Dynamics of Domestic Violence

Physical Abuse

  • Threatens to hurt or kill you or your family
  • Pushes or shoves
  • Holds you to keep you from leaving
  • Kicks or chokes
  • Hits, slaps or punches
  • Throws objects at you
  • Locks you out of the house
  • Abandons you in dangerous places
  • Refuses to help you when you are sick, injured or pregnant
  • Subjects you to reckless driving
  • Rapes or coerces you sexually
  • Threatens to hurt you with a weapon
  • Abuses your pets
  • Breaks furniture, belongings and personal effects

Sexual Abuse

  • Harasses you about imagined affairs
  • Tells anti-women jokes
  • Treats women as sex objects
  • Is jealous and assumes you will have sex with any available person
  • Insists that you dress in a more sexual way than you want
  • Criticizes you sexually
  • Insists on unwanted or uncomfortable touching
  • Withholds sex and affection
  • Calls you sexual names like “whore” or “frigid”
  • Forces you to undress when you don’t want to
  • Publicly shows sexual interest in other women
  • Have affairs after agreeing to a monogamous relationship
  • Forces particular unwanted sexual acts
  • Forces sex when you are sick or when it is a danger to your health
  • Forces sex for the purpose of hurting you with objects or weapons
  • Tells you about affairs
  • Commits sadistic sexual acts
  • Rapes you or coerces you sexually

Emotional Abuse

  • Ignores your feelings
  • Ridicules or insults women as a group
  • Ridicules or insults your most valued belief (religion, race, heritage, class, etc.)
  • Withholds approval, appreciation or affection as punishment

Financial Abuse

  • Steals money from you or your family
  • Makes financial decisions without consulting you
  • Forbids you from working or attending school
  • Overuses your credit cards or refuses to pay the bills
  • Forces you to file fraudulent tax claims
  • Prevents you from owning or using credit cards
  • Harasses you at your workplace
  • Reports you “cheat” on your benefits so they are cut
  • Forces you to sign over assets and power-of-attorney
  • Makes you cash-in property or financial assets you own so that they can share the proceeds