According to the National Council Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), domestic violence is the willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual assault, and/or other abusive behavior as part of a systematic pattern of power and control perpetrated by one intimate partner against another.   

 

TYPES AND SIGNS

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Emotional abuse includes …

• Telling the victim they can never do anything right

• Showing jealousy of the victim’s family/friends and time spent away

• Accusing the victim of cheating

• Keeping or discouraging the victim from seeing friends/family

• Embarrassing or shaming the victim with put-downs

• Dictating how the victim dresses, wears their hair, etc.

• Telling the victim they are a bad parent or threatening to hurt, kill or take away their children

• Destroying the victim’s property

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Psychological abuse includes …

• Looking at or acting in ways that scare the person they are abusing

• Controlling who the victim sees, where they go, or what they do

• Stalking the victim or monitoring their victim’s every move (e.g. in person, online, and/or by GPS tracking on the victim’s phone)

• Preventing the victim from making their own decisions

• Pressuring or forcing the victim to use drugs or alcohol

• Preventing the victim from working or attending school, harassing the victim at either, keeping their victim up all night so they perform badly at their job or in school

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Financial abuse includes 

• Controlling every penny spent in the household

• Taking the victim’s money or refusing to give them money for expenses

 

Sexual abuse includes …

• Pressuring the victim to have sex when they don’t want to or to do things sexually they are not comfortable with

• Forcing sex with others

• Refusing to use protection when having sex or sabotaging birth control

 

Physical abuse includes …

• Threatening to hurt or kill the victim’s friends, loved ones or pets

• Intimidating the victim with guns, knives, or other weapons

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NACDV Blog, Quick Guide: What Is Domestic Violence?  4 October 2016