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What is Domestic Abuse?
You can experience domestic abuse from a partner, ex-partner or family member. Domestic abuse includes psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person. This includes any behaviours that:
- Frighten
- Intimidate
- Terrorize
- Manipulate
- Hurt
- Humilate
- Blame
- Injure
- Wound
Anyone can be a victim of domestic violence, regardless of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or class.
Definition of an ‘Intimate Partner’:
An intimate partner can be defined as a “person with whom one has a close personal
relationship, that can be characterized by:
- emotional connection;
regular contact; - ongoing physical contact
and/or
- sexual behaviour;
- identity as couple and familiarity and knowledge about each other’s lives”.
The relationship does not necessarily need to involve all of these dimensions. (ANALYSIS OF NATIONAL DEFINITIONS OF INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE, European Institute for Gender Equality).
Coercive Control
Coercive control is at the heart of domestic abuse. Coercive control is a persistent pattern of controlling, coercive (forced) and threatening behaviour that your partner, ex-partner or family member uses to intimidate or threaten you. It may include all or some forms of domestic abuse (emotional, physical, financial, sexual) including threats. You may feel frightened and trapped. It may have resulted in you losing contact with your family or friends, giving up work or education, giving up your past-time/hobbies etc. Coercive control is when your partner, ex-partner or family member may do one or more of the following:
- Isolates you from your family or friends.
- Monitors you constantly – checks your phone, your online activity, wants to know where you are and who you are with.
- Deprives you of everyday essentials such as food, clothing, heating, transport.
- Controls everything about your life – what you are allowed to wear, whether you can work, what time you eat/sleep.
- Constantly puts you down and undermines you.
- Makes you participate in sexual activities that you are uncomfortable with doing.
- Doesn’t allow you to seek support from services including medical services.
- Controls the finances in the home.
- Uses social media as a threat to publish private information or intimate photos/videos of you.
- Forces you to take part in criminal activity.
- Threatens to harm you, your children, family or pets.
- Damages your belongings.
Coercive control is a crime in Ireland. For further information on coercive control as a crime please click on the link below:
https://www.garda.ie/en/crime/domestic-abuse/is-coercive-control-an-offence-.html
Physical Abuse
Physical Abuse is any act that purposely hurts or injures your body and includes the threat to hurt you. It can also include physical damage to property (such as punching the wall, throwing an object at you) where the intent is to frighten or threaten you with physical injury. Physical abuse can include the following:
- Strangles you.
- Pushes/shoves/slaps/bites you.
- Hits you with his hands or with an object.
- Burns you.
- Cuts/stabs you.
- Suffocates you.
- Traps you in a room.
- Harms your children, family members and/or pets.
- Frightens you by breaking furniture, punching holes in walls, drives recklessly with you in car.
- Threatens to do any of the above.
Emotional Abuse
Emotional abuse is also known as physiological abuse and can happen at the same time as other abuses. It is a very common form of abuse and can make you feel unsafe, ashamed, guilty, worthless and sometimes feel as though you are going crazy (gas-lighting). Emotional abuse can include the following:
- Constantly criticises how you look, what you wear, your family and friends.
Embarrasses you in front of others. - Belittles and blames you. Tells you the abuse is all your fault.
- Guilt trips you. Tells you are a bad mother/partner.
- Gaslights you. Tells you are imagining things, exaggerating things or remembering things
wrong. - Threatens to take your children if you leave or report you to social services.
- Threatens to hurt or kill you, your children, pets or family members.
- Always minimises his behaviour and justify it by blaming you.
- Blames alcohol/mental health/family history for his abuse.
Financial Abuse
Financial abuse is also known as economic abuse. It happens when your partner/ex-partner or family member uses money as a way of controlling you.
Financial abuse can include the following:
- Makes you account for everything that spend. Insists on you having to produce receipts.
- Gives you a budget or an allowance that is unrealistic and doesn’t meet your needs or those of your children.
- Makes you ask for money for basics such as food and clothing and may not give it to you at times.
- Makes all the financial decisions.
- Doesn’t allow you to work or attend courses.
- Uses savings or child benefit for his own use without your knowledge or agreement.
- Refuses to pay child support or maintenance.
- Runs up debts through gambling, substance misuse but doesn’t take responsibility for paying them.
- Pressurises you into giving him your savings or selling your home.
Sexual Abuse
Sexual abuse is any kind of unwanted sexual comments, rape, touching or harassment from your partner, ex-partner or family member. However, you do not have to have been physically touched to have experienced sexual abuse. Any kind of sexual behaviour that makes you feel uncomfortable or intimated can fall into the category of sexual abuse.
Sexual abuse includes the following:
- Demanding sex from you if you when you don’t want it.
- Making you feel guilty for not having sex.
- Raping or attempting to rape you.
- Forcing you to perform sexual acts that you are not comfortable in doing.
- Threatening to share, or sharing, intimate images of you on social media.
- Withholding your contraception.
- Forcing you to watch pornography or participate in the making of it.
- Forcing you to have sex with other people.
- Touching you or kissing you when you don’t want it.
Digital Abuse
Digital abuse is the use of the internet, social media or phone to threaten, control or monitor you. Abusers can also use tracking software on your phone or digital devices to monitor you and your online activity. Digital abuse usually happens with other forms of domestic abuse. Digital abuse includes the following:
- Constantly calling or messaging you to see where you are and who you are with.
- Checking your phone and/or social media accounts without your permission.
- Sending threatening messages via social media, DMs or texts.
- Using social media to share intimate photographs or videos of you or spreading rumours about you.
- Using spyware or social media to track and monitor your movements and online activities.
- Installing GPS tracker on your car to track your whereabouts.
