October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month: Love shouldn’t hurt, understanding tactics used by perpetrators of abuse.

Ellie Jameson, QMHP

Did you know? According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, domestic violence impacts 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men (Statistics, n.d.).

Intimate partner violence (IPV), also known as intimate terrorism or domestic violence, is a prevalent problem that is a cycle of domination, power, and control that one partner exerts over the other partner. The resulting interpersonal trauma is deeply damaging to the survivor and covers many aspects of a person’s life. IPV is most commonly known for physical violence, but it also can encompass emotional, psychological, sexual, spiritual, and financial abuse. Abusers may use any combination of methods to maintain power and control over their victims. Often, abusers use gaslighting to make their victims feel as if the abuse is not real, that it is the victim’s fault, or even that the victim is the abuser. The abuser maintains control over the victim and is able to execute character assassinations by damaging the victim’s credibility and reputation around the victim’s support. 

Often, it is rare that relationships begin with outright abusive behaviors. Love bombing occurs when the abusive partner attention, affection, kindness, gifts, and promises. Sometimes this is referred to as the honeymoon phase, where the abusive partner gains trust and lulls the victim into a false sense of safety. This is the time period where the abuser paints themselves as a good person who is safe and willing to change. They will often tell the victim all of the right things to appease any concerns and to reduce the victim’s defenses and boundaries. Love bombing can happen for weeks to months, even years before the abuser changes tactics. 

After love bombing, tension will build. This is often the period of time the victim feels as if they are walking on eggshells and working to accommodate the abuser’s mood or actions. Often, this leaves the victim in a state of hypervigilance trying their best not to “set off” the abuser. Sometimes the tension can come from external sources such as work stress, finances, or interpersonal conflict which the abuser will blame to avoid responsibility for their actions which are forcing the victim to cater to the abuser to prevent an incident from occurring.

As the tension builds, it leads into an incident where the abuser chooses to act in a manner that hurts their partner, often while blaming it on their partner. There are several categories that abuse can present:

• Psychological: insults, blaming, name-calling, depreciation, denying the victim’s experience

• Physical: intimidation, punching walls, throwing objects, hitting, shoving, strangulation

• Sexual: objectification, nonconsensual pornography use or exploitation, manipluation or coercing sexual acts, pressure to perform, rape 

• Emotional: manipulation where the victim is led to believe they are at fault for the abuse, intense mood swings the victim feels responsible to fix

• Financial: controlling the victim’s money, preventing them from going to work or having a job, risky spending, questioning purchases, losing jobs and exploiting the victim's finances  

• Spiritual: using religious beliefs to justify abuse, preventing the victim from participating in their spiritual community, forcing religious belief practice against the victims consent

Over time, the abuser may not even have to use certain tactics to maintain power and control over their partner. Sometimes a certain look or comment will let the victim know what abuse could happen without having to actually act. The psychological control that allows the abuser to maintain power slowly errodes away at the victim’s sense of self. 

After the incident occurs, the abuser will often reconcile with the victim in order to keep themselves in control of the relationship. This can look like the honeymoon stage where there are apologies, promises of changes, crying, excuses, blaming their choices to abuse on external stressors, or blaming it on the victim. Abusers rarely take responsibility for their actions that harmed their partner, but they will be masterful at manipulation and saying the correct things to convince their partner it will not happen again. Not all IPV happens in a cycle, but it provides an important perspective to understand that even when the abuser is being “good” or “doing better” it is actually another abuse tactic. 

Abusers are skilled at not taking accountability for their actions that harm others. DARVO is an acronym used to described a form of gaslighting that helps the abuser maintain control:

• Deny responsibility

• Attack the victim

• Reverse roles of 

• Victim and

• Offender

DARVO is a common pattern used by abusers to manipulate the victim into taking on the responsibility for the abuser’s choices. By reversing the abuser and victim roles, the abuser blames the victim for their actions which could look like telling the victim it’s their fault for making the abuser angry or provoking them into being hit. Regardless of what tactic the abuser uses to blame the victim, the abuser is responsible for choosing to abuse. The victim never causes abuse and is not responsible for any of the violence perpetrated against them. 

In his book, Why Does He Do That? Inside The Minds Of Angry And Controlling Men,  Lundy Bancroft provides important information about abusers and misconceptions that are often believed about IPV (Bancroft, 2002, p. 75):

• Abuse grows from attitudes and values, not feelings. The roots are ownership, the trunk is entitlement, and the branches are control.

• Abuse and respect are opposites. Abusers cannot change unless they overcome their core of disrespect toward their partners.

• Abusers are far more conscious of what they are doing than they appear to be. However, even their less-conscious behaviors are driven by their core attitudes.

• Abusers are unwilling to be non-abusive, not unable. They do not want to give up power and control. 

• You are not crazy. Trust your perceptions of how your abusive partner treats you and thinks about you. 

If you are experiencing love that hurts, you deserve to be safe. While experiencing abuse can feel like a death by a million paper cuts, there is hope for survival.  Consider contacting a trusted, safe friend or family member, or visit us to learn more about our providers for additional support!

If you are in immediate danger, please call 911 or these resources:

National Domestic Violence Hotline: 800-799-7233 

Neville House: 24 Hour Hotline: 309-827-7070