What is Domestic Abuse?
Domestic abuse is any abusive behaviour repeatedly used by one person
to control and/or dominate another person with whom they currently
have or have had a relationship. The abuse can be physical, emotional,
mental, sexual, verbal, or financial. It might be a combination of
one, some, or all of these elements. There are no excuses for it. It
is not motivated by anger, depression, unemployment, alcohol or drug
use, but is instead motivated by one persons desire to have power and
control over another.
Abusers
use different tactics to exert power and control
- Violence: physical
or sexual; punching, slapping, spitting, kicking, burning, sexual
assault, rape
- Isolation: won’t
let you see family or friends, or sulks and creates arguments when
you do, makes you or persuades
you to move away
from family and friends
- Verbal
Abuse: calls you names, tells you you’re
fat / stupid / a slag / worthless, attacks your self-esteem
- Bullying: shouting,
breaking things, using physical presence to intimidate you, sulking,
constant questioning, humiliating
you
in front of others
- Financial
Control: keeps you short of money by spending it,
hiding it, or preventing you from working,
keeps you
dependent
- Using
children: tells you you’re a bad
mother, spoils the children but won’t discipline
them, forces you to get pregnant, threatens to hurt
them
- Blame: tells
you the abuse is your fault, if you were different then the abuse
would stop, you nag too
much,
you don’t
keep the house tidy, you wind him up
- Repression: tells you that you have no rights, that no-one will believe
you, that it is a private matter
so no-one
will help
you, that it
is not really abuse
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