Relationship violence is the use of emotional, financial, physical, sexual, or verbal abuse to control another person. Relationship violence occurs in dating and marriages, from teenagers to adults to the elderly, and across income levels, races, and geographical locations.
Identifying relationship violence is easy as 1, 2, 3:
- Trigger: A tension-building time when something makes him angry
- Explosion: An incident of violence occurs
- Honeymoon: It's make-up time. He apologizes, he is remorseful, maybe he even buys you gifts - the honeymoon period of calm.
Initially, the repeating cycle of violence may not be severe, but the violence often escalates.
Relationship violence is used to control another person and has many forms:
Emotional abuse - put downs, belittling, threats
Financial abuse - gets angry for appropriate spending
Physical abuse - pushes, shoves, hits, kicks, etc.
Sexual abuse - forces sex
Verbal abuse - name calling
Children exposed to relationship violence may think abuse is normal behavior and they may become a victim or an abuser.