Domestic Violence Quotes

Truth: Rape does indeed happen between girlfriend and boyfriend, husband and wife. Men who force their girlfriends or wives into having sex are committing rape, period. The laws are blurry, and in some countries marital rape is legal. But it still is rape.

Patti Feuereisen

Jemima Jane Erickson was one drunken pass away from jumping Ethan Weston's bones. He just didn't know it.

Amy Andrews

You think I need an orgasm to enjoy sex?” she demanded. “What are you, like fifteen?” She eyed him in disgust. “I can get my own orgasms just fine. Last night was not about me getting off. It was about comfort and solace. About helping you to forget for a while.”Ethan blinked as the full magnitude of her words pelted him like shrapnel. “Oh my God. It was a pity fuck?

Amy Andrews

All that existed was the blinding imperative to not think, to leave it all behind. To have it all fade to black in the throes of a truly good orgasm. To thrust and rock and pound until he came long and hard. To reach the pinnacle as fast as he could, to leap off the edge and truly leave all his earth-bound worries behind.He was a cave man. He was a Neanderthal. He was fucking Cro-Magnon.

Amy Andrews

JJ glared at his slumbering frame. Long legs, lethal in denim, his button fly already enticingly popped, abdomen all ridged and naked, begging for a finger or a tongue to discover the hills and valleys, dark shaggy hair spread around his head like a freaking halo on her pillow. Well too damn bad for this broken-down angel. She was the one who’d worked her ass off until two am. Not him. And she wanted her bed back.

Amy Andrews

How many young men fear that there is a monster inside them? People are supposed to fear others, not themselves. People are supposed to aspire to become their fathers, not shudder at the thought.

Veronica Roth

Domestic violence is just as much a quality-of-life and liberty for community, social, and legal attention to support mental, emotional, health, wellness & physical safety as any other epidemic outbreak; only this illness has an anger managed, self-controlled, personal boundary-respecting, and accountability-subjective cure!

Tracey Bond

It's not your fault you had an unwanted dick in you.

Rebecca O'Donnell

Even those who drink until blacking out, those who beat women, are not the exception, hopefully not the norm, trapped somewhere in society in a dark place nobody wants to talk about.

Justin Donner

The lack of culpability of the perpetrator and his or her transference of blame onto alcohol or other substances only perpetuates the violent behaviors.

Asa Don Brown

Children have rights outside their mother's womb without having to be victim's of Domestic Violence inside their mother's womb.

Sheree' Griffin

Everybody's good when they're good, darling. You don't judge a person by that. It's how they act when things aren't good that tells you who they really are.

Megan Jacobson

Simon leveled the gun at Will again. 'Now,' he said casually, 'someone's gonna die here in the next minute.'On the other side of the two-way mirror, Sammy took aim.'That's exactly right,' she whispered.

Jenna Brooks

I admired so many things about you. Almost everything. But I don’t want to wind up like you. I don’t want to starve to death, all alone on some island inside my own head. Hopeless.

Jenna Brooks

If you have survived an abuser, and you tried to make things right… If you forgave, and you struggled, and even if the expression of your grief and your anger tumbled out at times in too much rage and too many words… If you spent years hanging on to the concepts of faith, hope, and love, even after you knew in your heart that those intangibles, upon which life is formed and sustained, would fail in the end… And especially, if you stood between your children - or anyone - and him, and took the physical, emotional, and spiritual pummeling in their stead, then you are a hero.

Jenna Brooks

Why Does He Do That? That's the number one question, isn't it? Maybe it's his drinking, you say. Maybe it's his learning disabilities. It's his job; he hates it. He's stressed. I think he's bipolar. It's his mother's fault; she spoiled him rotten. It's the drugs. If only he didn't use. It's his temper. He's selfish. It's the pornography; he's obsessed. tThe list could go on and on. You could spend many years trying to pinpoint it and never get a definite answer. The fact is, many people have these problems and they aren't abusive. Just because someone is an alcoholic doesn't mean he is abusive. Men hate their jobs all the time and aren't abusive. Bipolar? Okay. Stressed? Who isn't! Do you see where I am going with this? tOff the subject a bit, when someone commits a violent crime, they always report in the news about his possible motive. As human beings, we need to somehow make sense of things. If someone murders someone, do you think it makes the family of the victim feel better to know the murderer's motive? No. Except for self-defense, there really is no excuse for murder. Motive, if there is any, is irrelevant. tThe same is true of abuse. You could spend your whole life going round and round trying to figure out why. The truth is, the why doesn't matter. There are only two reasons why men commit abuse—because they want to do so and because they can. tYou want to know why. In many ways, you might feel like you need to know. But, if you could come up with a reason or a motive, it wouldn't help you. Maybe you believe that if you did this or that differently, he wouldn't have abused you. That is faulty thinking and won't help you get better. You didn't do anything to cause the abuse. No matter what you said, no matter what you did, you didn't deserve to be abused. tYou are the victim and it won't help you to know why he supposedly abused you. No matter what his reason, there is no excuse for abuse. You are not to blame.

Beth Praed

It was too familiar to Cody. He placed his arms around his wife trying somehow to shelter her from the reality she was facing. There was another reason for his closeness; his desperation to show her he was not one of them, that the tribes of cruel men did not recognize him as one of their own, and to show his wife that his promise to create a safe place for her was a promise she need not fear would be broken. In the innermost part of him, from the secret child that lives within all men, was a scared cry, “Please don’t think I’m bad too.” From the other innermost part of him, the secret animal that prowls in some men was a raging wolf ready to kill. The battle line within the man had been drawn. The boundaries of faith rose up around the rage, warning the soul against righteous anger morphing to blood lust.

Lee Goff

Thomas was like a drug, so smooth and overwhelming that he took one up a level in their emotions just by watching him and listening to him. He was a natural entertainer, filled with talent and knowledge on many subjects and a keen sense of the arts and music. I admired him as he performed for us, and I forgot the ugliness again

Sara Niles

IN ONE IMPORTANT WAY, an abusive man works like a magician: His tricks largely rely on getting you to look off in the wrong direction, distracting your attention so that you won’t notice where the real action is. He draws you into focusing on the turbulent world of his feelings to keep your eyes turned away from the true cause of his abusiveness, which lies in how he thinks. He leads you into a convoluted maze, making your relationship with him a labyrinth of twists and turns. He wants you to puzzle over him, to try to figure him out, as though he were a wonderful but broken machine for which you need only to find and fix the malfunctioning parts to bring it roaring to its full potential. His desire, though he may not admit it even to himself, is that you wrack your brain in this way so that you won’t notice the patterns and logic of his behavior, the consciousness behind the craziness.

Lundy Bancroft

One of the obstacles to recognizing chronic mistreatment in relationships is that most abusive men simply don’t seem like abusers. They have many good qualities, including times of kindness, warmth, and humor, especially in the early period of a relationship. An abuser’s friends may think the world of him. He may have a successful work life and have no problems with drugs or alcohol. He may simply not fit anyone’s image of a cruel or intimidating person. So when a woman feels her relationship spinning out of control, it is unlikely to occur to her that her partner is an abuser.

Lundy Bancroft

THE MYTHS ABOUT ABUSERS1. He was abused as a child.2. His previous partner hurt him.3. He abuses those he loves the most.4. He holds in his feelings too much.5. He has an aggressive personality.6. He loses control.7. He is too angry.8. He is mentally ill.9. He hates women.10. He is afraid of intimacy and abandonment.11. He has low self-esteem.12. His boss mistreats him.13. He has poor skills in communication and conflict resolution.14. There are as many abusive women as abusive men.15. His abusiveness is as bad for him as for his partner.16. He is a victim of racism.17. He abuses alcohol or drugs.

Lundy Bancroft

Although the typical abusive man works to maintain a positive public image, it is true that some women have abusive partners who are nasty or intimidating to everyone. How about that man? Do his problems result from mistreatment by his parents? The answer is both yes and no; it depends on which problem we’re talking about. His hostility toward the human race may sprout from cruelty in his upbringing, but he abuses women because he has an abuse problem. The two problems are related but distinct.

Lundy Bancroft

When we hear these kinds of excuses from a drunk, we assume they are exactly that—excuses. We don’t consider an active alcoholic a reliable source of insight. So why should we let an angry and controlling man be the authority on partner abuse?

Lundy Bancroft

It is important to note that research has shown that men who have abusive mothers do not tend to develop especially negative attitudes toward females, but men who have abusive fathers do; the disrespect that abusive men show their female partners and their daughters is often absorbed by their sons.So while a small number of abusive men do hate women, the great majority exhibit a more subtle—though often quite pervasive—sense of superiority or contempt toward females, and some don’t show any obvious signs of problems with women at all until they are in a serious relationship.

Lundy Bancroft

When a man’s face contorts in bitterness and hatred, he looks a little insane. When his mood changes from elated to assaultive in the time it takes to turn around, his mental stability seems open to question. When he accuses his partner of plotting to harm him, he seems paranoid. It is no wonder that the partner of an abusive man would come to suspect that he was mentally ill. Yet the great majority of my clients over the years have been psychologically “normal.” Their minds work logically; they understand cause and effect; they don’t hallucinate. Their perceptions of most life circumstances are reasonably accurate. They get good reports at work; they do well in school or training programs; and no one other than their partners—and children—thinks that there is anything wrong with them. Their value system is unhealthy, not their psychology.

Lundy Bancroft

There certainly are some women who treat their male partners badly, berating them, calling them names, attempting to control them. The negative impact on these men’s lives can be considerable. But do we see men whose self-esteem is gradually destroyed through this process? Do we see men whose progress in school or in their careers grinds to a halt because of the constant criticism and undermining? Where are the men whose partners are forcing them to have unwanted sex? Where are the men who are fleeing to shelters in fear for their lives? How about the ones who try to get to a phone to call for help, but the women block their way or cut the line? The reason we don’t generally see these men is simple: They’re rare. I don’t question how embarrassing it would be for a man to come forward and admit that a woman is abusing him. But don’t underestimate how humiliated a woman feels when she reveals abuse; women crave dignity just as much as men do. If shame stopped people from coming forward, no one would tell.

Lundy Bancroft

The confusion of love with abuse is what allows abusers who kill their partners to make the absurd claim that they were driven by the depths of their loving feelings. The news media regrettably often accept the aggressors’ view of these acts, describing them as “crimes of passion.” But what could more thoroughly prove that a man did not love his partner? If a mother were to kill one of her children, would we ever accept the claim that she did it because she was overwhelmed by how much she cared? Not for an instant. Nor should we. Genuine love means respecting the humanity of the other person, wanting what is best for him or her, and supporting the other person’s self-esteem and independence. This kind of love is incompatible with abuse and coercion.

Lundy Bancroft

The central attitudes driving the Drill Sergeant are:I need to control your every move or you will do it wrong.I know the exact way that everything should be done.You shouldn’t have anyone else — or any thing else — in your life besides me.I am going to watch you like a hawk to keep you from developing strength or independence.I love you more than anyone in the world, but you disgust me. (!!)

Lundy Bancroft

The central attitudes driving Rambo are:Strength and aggressiveness are good; compassion and conflict resolution are bad.Anything that could be even remotely associated with homosexuality, including walking away from possible violence or showing any fear or grief, has to be avoided at any cost.Femaleness and femininity (which he associates with homosexuality) are inferior. Women are here to serve men and be protected by them.Men should never hit women, because it is unmanly to do so. However, exceptions to this rule can be made for my own partner if her behavior is bad enough. Men need to keep their women in line.You are a thing that belongs to me, akin to a trophy.

Lundy Bancroft

Physical aggression by a man toward his partner is abuse, even if it happens only once. If he raises a fist; punches a hole in the wall; throws things at you; blocks your way; restrains you; grabs, pushes, or pokes you; or threatens to hurt you, that’s physical abuse. He is creating fear and using your need for physical freedom and safety as a way to control you.

Lundy Bancroft

Alcohol does not a change a person’s fundamental value system. People’s personalities when intoxicated, even though somewhat altered, still bear some relationship to who they are when sober. When you are drunk you may behave in ways that are silly or embarrassing; you might be overly familiar or tactlessly honest, or perhaps careless or forgetful. But do you knock over little old ladies for a laugh? Probably not. Do you sexually assault the clerk at the convenience store? Unlikely. People’s conduct while intoxicated continues to be governed by their core foundation of beliefs and attitudes, even though there is some loosening of the structure. Alcohol encourages people to let loose what they have simmering below the surface.ABUSERS MAKE CONSCIOUS CHOICES EVEN WHILE INTOXICATED

Lundy Bancroft

The abuser does not believe, however, that his level of authority over the children should be in any way connected to his actual level of effort or sacrifice on their behalf, or to how much knowledge he actually has about who they are or what is going on in their lives. He considers it his right to make the ultimate determination of what is good for them even if he doesn’t attend to their needs or even if he only contributes to those aspects of child care that he enjoys or that make him look like a great dad in public.

Lundy Bancroft Bancroft

The underlying attitude comes bursting out of his words: He believes his wife is keeping something of his away from him when she doesn’t want intimate contact. He sees sexual rights to a woman as akin to mineral rights to land—and he owns them.

Lundy Bancroft

Physical aggression by a man toward his partner is abuse, even if it happens only once.

Lundy Bancroft

ALCOHOL HAS NO BIOLOGICAL CONNECTION TO ABUSE OR VIOLENCEAlcohol does not directly make people belligerent, aggressive, or violent. There is evidence that certain chemicals can cause violent behavior — anabolic steroids, for example, or crack cocaine — but alcohol is not among them. In the human body, alcohol is actually a depressant, a substance that rarely causes aggression. Marijuana similarly has no biological action connected to abusiveness.

Lundy Bancroft

A man’s beliefs about the effects of the substance will largely be borne out. If he believes that alcohol can make him aggressive, it will, as research has shown. On the other hand, if he doesn’t attribute violence-causing powers to substances, he is unlikely to become aggressive even when severely intoxicated.

Lundy Bancroft

We sat still, our breathing loud and rhythmic, its music melancholy, a traditional song of sorrow.

Margot McCuaig

My hands twitch as they tremble and every nerve and muscle in my body is frozen—numb.

J. Kahele

There is life after abuse. This is mine.

Lindsay Fischer

This book appears at a time when public discussion of the common atrocities of sexual and domestic life has been made possible by the women’s movement, and when public discussion of the common atrocities of political life has been made possible by the movement for human rights. I expect the book to be controversial—first, because it is written from a feminist perspective; second, because it challenges established diagnostic concepts; but third and perhaps most importantly, because it speaks about horrible things, things that no one really wants to hear about.

Judith Lewis Herman

We are a society of excuses, shame and blame; we avoid accountability and often project our responsibility when involving domestic violence.

Asa Don Brown

No amount of logic can usually move a battered woman, so persuasion requires emotional leverage, not statistics or moral arguments. . . .I have seen their fear and resistance firsthand . . . I believe it is critical for a woman to view staying as a choice, for only then can leaving be viewed as a choice and an option.

Gavin de Becker

It is a rare person who can cut himself off from mediate and immediate relations with others for long spaces of time without undergoing a deterioration in personality.

Harry Stack Sullivan

How could she love him after what he did to her? How could she contemplate taking him back?” It’s sad that those are the first thoughts that run through our minds when someone is abused. Shouldn’t there be more distaste in our mouths for the abusers than for those who continue to love the abusers?

Colleen Hoover

Domestic violence is any behavior involving physical, psychological, emotional, sexual or verbal abuse. It is any form of aggression intended to hurt, damage, or kill an intimate person.

Asa Don Brown

Domestic violence is frequently excused when alcohol and other substances are involved.

Asa Don Brown

A man or a woman can't be defined by the pain inflicted in them by others or by someone else's issues, but by their own character and actions.

Linda Alfiori

Consider these traditional theories of domestic abuse:-tLearned helplessness suggest that abused women learn to become helpless under abusive conditions; they are powerless to extricate themselves from such relationships and/or unable to make adaptive choices-tThe cycle of violence describes a pattern that includes a contrition or honeymoon phase. The abusive husband becomes contrite and apologetic after a violent episode, making concerted efforts to get back in his wife’s good graces.-tTraumatic bonding attempts to explain the inexplicable bond that is formed between a woman and her abusive partner-tThe theory of past reenactments posits that women in abusive relationships are reliving unconscious feelings from early childhood scenarios. My research results and experience with patients do not conform to these concepts. I have found that the upscale abused wife is not a victim of learned helplessness. Rather, she makes specific decisions along the path to be involved in the abusive marriage, including silent strategizing as she chooses to stay or leave the marriage. Nor does the upscale abused wife experience the classic cycle of violence, replete with the honeymoon stage, in which the husband courts his wife to seek her forgiveness. As in the case of Sally and Ray, the man of means actually does little to seek his wife’s forgiveness after a violent episode.Further, the upscale abused wife voices more attachment to her lifestyle than the traumatic bonding with her abusive mate. And very few of the abused women I have met over the years experienced abuse in their childhoods or witnessed it between their parents. In fact, it is this lack of experience with violence, rage, and abuse that makes this woman even more overwhelmed and unclear about how to cope with something so alien to her and the people in her universe.

Susan Weitzman

What are you going to do? Are you going to live in the dark, locked in here? Afraid to look out, answer the door, leave? Yes, he's out there, and he's clearly not going to leave you alone until one of three things happens: he hurts you and gets arrested, or he makes a mistake and gets arrested, or you stop him.

Rachel Caine

It is fine to commiserate with a man about his bad experience with a previous partner, but the instant he uses her as an excuse to mistreat you, stop believing anything he tells you about that relationship and instead recognize it as a sign that he has problems with relating to women.

Lundy Bancroft

YOUR ABUSIVE PARTNER DOESN’T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH HIS ANGER; HE HAS A PROBLEM WITH YOUR ANGER.One of the basic human rights he takes away from you is the right to be angry with him. No matter how badly he treats you, he believes that your voice shouldn’t rise and your blood shouldn’t boil. The privilege of rage is reserved for him alone. When your anger does jump out of you—as will happen to any abused woman from time to time—he is likely to try to jam it back down your throat as quickly as he can. Then he uses your anger against you to prove what an irrational person you are. Abuse can make you feel straitjacketed. You may develop physical or emotional reactions to swallowing your anger, such as depression, nightmares, emotional numbing, or eating and sleeping problems, which your partner may use as an excuse to belittle you further or make you feel crazy.

Lundy Bancroft

Has he ever trapped you in a room and not let you out?Has he ever raised a fist as if he were going to hit you?Has he ever thrown an object that hit you or nearly did?Has he ever held you down or grabbed you to restrain you?Has he ever shoved, poked, or grabbed you?Has he ever threatened to hurt you?If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then we can stop wondering whether he’ll ever be violent; he already has been.

Lundy Bancroft

An abuser can seem emotionally needy. You can get caught in a trap of catering to him, trying to fill a bottomless pit. But he’s not so much needy as entitled, so no matter how much you give him, it will never be enough. He will just keep coming up with more demands because he believes his needs are your responsibility, until you feel drained down to nothing.

Lundy Bancroft

The abusive man’s high entitlement leads him to have unfair and unreasonable expectations, so that the relationship revolves around his demands. His attitude is: “You owe me.” For each ounce he gives, he wants a pound in return. He wants his partner to devote herself fully to catering to him, even if it means that her own needs—or her children’s—get neglected. You can pour all your energy into keeping your partner content, but if he has this mind-set, he’ll never be satisfied for long. And he will keep feeling that you are controlling him, because he doesn’t believe that you should set any limits on his conduct or insist that he meet his responsibilities.

Lundy Bancroft

Domestic terrorism is alive and well in the USA and it is masquerading as “Progress”.

Steven Magee

Prepare a gentle but firm response to use the next time someone feels they have a right to comment on your life decisions. You might say something like, "I'm sure you have my best interest at heart, and I thank you for your concern. However, you didn't experience what I did, so you can't understand what I went through. I made the best decisions I could based on what happened in my life. I know you will honor my right to decide what is best for me, just as I allow you to decide what is best for you.

Caroline Abbott

The dog leash was still tied tight around the oak tree in the back, stretched worn and limp across the green grass as if trying to escape to freedom; and he buried his wife without a tombstone. Where before, she sat most times in his home, licking her wounds.

Anthony Liccione

It's never ok to hit a girl. Never. Not even if she cheats on you. A girl is not your property. She's a human being. She is just as important as you. She is your equal. And her wishes and feelings are just as valid as yours. All you can do is treat her nice, and hope she wants to be with you. If she chooses to be with you, great! If not, or if she chooses to leave you at some point, you have to let her go. You have no right to stop her. You don't own her, and you don't have the right to tell her what to do. She's your partner. Not your servant, not your sex slave, and not your punching bag.

Oliver Markus

No, Karl, not now. Take it easy. It’s our happy day.”Poul-Erik’s MotherThe Informer by Steen Langstrup

Steen Langstrup

In the process of my evolution, I became a victim of domestic war, an emotional casualty for a major portion of my life, entwined, entrapped and emotionally involved, until I learned how to become free. Sara Niles Torn From the Inside Out

Sara Niles

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Domestic Violence Quotes

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