What is Relationship Abuse?

Relationship violence takes many forms. You may be wondering how to tell if your relationship, or a friend's, is abusive. Abuse in a relationship doesn't always include physical violence. It usually involves different kinds of abuse that one partner in a relationship uses to maintain control over the other. If you're afraid of your boyfriend or girlfriend, if you feel as if you're "walking on eggshells," unsure when or how your boyfriend or girlfriend will become abusive, that's a strong sign of an abusive relationship.

Signs that your boyfriend or girlfriend is abusive include:

Verbal abuse - yelling, shouting, calling names, swearing at you, talking over you, the silent treatment, or humiliating you in public or in private.

Emotional abuse - putting you down, showing disrespect for your feelings and thoughts, threatening you or your family/friends, showing extreme jealousy and possessiveness, playing mind games to keep you off balance, ignoring you, insisting on making all the decisions, undermining your school work or your job, stalking you, trying to control what you wear, where you go, and who you hang out with.

Sexual abuse - making sexual comments that embarrass you or make you uncomfortable, pressuring you for sex, touching you against your will, refusing to talk about or use contraception, rape.

Physical abuse - slapping, hitting, pushing, kicking, spitting, punching, burning, driving in a scary way, punching walls, harming pets, breaking things, pulling hair, biting, arm twisting, use of weapons, getting in your face, "wrestling" or physical roughness that is supposedly meant in fun but results in you feeling hurt and frightened.

Economic - interfering with your job, trying to control your money and how you spend it.

It's important to increase your awareness of the different forms of abuse and learn the warning signs that signal a relationship is both unhealthy and dangerous. Violence is often the outcome of a continued pattern of these behaviors, but not always. The abuse can begin in many subtle ways. Even if the abuse doesn't escalate to violence, a pattern of behavior by your boyfriend or girlfriend that makes you feel bad about yourself or scared and uneasy is a sign of an abusive relationship.

You may feel like you should stay with your boyfriend or girlfriend and try to work it out or change them because you're involved in your first romantic relationship. Maybe you feel that your boyfriend or girlfriend is your soulmate, maybe he/she is your first sexual partner and you don't want to end the relationship in spite of the abuse. You might feel like abuse is something you just have to put up with to please your boyfriend or girlfriend.

But remember - People who abuse their partners will often tell them how much they love them, and promise never to hurt them again. But, most abusers who hurt their girlfriends or boyfriends DO NOT STOP. Instead, the abuse usually gets progressively worse.