What We Should Know about Domestic Violence

The very phrase, domestic violence, implies that such violence occurs between people who are in a personal relationship – spouses, including civil, parents and children, and/or other relatives. This is a system behavior of one family member against another, which is based on power and control. In most cases, the violence is not under a particular reason, except the one that relatives or partners seek to control the behavior and feelings of another person and suppress it as an individual at different levels.

Physical abuse is what usually understood under the domestic violence. Indeed, this is one of the most common types of domestic violence. However, there are other types of domestic violence: sexual, psychological (blackmail, threats, constant humiliation, insults, monitoring), and economic, when one of the participants of the problem takes away the victim’s earnings. The problem lies in the fact that physical or sexual violence can be proven and they are crimes, but economic and psychological – not. There are cases when one partner applies all kinds of violence at the same time.

There is a perception that domestic violence is only subject to dysfunctional families, and secured and well-educated couples don’t have such a problem. This is not true. Families with low income and low education have problems associated with alcoholism and physical abuse. Families with a high level of education, but the low-income have economic and psychological abuse.

During an argument it is necessary to try not to succumb to provocations. Remember that everything you do and say can be used against you. Unfortunately, there are no universal rules of behavior, if you have already been a victim of a physical violence. Someone might stop if you start crying or show that you are in pain, while others may only be further provoked by it. The main thing is to try to distract the perpetrator and escape from the house as soon as possible.

The main and most dangerous misconception that exists in society regarding the problem of domestic violence is that the reason is the victim, and the rapist was provoked. It automatically raises a wrong question why, and the tendency to look for an excuse for the aggressor. Therefore, if this happened to you or someone from your family, it is important to understand three things: first – the victim is not to blame. It is not necessary to delve into yourself, looking for mistakes that led to the violence. The incident means only one thing: your partner or relative is a terrible person, who for some reason decided that he or she was better than you, and that violence is the way out of the conflict.