting to take care of their partner.

How can someone recognize the presence of abuse in a relationship? 

Since all abuse is not the same, warning signs other than being controlling might be, when one partner becomes confused by the seeming meanness of the words and actions of the other. Yet the person being unkind insists they are being misunderstood or are only teasing. Another sign is when you notice that your partner seems to feel better about himself while pointing out his perception of your mistakes or weaknesses. If you notice you seem to be the object of his humor and you find it embarrassing or hurtful not funny, that can be a sign of an abusive person. When it feels to you that in the eyes of your partner, you do little right and in fact he indicates he is doing you a favor by putting up with you that is warning sign of abuse. When one partner is enhancing or attempting to enhance his perception of himself and/or his life circumstances at the expense of and at detriment to his partner, that is abuse.

Why don’t women leave?

Many women do leave. To leave safely can involve a process that lengthens the leave-taking, causing many people to think the woman is prolonging the abuse. Financial realities, faith beliefs, the desire for an intact family, hope the relationship will improve and fear that leaving will make the abuse worse all play into a woman’s decision to stay. The realization that because she has children with the man who is abusing her, she will have to continue to deal with him slows down many women’s leave-taking. Many abusive men are harsh with their children but not harsh enough to prevent them from having visitation. The woman sometimes realizes that she will be less able to protect her children if she leaves and her children have a relationship with their father without her as a buffer. Another reason many women stay is because they are afraid to leave. They know that their leaving will heighten their partner’s anxiety and anger making him potentially more violent and dangerous. Most of the partner homicides come at the time the woman leaves.

Why do men hurt the women they claim to love?

There are many possible explanations. Experts in domestic violence don’t agree on an answer to that question. One answer is the same reason anyone hurts another person. They want to teach them a lesson. They want to punish them for the pain they feel the other has caused them. They want to scare them into doing what they want them to do. Some of the men are bullies and get satisfaction out of feeling strong by exploiting another’s perceived or actual weakness. Some of the men believe that only one person can be in charge and they are willing to hurt the other in whatever way will work for them to have the “misguided” perception that they are right, strong, smart and totally in charge. Some men have a twisted faith system that causes them to believe that it is their duty to hurt their partner if that is what is necessary to bring her “into submission”.

How are the children impacted?

Research has shown that it is more impactful to a child to see their parent physically abused than to be abused themselves. Each child is an individual and experiences the impact uniquely. Some ways in which the children are impacted are: higher likelihood of abusing drugs and alcohol, higher likelihood of suicide, higher likelihood of running away, higher likelihood of sexual promiscuity, higher likelihood of committing crime, higher likelihood of doing poorly in school, higher likelihood of perpetrating violence themselves, higher likelihood of being the victim of violence, higher likelihood of having physical problems and higher likelihood of having relational problems.

What help is available for women victims? 

 Different help is available is different communities. In our community we have a women’s shelter, we have victim’s services through the district attorney’s office, we have both faith based and secular support groups, we have classes for parenting after violence and we have groups for women who are deciding after having been abused what steps they now wish to take.

Can abusers change? 

Yes, abusers can change but not all do. Each person who has been abusive is a unique person and their story is unique. It is the experience of our batterer intervention program (BIP) that everyone wants to be successful in life. It is true there are widely varying ideas of what success is. The vast majority want to love and be loved, to understand and be understood and in the words of one group member “to be a nice man married to a nice woman who loves me and I love her, who likes to be with me and I like to be with her, who enjoys our children with me as we raise them to be decent people and we all live a decent, enjoyable, crisis free life.” There is not agreement among the experts on batterer intervention what changes people. In our BIP we use a motivational approach. We believe that the relationship between the facilitators of the groups and the group members creates the setting from which the clients have the choice and the opportunity to change. We view the clients as people who have a number of strengths but who have also engaged in abusive behavior. We present material in a positive respectful manner, encouraging the clients to consider ways the implementing of it in their lives could help them achieve their personal life and relational goals. We support their attempts at adopting these life changes complimenting them on their achievements and applauding their increases in self-efficacy, self-awareness, self-esteem and resulting empathy and compassion. To the degree we are able to track the statistics in our county, less than 10% of the clients who complete our program re-offend.

What can the church do?

The most important thing the church could do is to recognize the problem of domestic violence and be curious about understanding the issue and finding solutions to eliminate domestic abuse. To accomplish this, the church can begin by educating the members. They can have trainings for the members. They can educate themselves about the resources in the community for both victims and perpetrators. The church could include the agencies in their community that are addressing the issues of domestic violence in their mission budget. The church members could volunteer at their local agencies. When a church family shows evidence of domestic abuse, the church staff should refer the perpetrator to a batterer intervention program and the victim to victim services. The local church needs to adopts a policy of zero tolerance for domestic violence.