7 Types of abuse in relationships:

Are you in an abusive relationship that involves one or more types of abuse?  If so, you may want to join one of our Journey to Joy Support Groups for women who are victims of abuse.

1.    Physical abuse – blocking you from leaving a room, grabbing you, forcing you to look at him by grabbing your face, kicking, punching, slapping, choking, biting you, pulling or grabbing your hair, ripping your covers off in the middle of the night and forcing their demands on you, making threats against you (verbally or with weapons), throwing objects, breaking things, punching walls or kicking doors, driving recklessly, confining or isolating you, or hurting pets or your children to punish you.

2.    Emotional abuse – intimidating, insulting, degrading, shaming, humiliating, embarrassing you, being condescending, not listening to you, talking over the top of you, disrespecting you (privately or publicly), making threats toward you, being possessive and overly jealous, being controlling, invading your privacy, spying on you, accusing you of bad behavior (infidelity and cheating) that they are usually engaged in.

3.    Verbal abuse - screaming, yelling, swearing, name calling, interrupting, mocking, intimidating,  humiliating you with abusive language and derogatory remarks.

4.    Economic abuse – withholding money from you, not allowing you to have access to funds, forcing or coercing you to leave your job, not allowing you to have an occupation, preventing you from attending college, making you account for every penny you spend, preventing you from having access to a car, not allowing you to have your name on any assets or bank accounts, preventing you from knowing any of the joint business/financial affairs.

5.    Mental abuse – accusing you of doing bad behaviors that they have engaged in (such as
infidelity); saying/doing bad behavior and then denying it and claiming that you have mental problems and don’t know what you’re talking about; twisting and distorting truth and eventually getting you to believe that you are losing your mind; mentally abusive people are very skilled at lying and manipulating. 
 
6.    Sexual abuse – unwanted sex or touching,  pressuring you for sex, forcing you to have sex or unprotected sex, pressuring or forcing  you to have an abortion, sending you unwanted sexual images of themselves or others, forcing you to participate in viewing pornography, forcing you to do anything sexually that is unwanted or against your will.

7.    Spiritual abuse – forcing and manipulating you to do things against your will (forcing sex,
forcing submission) by distorting scripture and threatening punishment by God if you don’t comply; preventing and denying  you from doing things (such as getting a job, attending college, having access to money, having certain friends, reading and interpreting the bible for yourself, making choices for yourself, attending functions) by distorting scriptures on female submission to support their power and control of you.

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