Healthy vs. Abusive Relationships

by Mary Renmar

I was at a meeting this afternoon that was all about Abused Women. It came with a pamphlet from Texas Advocacy Project on what abuse looks like.

Clues to abuse:

Someone says something to hurt your feelings on purpose.
Someone puts down your looks.
Someone makes you describe where you were every minute of the day.
Someone calls or texts you constantly to see where you are.
Someone says you cannot talk to someone of the opposite sex.
Someone does not let you do things with your friends and family.
Someone insults you, puts you down or makes you feel bad in front of other people.
Someone tries to control what you wear, what you do and say and how you act.
Someone threatens to hurt you. Someone does something just to make you jealous.
Someone is regularly starting to hit you and stops.
Someone throws something at you. Someone damages something that belongs to you to hurt you.
Someone asks you to give up activities that you love.

Abuse Defined

Physical: physically hurting someone by hitting, slapping, pushing, restraining, throwing an object at you.

Emotional and Verbal: Name calling of any kind, humiliation, or attempts to lower self esteem.

Threats: Threatening harm on or to you or someone else, threatening retaliation, or threatening to leave the relationship.

Isolaton: Not allowing you to be with friends, family, peers, or engage in things you love.

Harrassment: repeated phone calls, text messages, controlling posts online, excessive calling on the job or at home.

Sexual Abuse: Forced Sex when you say no and the threat to tell others negative things about you if you don’t comply with sexual demands.

Resources: National Domestic Violence Hotline (800) 799-7233
Love is Respect Helpline for young people (866) 331-9474

A Guide to Safe Relationships from Take Care On-line
We asked young people and adults what they look for in their relationships, and they gave us the following ingredients:

Self-esteem: people who believe in themselves and their own worth are better able to believe in the worth of their intimate partner.

Mutual Respect: people in healthy relationships respect each other’s opinions, feelings, goals and decisions even if they don’t always agree with each other.

Trust: people in healthy relationships are not jealous or possessive of each other.

Nonviolence: people in healthy relationships do not hit, threaten, or otherwise scare each other.

Open communication: people in healthy relationships communicate with each other in an open and honest way. They do not use words to hurt each other.

Personal responsibility: people in healthy relationships take responsibility for their own actions and feelings. They do not blame each other if they lose their temper or make a bad decision.

Continue own friendships and interests: people in healthy relationships continue their own interests and friendships outside of their romantic relationship; they don’t feel isolated from friends and family.

Shared decision-making: people in healthy relationships use communication and negotiation to make decisions about their activities.

Non-abuse of alcohol and other drugs: people in healthy relationships do not pressure each other to use alcohol and other drugs. They do not “get high” to make the relationship better.

Accepting each other’s right to say no and the right to change their mind: people in healthy relationships don’t pressure or force the other person to have sex or do things they are not comfortable doing.

Even good relationships have their share of ups and downs. Talk openly with your partner about your concerns and needs.

Additional Resources:
For Adults: http://www.healthyplace.com/relationships/healthy-relationships/what-is-a-healthy-relationship/menu-id-63/

For Teens: http://kidshealth.org/teen/question/emotions/healthy_relationship.html

ww.chooserespect.org
www.thesafespace.org
www.breakthecycle.org
www.takecareonline.org

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