150 Intimate Partner Violence (Domestic Violence)

First of all, what exactly is intimate partner violence?

So intimate partner violence can look a lot of different ways.

A lot of times when people talk about domestic violence or intimate partner violence, they're thinking about physical violence, bruising, hitting, pushing, things like that, which is definitely violence.

But there's a lot of other types that aren't always visible that we talk about.

It can be coercion and manipulation, emotional abuse like put downs, name calling.

It can also be financial abuse, not allowing your partner to get a job or requiring them to be the only one who has a job.

controlling all of the money, things like that, spiritual abuse.

There's a lot of different ways that I can look.

But ultimately, it is a form of coercive manipulation and control over another person,

whether that's physical or emotional or verbal.

And for a lot of people, that can look like a cycle as well, because sometimes it isn't always that way in a relationship, right? There can be good times and bad times.

But when you're in that cycle, it can be hard to identify what exactly is happening to you.

And so a lot of the times there can be a really big explosive event, whether that's like a physical event with hitting or pushing or a big blow up moment of emotional abuse.

Um, and then things start to simmer down and can cycle into this almost honeymoon phase where the person that was being violent apologizes or, you know, they promise that they're going to get better, that it's never going to happen again, that they're going to, um, You know, they're going to go to counseling, they're going to recruit help from family, things like that.

And then over time, that continues to cycle up into another space of feeling like you're walking on eggshells.

Things are starting to get bad again.

If the person that uses violence, maybe they use substances, maybe they relapse or they start to get really short and nitpicky and violent.

You start to notice those things again, and then it continues to cycle into another big explosive event.

So people can get caught up in that cycle and not really be able to identify what's going on.

And so that's why it's important to talk about what exactly intimate partner violence is and how people can identify it.