What is Domestic Violence/Abuse?

• Domestic abuse is a pattern of behavior used by one partner in a relationship (boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife) to gain power and control over the other.
• The abusive behavior may include verbal and emotional abuse, threats of harm, intimidation, isolation, economic abuse and physical and/or sexual violence.
• Abusers may use children to control their partner. They may threaten to get custody of the children, ask the children about the other parent’s activities in order to monitor them, threaten to harm the children or actually hurt them, or they may take the children without permission or without telling the other parent where they are.
• Abusers often invent unrealistic rules about what their partner can or cannot do and then change the rules without warning. They often expect their partner to meet all of their needs, both emotional and physical, without telling them what those needs are. Abusers will usually punish their partner in some way for not following those rules or meeting their needs.
• An abuser may isolate their partner by making it difficult or impossible for them to be with family, friends, or others who could give them support. They may block their partner’s access to transportation, phone or computer.
• It is common for many abusers to be described as “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. They may act differently or show different personalities in public than in private; they may shift from a good mood to a bad mood easily and quickly around their partner, sometimes for no reason.
• While there are many abusers who beat their partners until they require medical attention, there are many more abusers who do not use physical violence at all. Or have used it a few times in the past, but now just have to give a look or raise a hand to make their partners afraid.
• If you have been physically hurt by your partner, it is safe to say you are in an abusive relationship; however, physical violence is not the only thing that makes a relationship abusive.

What are the warning signs of domestic abuse?

Domestic abuse is not just physical. You may be in an abusive relationship if your partner does some of the following:

• Keeps track of what you are doing all the time and criticizes you for little things.
• Constantly accuses you of cheating on them.
• Cheats on you but blames you or the relationship
• Makes it hard for you to see friends or family, to go to work or go to school.
• Keeps track of all the money, spends it all without letting you know or "forgets" to pay bills leaving you without lights, insurance, or other important things.
• Embarrasses or insults you in front of others.
• Breaks or throws away important things or things you care about.
• Threatens to hurt you or the children or pets, or does hurt you (by shoving, slapping, kicking, holding you down...)
• Uses or threatens you with a weapon like a gun or a knife.
• Forces you or pressures you to have sex when you don't want to.
• Says their bad behavior is your fault - that you did or said something that caused it.
• Makes you feel like you're crazy for thinking there's something wrong with the relationship.
• Gets mad and yells and/ or calls you names for seemingly no reason or for small things.
• Drives recklessly to scare you.
• Gives you mixed signals - sometimes it's OK to do or say something and the next time it's not OK. Leaves you feeling like you're walking on eggshells.

Domestic abuse is not a one-time event. Abusive partners will often say their behavior only happened once during a fight or that they “snapped” under stress. But these "one-time" events will happen again. Most abusers use different tactics in different situations so it will be easier to downplay their seriousness and keep their partner under the illusion that it just happened "this one time" and will never happen again. It also makes it easier to blame the abuse on the other person as each "isolated" incident is said to have happened for a different reason. But over time, the incidents start to form a pattern.

Patterns of abuse may be different from one abuser to the next– not all patterns are predictable or obvious. Some abusive tactics may not appear to an outsider to be that bad and may even seem thoughtful or loving. For instance, some abusers send flowers or give gifts, but only their partner knows these gifts are because of an abusive incident.

Apologies are often used as a tactic to keep someone in an abusive relationship. Abusers may cry, send cards or letters, and often make promises to change their abusive behavior, which gives hope to their partner that things will get better. But all too often, after the apology comes blame, sometimes very subtly, to make the other person think that they could have somehow stopped the abusive attack if they had done something better, said the right thing, or changed in some way.

For more information on domestic abuse, including the reasons why it might be hard to leave an abusive relationship, you can read or download the Domestic and Dating Violence Handbook published by King County Government.

For information on how to stay safe in an abusive relationship, visit our safety planning page.