From www.militaryhomefront.dod.mil
Under a definition developed by the Department of Defense, domestic abuse involves a range of different acts by an abuser directed against a person of the opposite sex who is a current or former spouse of the abuser, a person with whom the abuser shares a child in common, or a current or former intimate partner of the abuser with whom the abuser shares or has shared a home. Domestic abuse can happen in any couple.
It includes the use, attempted use, or threatened use of force or violence against the victim, like threatening to hurt or kill the victim, or actually using some kind of physical force against the victim, like hitting, punching, kicking, shoving, or sexually assaulting the victim.
But domestic abuse also includes things that are not physical acts of violence. It can also include emotional or psychological abuse, economic abuse, or isolating the victim from friends and family. Chronic abusers usually try to maintain physical and emotional control over the victim.
Abusers might control where the victim goes and who the victim spends time with; blame the victim for the abuse or threaten suicide if the victim leaves; exploit the victim’s concern for his or her children by threatening to harm or hide the children, making false reports of child abuse, or starting legal proceedings to remove the children from the victim’s custody; or control all financial resources of the couple, limiting the victim’s access to money, and hiding funds from the victim.
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If you are in an abusive relationship or if something about your relationship with your partner scares you and you need someone to talk to, if you are in the U.S. you can contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or visit their website at www.ndvh.org. If you are outside the U.S. you can contact the American Domestic Violence Crisis Line by calling the local AT&T operator in that country and asking to be connected to 866-USWOMEN.
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