Domestic Violence is the repeated violence that occurs within a relationship, often between intimate partners. This is often characterised by a Cycle of Violence that has some fairly predictable steps. Different areas may refer to DV as “relationship violence”, “the cycle of violence”, “intimate partner violence” and other names.
While the pattern of cyclic violence often happens within a domestic relationship (intimate partners, parent to child, adult child to parent, sibling to sibling etc), cyclic violence can also happen at work (between colleagues, from a boss, from an underling), or in social groups (peer in the social group, admin of the social group).
A Quick Overview of Cyclic Violence
Domestic Violence has Many Names
In the Domestic Violence Primer, we explore various aspects of what Domestic Violence can look like and an introduction to the Cycle of Violence.
Other names for Domestic Violence are
- Family Violence
- Intimate Partner Violence
- Domestic Abuse
- Spousal Abuse
- Child Abuse (although this can mean several other things too)
The basic cycle of violence follows this cyclic pattern:
- Violence (in many forms, not just physical)
- Blame (someone else, the perpetrator of violence does not own what they have done)
- Pursuit (to keep the victim from escaping)
- Honeymoon (where everyone lies)
- Buildup of Tension (aggression is becoming apparent)
- Standover Tactics (threats)
- Violence (the cycle starts again)
And some of the many different forms of control that Perpetrators use.
Relationship Abuse can be more than an Intimate Partner
The Cycle of Violence can be your intimate partner, or another family member. What characterises this kind of violence is the cyclic nature of it and the belief that you can’t get away or stop it. This could be violence from a sibling, cousin, adult child, parent, or other family member that you interact with frequently.
This same Cycle of Violence can be used against many forms of relationship that are not familial. We see the same methods used against anyone who feels trapped in a situation, such as an abusive ‘friendship’, workplace or contractual obligation.
Abuser’s gaslight your reasonable Anger
It is helpful to understand that you might have an Anger response, that makes it easy for your abuser to trick you into thinking that you are either just as much a part of the problem, or even that you are the perpetrator. It is useful to understand some basics about Anger and that feeling Anger is not inherently bad. What can be bad is when your Anger uses Aggression as a tool outside of self-defence. Sometimes we can form unhelpful behaviours to avoid conflict, such as People Pleasing and Defiance Behaviours, which are part of the Rejection Sensitivity phenomena (abuse driven variant).
Terminology: Perpetrator, Victim, Ex-Victim / Survivor
The person who is doing the harm is known as the Perpetrator, while the person they are harming is known as the Victim. Once they have left the Perpetrator, the other person generally transitions from being the Victim to being an Ex-Victim, sometimes referred to as a Survivor.
Perpetrators are called this because they are perpetrating the violence. The Perpetrator is, by definition, abusive and is doing things that are toxic to a relationship, often referred to as a toxic person.
Often they will try to convince the Victim and anyone else that the Victim is actually the Perpetrator. Perpetrators thrive in miscommunication, confusion and uncertainty. Fortunately, we can fix that with good communication and some easy tests (Testing for Toxic).
Abusive people are often narcissistic, although most do not have diagnosed or diagnosable Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
The Perpetrator Needs to Keep You, aka Pursuit
The Perpetrator will try to convince the Victim to come back, generally via the Pursuit Phase activities
- Hollow Words, such as “but I love you”,”you are the only one who gets me”, “I am sorry”, “ok, it was me, I did do it, I admit I did something wrong”
- Empty Gestures, such as gifts, services and temporary good behaviours (up to a few weeks at a time)
- False Promises, such as “I’ll never do that again”, “I’ll go and get therapy” (and doesn’t for long if at all)
- Crocodile Tears, such as “I am so upset that you are unhappy with me” (after they hurt you) “and I need you to comfort me” to trigger your nurturer
The Perpetrator needs to make this look enticing and seem like finally things will be different. The Empty Gestures don’t actually address what they did to you, or why they did it to you, only the damage they did or a distraction from that. The Hollow Words are what you want to hear, not what they actually feel or think, fooling you into thinking that they really do love you, that they are sorry and will change, or that they actually think they did something wrong. Thus their promises to change are False Promises. No matter how remorseful or how many tears they shed, you will notice that as soon as they perceive that you have agreed to stay, they recover quickly and move on to the next stage – the Honeymoon Phase.
Perpetrators charm everyone
The Perpetrator used their charm to fool you into thinking a relationship with them. That same ability is used to charm and lie to the victims family, workplace and friends so that people think the Victim isn’t in danger and they shouldn’t help them get away. Worse, friends, colleagues and family will gas light the Victim into thinking they are mistaken or should try again to fix the relationship. Often the charmed associates of the Victim will be tricked into updating the Perpetrator on what the Victim is planning, especially if they are trying to get away.
After the violence, the Perpetrator also needs to convince the Victim to remain a Victim, they use this Charm in the Pursuit Phase (above).
They will frequently use many Logical Fallacies to confuse you.
Get Away From you Abuser, You Can’t Fix Them
It is important to learn how to Escape Abuse, see through their mechanisms and stay away.
It can be hard to gauge when someone is being nice, being mistaken, being self centred and being harmful. Having a good Toxic People Mind Toolset for determining a level of Toxicity can help.
We often see our abusers (they certainly promote this view) as being broken and needing help. Once you have determined via the Toxic People Mind Toolset that this person is an abuser and not just ignorant of their harmful behaviours, we must work on the premise that they are a Perpetrator of Harm, that is, an Abuser.
If they are abusing you, then you can’t fix them, or help them to get better. You cannot reform them from inside of a relationship where they benefit from abusing you, nor can you go back to them if they do somehow manage to stop being abusive. [Perpetrator Reformation
Grief and Loss
It is normal to experience Grief and Loss as part of the process of reclaiming your freedom and independence. The Kübler-Ross model of Grief is very powerful for understanding why we are reluctant to change and how we can facilitate resolving grief
Getting Expert Help to Manage
While we have given you plenty of helpful resources here, and Perpetrators generally draw from the same ‘play book’ of abuse, it is very difficult to fully cover this subject and all of the methods that a Perpetrator will use. This is why it is very important to connect with a Therapist who specialises in Domestic Violence.
If you are Female Presenting, you can often call for assistance from a local Domestic Violence Helpline and ask them to connect you to various services to help you get out of the relationship. A key ingredient to successfully exiting is to find a Mental Health Therapist, often linked or recommended by the DV Services, and continue to see them until you have learned how not to be conned by the Perpetrator or the next Perpetrator, generally by learning a system such as the The Traffic Light System.
Here at Joshua Davidson Therapy, we have such skilled therapists.