Domestic abuse is a pattern of controlling behaviors that may include physical assaults, sexual assaults, emotional abuse, isolation, threats, stalking, manipulation, and/or intimidation. These behaviors are used by one person in an intimate relationship to control the other. The partners may be married, engaged, separated, or dating; heterosexual or gay; living together or not.
Abuse can happen to anyone regardless of someone’s religion (or lack of), gender identity or expression, age, race or nationality, cultural background, class, ability, and/or education.
More than 1 in 3 women (35.6%) and more than 1 in 4 men (28.5%) in the United States have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime (2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
Approximately 1 in 4 women and nearly 1 in 7 men in the U.S. have experienced severe physical violence by an intimate partner at some point in their lifetime (2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).