Domestic violence: causes, effects, and intervention strategies

Domestic Violence

The term 'domestic violence' and 'abusive relationships' are usually used interchangeably, while abusive behavior is referred to as 'battering'. Domestic violence can thus be defined as abusive behavior between adults in an intimate, sexual, usually cohabiting relationship. These abusive behaviors may include, but not limited to; emotional or psychological abuse, isolation, economic abuse, physical abuse, and sexual abuse (Hunter, 2010). It is a known fact that women are the most victims of domestic violence. The question that most people in the society ask is, "why can't abused women walk out of such relationships?"

The immediate reply one would get on asking such a question is that only those who are being abused understand why they are staying. This simply means that there are certain realities that such women face that are not understand by the society. In order to understand these realities, we need to look at patterns of behavior in abusive relationships, what Walker (1979) referred to as 'cycle of abuse'. This cycle of abuse has four phases, Tension building phase, Acting-out phase, Reconciliation/Honeymoon phase, and Calm phase. In the tension building phase the partners communicate poorly, are passively aggressive, fear causing outbursts, and experience a rise in interpersonal tension. When it comes to the second phase which acting-out phase, there are incidences of outbursts of violence and abuse. This is followed by the third phase in which partners portray affection, apology, or in some instances they ignore the incident. The indication at this stage is that the violence has ended and the partners assure each other that it will never happen again. Even in cases where the abuser chooses to ignore the incident and walk away from the situation with little comment, they must eventually show love and affection to the abused partner. All sorts of tricks are used to prevent the abused from leaving the relationship, including threats of suicide or inflicting harm to self. The last phase is the calm phase which may be an extension of the third phase, however, elements of interpersonal difficulties will start cropping in which eventually lead to the first phase of tension building (Brewster, 2006). These phases correctly describe the common pattern in every abusive relationship, understanding this cycle will give one an insight of just why the abused women stayed for so long and are not about to quit.

Generally, a woman in an abusive relationship has two options in front of her, to leave the abuser, or to stay with the abuser, both options are bad (Hunter, 2010). If the woman decides to leave the partner, she will lose the person she loves, lose her own economic security together with that of her children, and she will also lose her position in the society. Furthermore, she also risks losing support given by her family and church members who are traditional minded. Such family and church members hold to the belief that the woman must keep her family together at all costs. The other danger the woman faces when she leaves her partner is that of being threatened, threatened, or even attacked. After considering all these possible loses, the woman may then decide to hold on to the relationship, but still some challenges await her. First and foremost, her children may be taken away from her by caring relatives or by courts apparently because she cannot protect them. Secondly, she risks even losing more of her self-esteem, she also risks facing the unending painful and humiliating abuse, and the ultimate result of this may be loss of life.

Whenever we hear stories told by these women who are being abused, we always tend to ask them why they did not leave the first time they were hit. This may seem simple for an individual who is not involved, however, it should be understood that battering does not start by one throwing a blow to the head from nowhere. The beginning of battering is marked by simple things such as a look, an approach, an articulation (Brewster, 2006). No one would expect a woman to just walk out of a relationship because the look by her husband was 'funny', or the husband seemed angry for unknown reasons, or something as simple as that. Even though these may be signs of the beginning of an abusive relationship, they do not give any reason for one to walk away. The woman will therefore respond to such behaviors by trying to follow the man's wishes and please him. When it reaches a point where the woman is struck, she has the feeling that she is the cause, this will lead to the cycle of abuse that has been described above.