What Is Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)?
Domestic violence in romantic relationships is more accurately known as intimate partner violence (IPV). IPV is an abusive relationship where one person has much more power and control than the other. IPV can include physical violence such as pushing, hitting, rape, and use of weapons. It can also never escalate to physical violence and mostly include emotional abuse and other forms of violence.
What are some of the myths about IPV?
Some survivors believe that they cannot be in an abusive relationship if their partner does not hit or beat them. You can be in an abusive relationship without ever experiencing physical violence.
Some think that women cannot be abusive. Others believe that their partner cannot be abusive because they face systematic oppression themselves as a person with a disabilities, an LGBTQ person, or a person of color. Gender, ability status, sexual orientation, and your abuser’s own oppression do not matter! If you regularly face fear and disrespect in your relationship, then you are in an abusive relationship.
The most common types of abuse in IPV are emotional.
Some think that women cannot be abusive. Others believe that their partner cannot be abusive because they face systematic oppression themselves as a person with a disabilities, an LGBTQ person, or a person of color. Gender, ability status, sexual orientation, and your abuser’s own oppression do not matter! If you regularly face fear and disrespect in your relationship, then you are in an abusive relationship.
The most common types of abuse in IPV are emotional.
What Are Some Types of Emotional Abuse?
- Keeping you from seeing friends and family
- Criticizing you
- Slut-shaming you
- Monitoring your whereabouts
- Yelling
- Name-calling and put-downs
- Gaslighting you and “forgetting” what happened
- Lying to you and about their behaviors to others
- Repeatedly breaking promises
- Preventing you from going to work or school
- Treating you like a butler/maid
- Stealing your money or using you financially
- Embarrassing you on purpose
- Sharing private information about you
Perhaps your relationship was mostly emotional abuse. You do not have to be weak to be navigating an abusive relationship. It's takes ingenuity and constant awareness to navigate an abusive relationship day in an day out. Reaching out for help takes strength, too.
What are other types of violence
- Threatening your safety or the safety of those you love
- Breaking things near you
- Hurting your pets
- Throwing things at the wall
- Sabotaging your birth control
- Pinning you down
- Driving recklessly on purpose with you in the car
- Complaining about sex until you give in (coercive rape)
- Destroying, hiding, or stealing your things
- Threatening suicide if you leave
And yes, physical violence, and forcible rape count as Intimate Partner Violence too, even if it did not leave marks.