Families who have a problem with relationship violence and abuse often feel that they’re the only people going through it. But many teenagers experience relationship violence with a boyfriend or a girlfriend. It affects preteens, teens, and young adults. Approximately one in three adolescent girls in the United States is a victim of physical, emotional, or verbal abuse from a dating partner—a figure that far exceeds victimization rates of other violence affecting youth.1 In a national online survey, one in five eleven-to fourteen-year-olds say their friends are victims of dating violence, and nearly half the youth surveyed who are in relationships know friends who are verbally abused.2 Estimates are that 40 percent of female adolescents have experienced relationship abuse, and 20 percent of those experience sexual victimization in a relationship.3
We now know more about this problem. In part because girls have died as a result of relationship violence, it is now treated as a serious national problem recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, school districts, mental health experts, domestic and sexual violence prevention advocates, and others. It is a problem that requires us as parents, along with anyone else involved with young people, to re-examine the ways we respond to teen and young adult relationships, and the ways we parent teens.
Dating violence happens everywhere and to all kinds of people. There is no particular culture or community in which it does not occur. Dating violence has been documented in large cities and in small farming communities, in wealthy neighborhoods and in housing projects. It occurs in every culture and ethnic group. It happens in gay and lesbian relationships as well as in heterosexual relationships. It happens to teens who have babies and to those who do not. It happens to teens who live together and to those who live with their parents. It happens to teens who are sexually active and to those who are not. It happens to teens who live in single-parent households and to those who live with both parents.
Dating violence is a serious issue. The potential for serious injury or murder is present in every violent relationship. According to the FBI, 20 percent of homicide victims are between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four. One out of every three women murdered in the United States is killed by a husband or a boyfriend.4 Even an abusive boyfriend who does not intend to kill his girlfriend can accidentally kill her with hard shoves or threats with a weapon. Although young men can also be the victims of relationship violence and young women can be the perpetrators, the great majority of abusers are young men and the majority of victims are young women. The social tolerance for aggressive behavior toward girls seems to make it far more common for boys to be violent. Girls who victimize their boyfriends are more likely to be emotionally or verbally abusive, while boys are more likely to use threatened or actual physical violence.
We are seeing changes in teen culture—girls are more willing to be physically aggressive than in the past. Girls are less likely to inflict severe injuries; however, boys can be intimidated by abusive girls and afraid of displeasing or making their girlfriends angry. Often, young men are more violent once the romantic “pursuit” has ended and they see themselves as being in a “couple” relationship. The couple may or may not be having sex, but they feel committed to one another.
Sometimes abusers become more violent when they sense the relationship is going to end, or after their girlfriend or boyfriend breaks up with them. Thus, the chance of being seriously injured or killed increases when the victim decides to break up the relationship. This makes breaking up frightening for the victim, who may try to break up (and then get back together) several times before actually ending the relationship.
Many victims believe that their partner’s violence is a sign of love. The abusive partners seem to accept violence and coercion as a means to get what they want—for example, to frighten or intimidate, or to force the other person to give them something. Violence and abuse can be seen as tolerable, or normal, in relationships.
In this book we use the word “dating,” but teens don’t use this term very often. A more accurate term would be “courtship,” but no one uses this term anymore either. Teens might call it “seeing,” “going with,” “kicking it,” or “hanging out.” When we use the word “dating,” we are talking about intimate (usually sexual) relationships in which two people see themselves as a couple with a potential future together.
A violent or abusive person repeatedly (1) tries to get their way by forcing or coercing the other person; (2) verbally attacks, demeans, or humiliates the other person in order to get and keep control over them; (3) uses or threatens to use physical force against the other person; and/or (4) forces the other person to participate in sexual acts.
Violent and abusive behavior is not the same as getting angry or having a fight. It happens again and again, and one person is afraid of and intimidated by the other. Controlling behavior is not always considered battering or abuse. For example, a teenage girl can be in a relationship with a boyfriend who is self-centered and controlling, frequently insists on having his own way, or criticizes a lot, but when he is confronted or told he can’t have his way, he backs down. He may become angry, but he doesn’t become explosive, violent, verbally abusive, or threatening. Also, his girlfriend is not afraid of him. There is some give and take in the relationship. This type of boy is not what we call a batterer or abuser.
Certain things he does might be considered abusive, but his behavior does not fit the repeated pattern of violence that characterizes battering relationships. Defining this distinction can be difficult. Controlling behavior, however, does have the potential for becoming abusive or violent.
In this book we use the terms “batterer” and “abuser,” “battered teen” and “abused teen,” and “violence” and “abuse” interchangeably. All of these terms refer to the full range of behavior that is emotionally, sexually, and physically injurious. We use “he” or “she” and “boyfriend” or “girlfriend” throughout the book, usually referring to the batterer as male and the abuse victim as female. We do this because it fits what predominantly occurs. We are also concerned, however, about the increasing numbers of young men who have been abused by other young men or by young women, and the high incidence of young women abused by female partners.
As a parent, it is probably difficult for you to read details about the kinds of abuse teens can suffer in a battering relationship. It is horrifying to imagine that these things could happen to your child at any age. We hope that as you read this book, you will feel supported while you deal with some of the most difficult problems a parent with a teenager can face.
Emotional abuse is the most common type of abuse and lies underneath physical or sexual abuse. Emotional abuse can be very confusing for teens. It is confusing to be constantly criticized, blamed, and humiliated in front of others—by the same person who expresses intense love. Emotional abuse also causes wounds such as self-doubt, self-hatred, shame, feelings of going crazy, or feeling unable to survive without the abuser. These wounds are invisible to others, unlike the wounds caused by physical violence, which are more easily recognized. As a result of emotional abuse, your daughter may feel that she caused her own injuries, and that she is to blame for the problems in her relationship.
Emotional abuse is not always done in anger. It is often done in the guise of love, and accompanied by confusing expressions of caring. For example: “It’s a good thing you have me to love you, because you are so [ugly, fat, crazy, disgusting…], no one else would want you.” “I’m only telling you that you dress like a slut because I love you.” “We have each other; we don’t need anyone else. Your friends and parents are trying to keep us apart. No one else understands us and what we have together.”
Jealousy and possessiveness that control and restrict the other person’s behavior can also be emotionally abusive. The abuser’s jealousy and suspicion may lead to accusations, explosive outbursts, name-calling, or interrogations about everything his victim does or says. A jealous boyfriend may constantly check up on his girlfriend. He may follow her or have friends follow her. He may contact her many times each day—by calling, texting, instant messaging, or posting on Facebook—and then explode if she doesn’t reply. He may go through her messages, her bags, her room, and her personal belongings, checking for “proof” that she’s “cheating.”
He may call to find out where she is or show up when she is at work, at school, or spending time with others and demand her attention (for example, by claiming he has something urgent he wants her to do for him). The boyfriend’s jealousy and explosive temper can make it too frightening for his girlfriend to do anything that might set him off. So, out of fear, she gradually stops doing things outside the relationship.
Jim and Alisha’s story illustrates this dynamic.
Sixteen-year-old Jim’s girlfriend, Alisha, was terrified by his jealous fits of rage. Jim never hit her. He yelled at her, called her names, and interrogated her for hours about everything she said or did with anybody, going over and over the same answers to his questions and accusations. Later, Jim said to a counselor in a domestic violence program, “After a while, I got what I wanted: complete control over my girlfriend. Power.”
Threats of suicide and threats of violence can also be emotionally abusive. A boyfriend may become seriously depressed, especially if he is afraid of losing his girlfriend. He may feel like hurting or killing himself, and he may actually attempt it. This can be terrifying for his girlfriend—imagine feeling that you could cause someone you love to kill himself! These threats to kill himself, however, may also be an attempt to emotionally control her. He doesn’t want to get help or turn to others for support; he only wants his girlfriend to drop everything and take care of him. Worse, he may threaten to kill her or her family if she ever leaves him. These threats have the same effect of terrifying her and trapping her.
Isolation is another form of emotional abuse. By keeping his girlfriend isolated, the abuser maintains control over her. There are many ways that the abuser tries to coerce or manipulate her to keep her from seeing her family and friends. An abusive boyfriend may tell her that her friends and family are no good. He may have a fit of rage every time she talks to a friend, or he may accuse her of betraying him if she talks about him to anyone else. He may try to convince her that her family is the “enemy” of their relationship, and that talking to her parents about their relationship makes her “disloyal” to him. He may interrupt her when she’s spending time alone with her family, or when she engages in activities or interests without him, by texting or calling or showing up unexpectedly to distract her, so that she refocuses her attention on him.
Physical abuse is rarely a onetime incident, but is part of a pattern in an abusive relationship. The violence or the threat of violence happens again and again. Physical abuse is used to control, restrict, intimidate, and frighten, and it is usually accompanied by verbal and emotional abuse. The violence generally escalates, becoming more severe over time. Even if the physical violence does not occur frequently, the abuser may use frequent threats of violence after it has happened once. This can be powerful and frightening to the victim.
Examples of physical abuse include pushing, hitting, slapping, kicking, choking, and attacking with an object or a weapon. Physical abuse can be lethal, whether the death is accidental or intentional. Some teen victims have been pinned down, pulled by the hair, or restrained hard enough to cause bruises. Often batterers deliberately inflict injuries in places on the body that others can’t see. We have talked with teens who have been seriously or permanently injured, such as one young woman who lost an eye, another who lost her hearing, and others who were shot or stabbed. A young woman may be slapped so hard that handprints remain on her face. She may be choked until she passes out, leaving red marks on her neck. She may have been shoved or thrown across the room, causing a concussion when she hit a wall or a table.
Physical injuries may not be easy to see because victims go to a lot of trouble to hide them—by wearing long sleeves and turtlenecks, for example, or by wearing heavy makeup, avoiding contact with people until the worst bruises have faded, or telling lies about how they were injured.
Sexual abuse is defined as any unwanted sexual activity. It includes mistreatment by sexual acts, demands, humiliation, or insults. It can include being violently forced to have sex, or being coerced or manipulated into having sex. A victim of sexual abuse is being “coerced” if she is afraid to say no because she fears being rejected, humiliated, or beaten. Coercive tactics committed within a relationship are as illegal as when committed by a stranger.
A young woman may be forced to perform sexual acts she does not want to do, or that are intended to humiliate or degrade her. She may have been told lies about what “normal” sex is, or what “guys need,” or how girls are supposed to act in bed. She may never have felt anything but pain during sex in a relationship of months or years.
Some girls have reported that they have been forced to have sex with others, or to watch their boyfriends have sex with someone else. Some have been humiliated or insulted sexually, or made to feel disgusting or ugly. Many have been forced to have sex without protection from pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).
Some girls have been raped vaginally or anally or forced to have oral sex with their boyfriend. Teens have described other kinds of sexual abuse, such as being tied up; having breasts or genitalia cut, bitten, or mutilated; being stripped and stared at for long periods of time; and being forced to watch or enact scenes from pornographic films.
Sexual abuse can occur even when the couple is not having a sexual relationship. A girl may be subjected to unwanted groping, sexual jokes that make her feel harassed, or rumors that she is a “slut.” Sexual harassment in a relationship is part of the overall pattern of abuse. Parents also should be aware that teens may not consider some sexual activity, such as oral sex, as “having sex.”
Technology abuse is one of the most dynamic, constantly changing tactics of control. There are ever-evolving technology developments that give a controlling person new and powerful opportunities to invade the many aspects of a victim’s life and cause emotional injury. Whatever technologies or social media outlets we describe here may be completely outdated or different compared to what your child may be dealing with. New devices and social media outlets are frequently changing and being created, but the basic concepts presented here will remain.
There are many forms of technology abuse. For example, controlling partners may constantly check up on victims by texting, tweeting, using smartphone cameras, using cell phone GPS to track them, and tagging photos on Facebook. Frequent cell phone communication is very common among teens and is usually harmless. In an abusive relationship, however, constant communication becomes restrictive and oppressive. The number of texts or posts is not necessarily an indicator of abuse. But the impact of the texts on the victim, and the texts’ tone, context, and content can be intimidating and controlling. Texts can be threatening or manipulative. They can occur when the teen is with the family, at the dinner table—anywhere, at any time. Although the abusive tweeting, texting, or instant messaging can go on while the family is together, parents can be unaware of it.
We can’t underestimate the value of the use of the cell phone as a safety tool, as a way for parents to keep in touch with their children wherever they are. However, we also must be aware that it can be used by an abusive person to track, retaliate, and blackmail. Many of us use smartphones more than computers, and we stay “connected” via messaging, e-mails, and information at all hours of the day. For teens who are being abused, however, constant messaging can lead to multiple forms of abuse. It is far too easy to hit the “share” button on a phone, allowing a private text, picture, or video to be weaponized.
Texting crosses a line when the teen feels her partner will “freak out” (become enraged and/or threatening) if she doesn’t respond immediately. Victims will go against parents or school policy to reply to a text, because fear of the boyfriend outranks everything else.
An additional form of technology abuse is cell phone cameras, which can make a teen especially vulnerable to sexual coercion, tracking, retaliation, and blackmail. Teens often don’t think about the possible long-term consequences of “sexting,” or sending their partners sexual text messages or photos of themselves naked or in suggestive poses. Sometimes a partner will use threats or coercion to force the other person to take the photos; sometimes the victim will think that because the couple is in love, it’s safe, and will send the photos willingly. These photos may then be used as a threat to control the victims; for example, “Have sex with me or I’ll send the photo out and show everyone.” The photos may be sent to everyone in school, or posted online, as a way of retaliating during a jealous rage or during a breakup.
Social media, such as Facebook, can also be used to control and track victims. The “check in” feature is used to notify people of your location. It can also be used by a controlling partner to stalk, follow, and check up on a partner, to know where that person is at all times. A controlling partner can ask friends to follow the victim, take photos, and post them on Facebook as a way of keeping track of the person.
When asked, “What are some of the ways you have been emotionally abused?” teens have answered:
When asked, “What are some of the ways you have been physically abused?” teens have answered:
When asked, “What are some of the ways you have been sexually abused?” teens have answered: