Understanding and Identifying Abuse
If you’re having concerns about your relationship, or the relationship of a loved one, taking some time to learn about abuse is a helpful first step. Abuse happens when one person uses power and control over another. It’s not always physical and can take many forms, all of which can deeply affect someone’s well-being. For personalized support and advice, our advocates are here to help.
How Can We Understand Abuse?
Abuse is not just about physical violence; it’s about power and control over another person. Abuse can happen in any relationship – between partners, family members, or caregivers – and it often escalates over time. Abuse can also happen to anyone regardless of age, identity, or background, and it’s never their fault.
Identifying the Signs of Abuse
Abuse often starts subtly. Warning signs may not be obvious at first. Over time, however, abusive behaviors tend to appear and intensify. Common warning signs to look for include:
- Constant jealousy, possessiveness, and accusations of cheating.
- Isolation from family, friends, and support networks.
- Verbal insults, belittling, and excessive criticism.
- Controlling finances, daily activities, or communication.
- Threats of harm to the victim, children, pets, or themselves.
- Physical violence, including pushing, hitting, or restraining.
Key Points to Understand
If these behaviors are familiar, it’s important to know that:
- Abuse follows a cycle of tension building, abusive incidents, and apologies/reconciliation.
- Emotional abuse can be just as, if not more, damaging as physical abuse.
- Financial control and dependency often trap survivors in abusive situations.
- Domestic abuse affects children, even if they are not direct victims.
- Leaving an abuser can be the most dangerous time for a survivor.
- Support services such as shelters and counseling can provide a way out.
Different Forms of Abuse
Abuse takes on many forms, and no one type is “less serious” — every form is harmful and deserves attention and concern.
Physical: Hitting, slapping, choking, or other physical harm; restraining a person, coercing substance use, or physically aggressive actions that cause fear.
Verbal and Emotional: Yelling, name-calling, constant criticism and insults, humiliation, belittling comments, attitudes of entitlement and superiority.
Psychological: Isolation, manipulation, mind games, guilt-trips and blame-shifting, gaslighting, threats to harm you, your belongings, children, pets, or themselves.
Financial: Controlling finances, restricting access to resources, sabotaging or preventing employment, using money as a threat, causing financial dependence.
Sexual: Any non-consensual contact or coercion, demanding or withholding intimacy, infidelity as retaliation, trafficking, reproductive coercion (deciding protection, birth control, etc.).
Digitally-Facilitated: Monitoring devices or communication, limiting tech use, demanding passwords, location-tracking, stalking, harassing messages and calls, threats to post harmful content online.
Spiritual and Identity-Based: Exploiting a partner’s beliefs, values, religion, traditions, cultural upbringing, orientation, or identity to cause harm; these become an added layer to emotional, verbal, and psychological abuse.
Why Do Individuals Stay?
Leaving an abusive relationship is complex. The reasons for staying are unique to each person, but these often include:
- Fear of harm or retaliation to oneself, children, or loved ones.
- Financial dependence and a lack of resources to leave safely.
- Isolation and being cut off from family, friends, or outside resources.
- Feelings of self-doubt or guilt, often from a partner’s emotional manipulation.
- Access issues, from transportation to language and identity barriers.
- Cultural or religious beliefs that put pressure on survivors to maintain the relationship.
- Concern for children’s well-being, fear of losing custody, or hope for a stable family unit.
- Hope that the abuse will one day end.
What Causes a Partner to Act Abusive?
Abuse is not caused by stress, anger, or substance use – it is caused by attitudes and beliefs, rooted in a need for power and control. These behaviors are learned, often from early life or harmful social norms. While certain issues may make abuse worse, they don’t cause abuse nor will removing them make it stop. Change is rare and only happens with intensive, specialized help – something few abusers ever seek out or succeed with. If you’re experiencing abuse, your priority must be to achieve an abuse-free life for yourself and your children. Our advocates and services can help.
Resources for Survivors
Guidance and Support
When you call our hotline or visit during walk-in hours, a trained advocate will offer confidential, anonymous support. You can share as much or as little as you’d like.
Our advocates can answer questions, help you create a safety plan, and connect you to our many free services like shelter, housing, counseling, legal help, and more.
Every conversation is private and focused on support – you’re never required to take any action unless you choose to.
Legal Protections
Survivors have legal protections and rights, which our advocates can assist with. These include:
- Restraining and Protective Orders: Legal orders that outline no-contact with you and/or your children, from your home to your workplace and child’s school.
- Address Confidentiality: RI program that provides a substitute address for official purposes, while keeping one’s actual residence confidential.
- Abusive Litigation Protection: RI law that prohibits abusers from using the court system to abuse, harass, intimidate or threaten you.
- Workplace Protections: Varying RI laws protect survivors against discrimination, job loss, or penalties and support time off to handle matters related to domestic violence.
- Crime Victim Compensation: Financial assistance for medical care, counseling, or lost wages.
- Custody Protections: Courts’ ability to consider domestic violence in custody decisions.