Domestic violence, is it just about power and control?

Could it be, that children from a violent environment learn to relate later in the same way to their future partners? What could we do about this?

This problem afflicts so many women, men and children:

"Domestic violence can be defined as a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner.

Domestic violence can be physical, sexual, emotional, economic, or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person. This includes any behaviors that intimidate, manipulate, humiliate, isolate, frighten, terrorize, coerce, threaten, blame, hurt, injure, or wound someone.

# Physical Abuse: Hitting, slapping, shoving, grabbing, pinching, biting, hair-pulling, biting, etc. Physical abuse also includes denying a partner medical care or forcing alcohol and/or drug use.

# Sexual Abuse: Coercing or attempting to coerce any sexual contact or behavior without consent. Sexual abuse includes, but is certainly not limited to marital rape, attacks on sexual parts of the body, forcing sex after physical violence has occurred, or treating one in a sexually demeaning manner.

# Emotional Abuse: Undermining an individual's sense of self-worth and/or self-esteem. This may include, but is not limited to constant criticism, diminishing one's abilities, name-calling, or damaging one's relationship with his or her children.

# Economic Abuse: Making or attempting to make an individual financially dependent by maintaining total control over financial resources, withholding one's access to money, or forbidding one's attendance at school or employment.

# Psychological Abuse: Causing fear by intimidation; threatening physical harm to self, partner, children, or partner's family or friends; destruction of pets and property; and forcing isolation

Let's hope, and believe that not all children who are abused become abusers themselves.

I like to believe that I am living proof of that. I'm a male survivor of child sexual abuse, and I am so happy today. I'm healthy, have a great job, a loving wife and two sons whom I love and care for so incredibly much. We do not have a stressful or violent home. We are close, loving, patient, and have fun. Life moves fast and we keep that in mind.

Don't get me wrong, I went through many tortured years in my life and I thank the Grace of God and the many friends, and family members, and an incredible therapist who helped me reach this stage in my life.

My abuser was an uncle who is now in jail thanks to my testimony in court against him. That was almost ten years ago. It divided my family, but I wish all survivors could experience that day in court against their abuser.

So what do we do about it? I think a great start is to never minimize the affect abuse has on someone. I say this, because to this day, I can't get my parents to pick up a book about child sexual abuse, or admit that the abuse I endured impacted me throughout my childhood and adolescence. That only exasperated things for years.

I think it is important for people to tell their stories and to talk, and talk, and talk about it (keeping in mind there's a time and place for everything -and you can't forget to live life too, as life includes the present and future, not just the past).

Silence is one of the main things that keeps abuse alive.

I could go on and on about my experience, but I think the most important thing is to talk. Whether you are a survivor, or the spouse, friend, or family member of a survivor, or even just someone who is moved to help survivors -speak up, or lend an ear.

Good question!

Great. You just wrote your senior thesis paper on yahoo and no one's going to read it. What exactly was your question?

Domestic violence has been watered down to the point that disagreeing or not giving her your credit card is considered domiest violence. You would have to describe said abusive behaviour. What are you referring to ? Slamming doors, disagreeing not giving in to her every demand, demanding his credit card back ?

Growing up I encountered domestic violence and it still affects me now as an adult. I have angry outbursts so that's something i gotta work on...

A good place to focus is on the primary abuser to children, that being the mother. Children learn violence from their parents and with the father already being focused on, its about time to focus on the main abuser, the mother.

One thing that could be true is that boys will lose respect for women when being treated like they are by their abusive mother. Not only growing up violent but also disrespectful to women.

Yes domestic abuse is partially about control I think and partially about a person having anger issues that they must deal with but do not know how. And it is perpetrated by both genders roughly equally. My mother was very abusive toward men so was my aunt my uncles were womanizers who never really took women seriously. Thankfully I had a grandfather who showed me that there are much better ways to deal with anger and that controlling someone elses's life never helps anyone especially not the controller. I think putting a stop to radical feminism would help because all of the false hysteria it creates only makes problems worse not better because it just ads more anger between the genders. I also think that educating children in ethical behavior would help. You know teach them that human respect is a must and all people deserve it. Also they should be taught that violence is not a very good way to solve a problem since it usually only creates more problems in the long run.

I'm a victim of domestic violence. It affects you for your entire life. Even someone like me who admits that it still affects me find it difficult to cope with.

Some people choose to stay unfortunately because to they tend to feel that they have no where else to turn. Your self esteem goes down to zero and your mental and physical health is threatened.

My opinion, as much as it seems difficult, no one needs to go throw that kind of abuse. If there are kids involved you have yet another reason to leave. You'll be teaching you son that abusing a woman is right and you'll be teaching your daughter that it's OK for a man to abuse you.

Men who abuse woman have problems being in their own bodies. It's a form of control because they feel insecure about the woman for some reason or the other.

My mother always told me that it's up to me to take whatever problems I have in a relationship. But never settle for abuse in a relation. It's a way of making the woman feel guilty for the wrong things the man is doing. Eventually the woman develops the "Battered Women Syndrome", that is, believing that they deserve what's happening to them.

No kind of abuse in a relationship is good, and I always try to show women especially that there's hope, there's choices, there's people that care and willing to help and most of all there's happiness out there.

Yes ego is the main cause.

It has already been shown by two female sociology professors that the incidence of domestic violence perpetrated by females upon males is 50% AND INCREASING. Moreover, 95% of domestic violence arrestees are men. So, quit acting like women are the g..d... innocent little victims here.

uh, yeah....

Not all domestic violence is about power and control. Some abusers think that it is a revenge tactic to be used on their own children/spouse in order to get back at their abusers or the world at large. Some people might have innate anger issues that must be dealt with although this is probably very small. Still others learn that being abusive is the correct way to deal with anger. Most abusers have learned to be abusive from their parents and very few have learned to be abusive from someone else. It often takes repeated abuse to eventually become an abuser. However it is not always the case that the abused becomes the abuser. If the abused has a way of getting out of the situation then often times they can lead healthier lives.

"Could it be, that children from a violent environment learn to relate later in the same way to their future partners"?

Yes this is exactly what most psychologists will tell you. Those who have been abused have a good chance of becoming abusers themselves one day. This is true for both men and women. Being with the abuser sets up a pattern of behavior in the abused. They learn that this is the way to deal with certain situations and thus act accordingly later in life.


"What could we do about this"?

I suppose one thing one could do is devote one's life to psychology and the study of domestic violence. Studying the phenomena is the first step in curbing it's effects. More immeditaley one could get involved in organizations that teach people how to respond to others who might be abusers. Perhaps volunteering at a women's/men's/children's abuse shelter might help as well. Furthermore, perhaps trying to lobby government to pass laws so that all cases of reported domestic violence are at the very least investigated. Also, and I hate to say this because I know it is controversial, but lowering the amounts of violence on television would help in this area as well. With less violent models in the world, children will probably model bad behavior less. But you would have to lobby Congress or something to help out there. That's all I can think of for a Saturday morning.