Domestic Violence: Going Beyond Physical Abuse into Every Aspect of Life

“Every aspect of life”? The DV industry confirms our worst fears…

Domestic Violence: Going Beyond Physical Abuse into Every Aspect of Life

July 23, 2010

To outsiders, an abusive relationship could seem like a black and white situation.

But, experts on domestic violence say those relationships are complicated, all shades of gray.

Someone may see a couple where one of the partners — statistically more often than not the man — is abusive and the other a victim as rocky, tumultuous, volatile or dysfunctional.

But, that’s not how experts define it. It goes well beyond the surface, well beyond the visible bruises and apparently petty arguments, and is about far more than what outsiders may think.

“The way we talk about domestic violence behaviorally is that we see it as a pattern of coercion and assaultive behaviors that one person uses to gain power and control over their intimate partner,” said Merril Cousin, executive director of the King County Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

“It goes so much beyond (physical violence) and really what is central is this issue of the use of coercion power and control. It’s this pattern of one person using this range of tactics to get control over their partner.”

Victoria Throm, founder of the Covington Domestic Violence Task Force, provides assistance to victims in that role as well as her position with the city of Covington as a Human Services Specialist for the city. It’s one of the many hats she wears.

“Most people, I would imagine, think of domestic violence as strictly physical,” Throm said. “The biggest denial is when it’s emotional.”

And Throm, a survivor herself, identifies closely with the denial of the other aspects of abusive behavior that occurs in such a relationship.

“I was that way,” she said. “I’ve had people recently say to me, ‘He didn’t hit me, so, it’s not abuse.’ To me that’s probably the area that’s the most difficult to understand because they don’t physically harm them. It’s so subtle and it just wears you down. Your self-esteem is gone.”

Throm explained there are no cut and dried answer to what domestic violence looks like because “it is very complicated. Every story is unique, so, there are so many facets. There’s not just one pat answer or description. Control and manipulation are the keys.”

Sometimes the abuse can surprise outsiders, Throm said, because abusers can live a double life.

“These abusers, men and women — most of the cases of abusers are men, but that isn’t always the case — these guys can be charming in public and they could be totally different at home,” she said. “They can be very selective.”

And Throm said that smart women who are well educated and have good jobs in positions of power can find themselves in abusive relationships.

“It’s not just low income,” she said. “That is another stereotype that is very wrong is that it affects only low income (families).”

It goes back to the idea that the abuser feels compelled to control his partner, said Keith Beach, founder of the Jennifer Beach Foundation which was started in Covington and is now based out of Auburn.

“The model throughout history to keep people down is to keep them dumb and to keep them poor and abusers know that,” Beach said. “They can take the smartest woman around and continually demean her…to keep her not informed of what’s going on in society… demanding that someone reports every penny that they spend and where they spend it. But, mostly for a way to show power over another.”

Beach added that he had heard a statistic that women on average will attempt to leave an abusive relationship five to seven times before she finally breaks it off.

“I think you become blind,” he said. “I met a woman who had been through a couple relationships that had been abusive and she decided to just give up on having relationships.”

Instead, Beach suggested she revise her “checklist for a relationship,” an approach she hadn’t thought of because she had become so focused on the kinds of relationships she had been drawn into in the past.

STATISTICS AND EXAMPLES

Cousin said she believes on both a local and national level society has come a long way in the past 30 years.

“People used to think this was a fairly rare occurrence,” Cousin said. “If someone got beat up by their partner, they must have done something to deserve it. People now really recognize that domestic violence is a big problem… and that really using violence against an intimate partner is not OK.”

There is not as much awareness, however, of all the different kinds of coercive behavior abusers can use that range from threats to controlling and monitoring everything the partner does….

Source: http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/south_king/cmv/lifestyle/99130629.html

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