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Recognize the signs of abuse

Domestic violence is a pattern of assaultive and coercive behaviors (abuse) that adults or adolescents use against their intimate partners.

Women who are or have been victims of domestic violence are as varied as the feathers of a bird. The abused woman looks just like the non-abused woman. Domestic violence crosses all racial, social, religious, cultural and economic lines. Therefore, abuse of women spans across the full spectrum of womanhood.  The abused woman can be your mother, sister, niece, or best friend. She can be a homemaker, CEO, pastor, teacher or your manicurist. 

Although the abused woman cannot be stereotyped, there are concrete patterns of behavior that exist within an abusive relationship that can identify the existence domestic violence. 

Physical Abuse

Acts of violence such as hitting, punching, kicking, strangling, biting, dragging, restraining, confining, assaulting, and threatening with weapons or objects.

 Sexual Abuse

Any form of unwanted sexual behavior that violates a person's boundaries or self-determination, including but not limited to: sexual assault and sexual harassment, inappropriate touching, pressure to perform specific sexual acts, pressure to have unsafe sex, degrading comments about one's body or sexuality.

Emotional Abuse

A pattern of control whereby one person exerts power over another through verbal, psychological, or spiritual means to frighten, intimidate, threaten, isolate, harass, berate, humiliate, disempower, or destabilize the other person. Some signs include: making the person feel "crazy," blaming the victim for the abuser's behaviors, minimizing or denying incidents of abuse, using children, extreme jealousy, controlling where the other person goes or what she does with her time, destroying personal belongings, frequent criticism, isolation from support systems such as friends/family/congregation, insulting one's most valued beliefs, or using social privilege.

Spiritual Abuse

A type of emotional mistreatment where one person uses spiritual practices to gain control over another person. Examples include using scripture to justify abuse, restricting access to worship, and invalidating or mocking spiritual beliefs.

Financial Abuse

A pattern of mistreatment whereby one person exerts financial power and control over another, or uses economic means to frighten, intimidate, threaten, isolate, harass, humiliate, disempower, destabilize, or otherwise control another. This can include withholding or stealing money, abusing credit, controlling financial decisions, withholding financial information, sabotaging someone's means of employment or income, creating financial dependence, and using class/status/economic power against the other person.

Anyone experiencing any of these patterns of abuse in an intimate relationship is a victim of domestic violence. The abuse does not have to exist in a marriage or between adults to be domestic violence. Domestic violence can exist between

• Dating couples
• Married couples
• Fiancés
• Ex spouses
• Non-married cohabitating  couples
• Adults 
• Teenagers