Domestic violence is a pattern of abusive or coercive behaviors in any intimate or familial relationship that is used to gain and maintain power and control over another person. These 12 tactics of abuse are highly damaging to both victims and children and should be recognized by the court using the examples below. They are all harmful to direct targets and children. No one chooses or deserves to be the recipient of these behaviors:
1. Economic Abuse
Withholding money, stealing money, preventing earning, refusing to pay bills, intentionally ruining someone’s credit, giving an unreasonable allowance, excluding from budgeting decisions, driving up costs, concealing financial info, limiting access
2. Emotional Abuse
Name-calling, gas-lighting, humiliating, exploiting insecurities, blaming someone, lying, exposing private info, guilt-tripping, putting someone down, patronizing someone, withholding love or communication
3. Sexual Coercion & Harassment
Manipulating to get sex, exploiting someone who cannot consent (impaired by drugs or alcohol, unconscious, disabled, afraid, underaged), destroying or refusing birth control or STD protection, making sexual comments/jokes, unwanted sexual touch
4. Technology Misuse
Sending unwanted texts, stealing online passwords, pressuring someone to take or send sexual photos, calling incessantly, monitoring social media, monitoring devices, posting revenge porn, online stalking, doxing, social media impersonation, or abuse
5. Using Intimidation
Making someone afraid through looks, actions, or gestures, destroying or stealing property, abusing pets or loved ones, displaying weapons, physical proximity
6. Using Threats
Threatening to use physical or sexual violence, threatening to leave, commit suicide, or report to authorities, coercing someone to act illegally, threatening to expose private information, threatening harm to family/friends/pets, threatening to expose, threatening to take the children
7. Physical Abuse
Hitting, slapping, restraining, kicking, strangling, biting, burning, maiming, stabbing, shooting, killing, disfiguring, withholding physical needs, forcible restraint, breaking/destroying inanimate objects
8. Using Isolation
Controlling what someone does or wears, controlling who someone sees or talks to, limiting outside involvement, isolating someone from family/friends and/or damaging those relationships, using jealousy to justify actions, controlling others’ time/activities
9. Minimizing, Denying, Blaming
Minimizing the impact of abuse, making alienation accusations, denying abuse happened, accusing the victim of making up the abuse, excusing actions on stress, alcohol, drugs, or jealousy, blaming the victim, accusing the victim of being crazy or unstable
10. Using Privilege
Using popularity, class, race, education, income, or disability to manipulate someone, making all the decisions, defining the relationship roles, treating someone like a servant or sex object, entitlement to sex, treating someone like a servant, punishing independence
11. Legal Abuse
Misuse of the court system against the victim, filing repeated, unreasonable motions, appealing orders without legal basis, requesting excessive & unrelated discovery, intentionally making baseless or false accusations, unreasonably relitigating, deliberately delaying, filing excessively long or unreasonable motions to drive up costs, refusing to obey court orders, threatening subsequent actions, filing unreasonable professional complaints against victim’s attorney, judges, and court-adjacent professionals (eg. therapists), threatening/reporting/suing those helping the victim and/or their children
12. Animal/Pet Abuse
Isolation of pet(s) from people or other animals, threats to harm, using legal means to battle over pets, blaming the animal for cruelty/harm, justifying killing a healthy animal because of its age, denying money for food and/or veterinary care, using animal harm to threaten human harm, harming or killing pets to intimidate children, giving away, killing, or ‘losing’ pets to take away a source of love, forcing participation in animal sexual abuse
(Family law, divorce lawyer, economic abuse, emotional abuse, legal abuse, physical abuse)
