Physical abuse involves the intentional use of force to cause harm, injury, fear, or intimidation. It’s important to understand that physical abuse rarely stays the same— research shows it almost always escalates over time, becoming more frequent and severe without intervention.

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Physical abuse can include:

• Restraining the survivor

• Punching or slapping

• Hair pulling

• Kicking

• Biting

• Choking or blocking airway (Strangulation)

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Emotional abuse involves non-physical actions intended to control, harm, or intimidate someone. Over time, these behaviors can erode a person’s sense of self-worth, diminish confidence, and make them more reliant on the abusive person.

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Using emotional abuse can look like:

• Putting the survivor down, making them feel bad about themselves

• Calling the survivor names

• Playing mind games

• Gaslighting

• Making the survivor feel guilty or blaming them for the abusive behavior

• Questioning the survivor's identity

•Cyclical show of affection/ love and distancing/cold shoulder

• Reinforcing internalized phobias and isms

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Economic and financial abuse is a common and powerful form of domestic violence. It is estimated that close to 98% of abusive relationships involve an economic component. Economic abuse occurs when an abuser restricts a partner’s access to money, resources, or financial independence, creating control and dependency. Economic abuse can be subtle, hidden, and hard to identify, especially by someone outside the relationship.

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Using economic abuse can look like:

• Preventing the survivor from getting or keeping a job

• Calling, showing up at the survivor's place of work, or making their place of work feel unsafe

• Making the survivor ask for money

• Interfering with the survivor's work or education

• Building debt in the survivor's name

• Taking the survivor's credit cards without permission or by coercion

• Not working and requiring the survivor to provide the financial support

• Breaking items the survivor will have to replace

• Stealing from the survivor

• Hiding financial information both parties should know about

• Keeping the survivor's name off of joint assets

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Coercive control is a pattern of behaviors used by abusers to dominate, manipulate, and restrict their partners. Unlike physical violence, it works subtly and persistently, undermining autonomy and freedom through psychological and emotional tactics.

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Using coercion and threats can look like:

• Deprivation of basic needs such as withholding sleep, food, heating, medical care, etc.

• Making threats to do something to harm the survivor or someone they care about

• Threatening to leave, harm, or unalive themselves

• Driving recklessly to scare the suvivor

• Bringing the children around people the survivor is uncomfortable with

• Threatening the survivor with looks or subtle cues that others would not recognize

• Using anger and reactivity to keep the survivor from doing certain things

• Stalking or monitoring the survivor

• Sexual coercion including crossing boundaries or pushing boundaries

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Intimidation is a deliberate tactic of abuse. Abusers use fear, threats, and psychological pressure to exert control over their partners—often without resorting to physical violence.

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Using intimidation can look like:

• Making the survivor afraid by using looks, gestures, and actions

• Driving recklessly to scare the survivor

• Smashing things

• Abusing pets

• Displaying weapons

• Telling the survivor about past violence

• Using looks, actions, and gestures to reinforce control

• Standing in front of the door or exit (not allowing the survivor to leave)

• Vague threats that may not sound like they are directed at the survivor

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Privilege can be a powerful tool of control in abusive relationships. Male privilege, for example, has been a major factor in violence against women and a causes of domestic violence—it shapes social norms and cultural expectations that reinforce power and control. Abusers may exploit privilege or ability to dominate their partners in ways such as:

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• Treating the survivor like a servant; entitlement to the survivor's unpaid labor

• Making all the “big” decisions

• Defining roles or duties in the relationship

• Discrediting the survivor or cutting off access to resources

• Using systems or institutions against the survivor

• Claiming to “know what’s best”

• Threatening to turn a survivor in to immigration

• Threatening to "out" a survivor's gender, sexual orientation, sex, etc

• Witholding items the survivor needs for mobility

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Isolation is a powerful tactic of abuse and often looked back on by survivors as one of the earliest signs of abuse. Abusers deliberately cut survivors off from friends, family, work, and even healthcare to gain control and create dependency. By limiting support systems and access to resources, isolation makes it harder for survivors to seek help or maintain independence.

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Using isolation can look like:

• Controlling what the survivor can do, who they see, or who they talk to

• Limiting the survivor's outside activities

• Making the survivor account for their whereabouts

• Controlling the survivor's access to transportation

• Telling the survivor that no one will believe them

• Not letting the survivor go anywhere alone

• Demanding so much work/ time from the survivor they don't have time to socialize

• Displaying extreme jealousy/ threatening the survivor or their friends if they see them

• Moving the survivor away from support systems or even out of the country

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Minimizing, denying, and blaming are common tactics abusers use to maintain control and avoid accountability. DARVO has become a popular term as Domestic Violence has gained more of a spotlight in mainstream media. DARVO stands for "Deny Abuse, Reverse Victim and Offender" a tactic used by many abusers to avoid responsibility for their actions and confuse the survivor about abuse they are experiencing. By downplaying the harm, denying responsibility, or shifting blame, abusers obstruct change and prevent the development of a healthy relationship.

Survivors may also minimize abuse—often as a coping mechanism to reduce stress or because of fear, guilt, or hope that their partner still loves them. While this response is understandable, it can make it harder to seek help.

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Minimizing, denying, and blaming can look like:

• Making light of abuse

• Saying that abuse didn't happen (gaslighting)

• Shifting the responsibility of abuse, saying the abuser's actions were the survivor's fault. "I wouldn't have done (abusive behavior)... if you hadn't upset me"

• Saying the survivor deserved the abuse

• Accusing the survivor of "mutual abuse"

• Saying that it's just fighting/ arguing, not abuse

• Accusing the survivor of "making" their abuser abuse them

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Domestic violence becomes even more complex when children are involved. Abusers may use children as a tool of control—by manipulating parenting roles, threatening custody, or using them to relay messages. Children can be deeply affected whether they witness abuse or experience it directly. This tactic is a form of emotional abuse and reinforces power and control in the relationship.

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Using children can look like:

• Making the survivor feel guilty about the children

• Using children to relay messages

• Threatening to take the children

• Telling the survivor that they have no parental rights

• Saying that it's just fighting, not abuse

• Threatening to tell the survivor's ex or the authorities to take their children