Abuse In Intimate Relationships Essay

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In the beginning of an intimate relationship people show themselves in the best light. You don’t truly know how someone acts until you have been with them for a while. When there is abuse in a relationship it comes as a shock to the victim because of how this person first showcased themselves. In some cases, both partners in the relationship don’t know that there is abuse in their relationship. This is due to the many types of abuse some are harder to recognize than others. If people were better informed about the different types of abuse they would recognize that is more common than they believe.
The type of abuse that is most recognizable to the eye is physical abuse. According to the United States Department of Justice “Hitting, slapping, …show more content…

Mariann Lammers and others explain why there isn’t a lot of research about emotional abuse in intimate relationships in the journal titled Women's Experience of Emotional Abuse in Intimate Relationships: A Qualitative Study. They mention in the journal, “One reason for the relative neglect of research into emotional abuse is that, unlike physical abuse, it is often insidious (Follingstad, Rutledge, Berg, Hause, & Polek, 1990; Kasian & Painter, 1992; Kirkwood, 1993) and may not be recognized by its victims as constituting abuse” (Lammers 1). Emotional abuse in a relationship as said above is hard to identify. In an emotionally abusive relationship the abuser will make the other person question their self-worth and break down the other persons self-esteem. In doing these things the abuser can control the victim. An example of emotional abuse in a relationship would be your partner always choosing what you are going to wear and what you are going to eat, and if you disagree with them they will call you bad names. The person who is the abuser will not apologize for what they do but if you decide to leave they will threaten to harm themselves. This scares the victim into staying even though they know they should leave. In the Women’s Health Government Website there is a term called gaslighting “the word is used when an abuser makes you feel like you are losing your mind or memory”. This