There are many questions and misconceptions about the causes and effects of domestic violence, and how to help all those involved - abusers as well as victims and their children.  The following questions are some of the most commonly asked about domestic violence.  The answers provided seek to dispel some of the misconceptions and suggest positive directions for those working to find new and effective solutions to this serious problem.

If a couple is having a domestic violence problem, don’t they just have a bad relationship?  Maybe poor marital communication is the problem.

Bad relationships do not result in or cause domestic violence.

The idea that bad relationships cause violence in the home is one of the most common and dangerous misconceptions about domestic violence.  First, it encourages all parties involved - including and especially the victim - to minimize the seriousness of the problem and focus their energies on “improving the relationship” in the false hope that this will stop the violence.  It also allows the abuser to blame the bad relationship and, thus, the violence on the victim, rather than acknowledging his/her own responsibility.

More importantly, improving the relationship is not likely, by itself, to end the violence.  Violence is a learned behavior.  Many couples have bad relationships, yet never become physically violent.  Many batterers are violent in every one of their relationships, whether they consider them to be bad or good.  The violent individual is the sole source and cause of the violence, and neither the battered partner nor their relationship should be held responsible.  Indeed, regardless of the quality or future of a couple’s relationship, stopping the violence must be a top priority and an end in itself - and only the batterer can do that.

Aren’t most domestic violence incidents caused by alcohol or drug abuse?
Many people have alcohol and/or drug abuse problems but are not violent; similarly, many batterers are not substance abusers.  How people behave when they are “under the influence” of alcohol and/or drugs depends on a complex combination of personal, physical, emotional, and social factors.  And like many other kinds of behavior, alcohol or drug-affected behavior patterns are often culturally learned.

In our culture, many leisure and social events involve heavy drinking, which can, unfortunately, contribute and/or lead to conflicts ending in violence.  Furthermore, many people in troubled situations - such as domestic violence - use alcohol or drugs as a way to temporarily reduce stress.

It is often easier to blame an alcohol or drug abuse problem than to admit that you or your
partner is openly, soberly violent.  Episodes of problem drinking and incidents of domestic violence often occur separately and must be treated as two distinct issues.  Neither alcoholism nor drug abuse can explain or excuse domestic violence.

Isn’t domestic violence often triggered by stress, for example, the loss of a job or some financial or marital problem?
Daily life is full of frustrations associated with money and work, our families, and other personal relationships. Everyone experiences stress, and everyone responds to it differently.

Violence is a specific learned and chosen response to stress.  Certainly, high levels of domestic violence are related to social problems such as unemployment; however, other reactions to such situations are equally possible.  Some people take out their frustrations on themselves with drugs or alcohol; some take it out on others with verbal or physical abuse.  Some work out stress by taking up sports or hobbies, while still others fight back in socially positive ways.  Learning to handle stress in constructive ways can be an important step in stopping violent behavior.

Doesn’t domestic violence occur in lower class or minority communities?
Domestic violence occurs at all levels of society , in all classes and communities, regardless of their social, economic, or cultural backgrounds.

Researchers and service providers have found, however, that economic and social factors can have a significant impact on how people respond to violent incidents and what kind of help they seek.  Affluent people can usually afford private help - doctors, lawyers, and counselors - while people with fewer financial resources (i.e., those belonging to a lower economic class or a minority group) tend to call the police or other public agencies.

What did she do to provoke her partner to violence?
When it comes to domestic violence, it does not take two to fight. Many victims report that the violence occurs unexpectedly, sometimes without warning.  Often, the incident is caused by a small incident or other pretext which the offender later claims as ample provocation.  Unfortunately, the victim may blame herself - as may everyone else.

However, no one makes another person act violently; it is a choice.  When a person is provoked to anger, he or she can choose how to respond, and many possible responses are available.  Even if a violent incident is preceded by a heated verbal argument, nothing - neither words nor actions - justifies violence against a person, except in cases of self-defense.  

Don’t most batterers lose control during violent incidents and not know what they’re doing?
If batterers were truly out of control, as many claim to be during violent incidents, there would be many more domestic violence homicides.  In fact, many batterers do “control” their violence, abusing their victims in less visible places on their bodies, such as under the hairline or on the torso.  Furthermore, researchers have found that domestic violence occurs in cycles, and every episode is preceded by a predictable, repeated pattern of behavior and decisions made by batterer.

Aren’t there just as many cases of “husband battering” as wife battering, even if they aren’t reported?
Relatively few cases of husband battering show up in police records, clinics, or anonymous random surveys.  The overwhelming majority of adult victims of domestic violence are current or former wives, girlfriends, or lovers of the batterer.  The Bureau of Justice Statistics released a report in 1998, indicating that 85% of victims of domestic violence are women.

Isn’t domestic violence a less serious problem - less lethal - than “real” violence, like street crimes?
It is a terrible and unrecognized fact that, for many people, home is the least safe place.  Domestic violence accounts for a significant proportion of all serious crimes - aggravated assault, rape, and homicide.  Domestic violence is real violence, often resulting in permanent injuries or death.  Adult victims of this crime are terrorized and traumatized; children often are physically and/or emotionally scarred for life.

Aren’t some people - especially men - naturally violent: Once a batterer, always a batterer?
Violence is a learned behavior; consequently it can be unlearned.  Most batterers can change their behavior if they want to.  They can learn to alter the structure of expectations and demands underlying their relationships with the women in their lives, and they can learn to respond to stress, frustration, and anger in different ways.

Some batterers don’t want to hurt the ones they love, but they don’t know how to stop.  Learning how to change violent behavior takes serious commitment and consistent effort over an extended period of time.  Programs that offer special education and counseling, especially in groups with other men, can help a batterer to accept responsibility for the behavior, identify the violent behavior patterns, develop new expectations of his/her partner and practice ways of handling situations without resorting to violence.

Unfortunately, most batterers do not believe they have a problem and never seek help to stop their violent behavior.

Why do so many people refuse to admit that they or their friends or relatives have a domestic violence problem?
Denial is an integral part of the problem of domestic violence.  People involved or affected by violence in the home - abusers, victims, friends, family members, co-workers, and neighbors - usually attempt to minimize or deny the seriousness and potential lethality of the situation.

The abuser often denies that he/she is violent, or attempts to minimize the seriousness of the violent behavior.  He/She does not want to acknowledge the realities of the situation: that he/she is hurting and beating someone he/she loves, and he/she alone is responsible for the violent behavior and for changing it.

Similarly, the victim may minimize the violence because she does not want to accept and face the fact that the person she loves most is abusing her.  Furthermore, because the batterer may go through dramatic, Jekyll-and-Hyde changes of behavior, the victim may be genuinely confused.  Is he/she the violent person who hit her last night, or the contrite person who bought her roses the next day and promised it would never happen again?  Often, this period of reconciliation following a violent episode (a regular and recognized phase of the cycle of violence) serves to undermine the victim’s confidence in her perceptions and her sense of reality.

Finally, family, friends, and other people who come into contact with the couple may minimize or deny the violence.  Friends and family often do not see the abuser’s violent side, and/or they are afraid, confused, or suspicious.  Thus, many people collude in minimizing and denying the problem of domestic violence.  This dynamic only makes the problem worse and does everyone - including the batterer - a disservice.

If she doesn’t like being battered, why doesn’t she leave or ask for help? Aren’t there social service agencies, hospitals or other places she could go?
Many victims do ask for help or try to get away from violent partners; however, they often encounter many obstacles and problems, including further violent assaults.  A victim may be afraid to leave or ask for help because the batterer may have threatened her (or her children) with further and worse violence if she does.  Unfortunately, many of these threats are carried out.  In addition, many victims suffer from the effects of isolation and denial; they are truly unaware of the seriousness of their situation and of the existence of victim support services and other resources available to them in their community.

Even when a victim does ask for help from public health, social service, or law enforcement agencies, she may encounter policies and practices which tend to minimize the violence and discourage her from taking further steps to address it.  At hospitals, for example, emergency room personnel are rarely trained to recognize the physical and psychological signs of domestic violence or in such cases, to take the time to explore the causes of a victim’s injuries.  In addition, many law enforcement agencies historically have followed policies of arrest avoidance in domestic violence cases.  Responding officers were directed to mediate or defuse the situation as quickly as possible so that they could move on to the next call.

If a victim turns for help to religious, mental health, or legal agencies or professionals, she again may encounter disbelief or outright denial of her problem or even be blamed for “provoking” the violence herself.  By skimming over the circumstances of her situation and quickly moving on to the next call or client, these service providers in effect are telling the victim that her problem is unimportant, unsolvable, or not real.

This is not to deny that practical demands, rather than indifference, may shape the responses of many health care, law enforcement, and social service professionals.  Yet, such considerations do not diminish the real terror and peril which a victim of domestic violence faces.

* This information was adapted from material produced by: The Family Violence Project, District Attorney’s Office, San Francisco and is excerpted from their publication: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, A TRAINING CURRICULUM FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT, VOL. 11: REFERENCE MATERIALS