Intimate Partner Abuse

Many teenagers fall deeply in love with their first true love during high school or college. Love is wonderful when it makes you happy. Love can provide you with a healthy, positive, deep connection with someone who cares about you, needs you, supports your dreams, and encourages you to follow them. It feels good to be needed by someone else. It feels good to love someone who loves you. It feels good to explore feelings that you haven't felt before to such a strong degree. Love is basically one of those things everyone is looking for in their life. Once they find love it can enrich their lives. However, unfortunately, in some situations love can blind us all to the reality of our situation. If someone loves you, he/she absolutely would never hurt you physically. He/she would not insult or criticize you on a normal basis. These are not the actions of someone who loves someone. When a person loves an abusive partner strongly enough, they may justify the abuse in many ways:

"People don't know how we are when we're alone." "He may be disrespectful and mean to people in public, but sometimes when we're alone he's very sweet." Hogwash! The general rule is... If he's mean to the waitress, he's a mean person.

"He needs me. I can't abandon him."
You can't help him by staying with him. As long as you stay with him, he will continue to abuse you. This is his problem. The only way you can break this pattern is by not seeing him again and referring him to a place he can get help. Otherwise he will never be forced to face his problem and will never have the incentive to help himself, which is what he needs the most.

"The abuser doesn't want to hurt me."
"He/she apologizes after the abuse and feels sorry for what he/she did. He/she promised to never do it again. If this is the case, your situation is only going to get worse. If they loved you they would never have hurt you in the first place. Feeling sorry for what they did in no way justifies harming you. You need to recognize that they will be the cause for increasing pain in your life as long as you are with them. You must repect yourself. Regardless of what anyone has said to you, you, like everybody on this planet, deserves to be happy. Consider that this may be the only life you live. Most scientists believe it is. If you continue seeing this person, all you will experience in this life is pain and misery. Then it will be over and all the happy memories you could have experienced will never happen. If you step back and look realisticaly at your relationship and recognize it as a hurtful, abusive, unhealthy situation. If you respect your mind and your body well enough to change your situation, stop seeing this person that hurts you, and start interacting with a world of people who are ready to encourage, support and positively embrace you, you will have a good, happy life.

Read fixing your life

You are in an unhealthy relationship if your boyfriend or girlfriend...

• Hits you, even once.
• Wants you to stop seeing your friends.
• Wants to limit your contact with your family.
• Won"t let you talk to people of the opposite sex other than him or herself.
• Does not take your opinion seriously.
• Bosses you around.
• Causes you to be afraid of him or her.
• Pressures you to take drugs or alcohol.
• Often insults and criticizes you, calling you ugly, stupid, fat, etc.
• Blames you for things that happened to him or her.
• Threatens you, or threatens to hurt someone or something close to you.
• Threatens to leave you or kill himself or herself if you leave.
• Pressures you to have sex when they know you are not ready.
• Tells you to do something you don"t want to do, to prove you love him/her.

You may be at risk of abuse if your partner:

• Has a history of fighting or violence.
• Brags about hurting others.
• Has a history of bad relationships.
• Makes those close to you such as family members or friends worry for your safety.
• If you have a history of harmful relationships, you are more likely to have another. recognize this and look for a nice guy that truly respects you.

Child Abuse

If your intimate partner ever aggressively strikes your child they are a child abuser. Children don't need to be hit. Some parents spank their children when the child is young. But there is a difference between a single wrap on the bottom and an abusive assault of spankings. If your intimate partner abuses your child, which unfortunately is more common among teenage parents, you must leave the abuser and never see them again, or you will be responsible for ruining your child's entire life. In some cases, child abuse can escalate until your partner actually murders your child to get back at you. Even if this does not happen, child abuse permanently damages your child's psychology. If you stay with this person, your child may have a hard time ever establishing a healthy relationship. The child will be more likely to be abused by their future spouse. The child will also be more likely to abuse their own children. Stop the pattern. If you are financially dependent on the abuser, swallow your pride, and get help from your family or friends. Call the child abuse hotline for more help.

National Child Abuse Hotline An organization devoted to treatment prevention and research on Child Abuse
1(800)4-A-Child
Hearing impaired 1(800)2-A-CHILD
www.childhelpusa.org

• Abuse Topics

• Abuse
• Fixing Your Life

• Intimate Partner abuse...
• Toward you
• Toward your child

• Defending yourself

• Helping an abused friend

Related Info

Contact one of the help centers below. Life can get better if you take action today.

Child Abuse
Childhelp USA and National Child Abuse Hotline
1-800-422-4453

Domestic Violence National Domestic Violence Hotline
1-800-799-7233

Rape Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network Hotline
1-800-656-HOPE

Crisis & Grief Counseling Boys Town National Hotline
Crisis counseling for girls and boys and referral to local help
www.ffbh.boystown.org
1-800-448-3000

National Urban league Organization that "helps youth fight the temptations of the street"
1-888-326-YOUTH

National Runaway Switchboard
1-800-621-4000

The National "YOUTH" Crisis Help line
1-800-999-9999

Kristin Brooks Hope Center A national organization that links callers to local crisis centers
www.livewithdepression.org
1-800-SUICIDE

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) Great info on suicide and suicide prevention with useful links
www.afsp.org
1-888-333-AFSP

the Covenant House
1-800-999-9999 crisis hotline
www.covenanthouse.org/cov/con.htm
Although written for young kids, this site can provide useful information for adolescence on how to cope with thoughts of...

• Running away
• Suicide
• Abuse