Signs of Domestic Abuse & Violence
Signs of Domestic Abuse & Violence
Domestic abuse often starts with small changes. They are hard to name and easy to explain away.
Many survivors describe a gradual erosion of confidence, safety, and joy. What once felt loving begins to feel tense, confusing, or exhausting. We may not recognise what’s happening at first, and that is not a failure on our part.
Early Warning Signs
Every relationship is different, but early signs of abuse and control often show up in how we feel, rather than in any single incident. Abusive behaviour might involve physical abuse, or not. It is still abuse.
We might notice:
- Feelings of dread or anxiety (butterflies)
- Headaches, stomach problems, or stress
- Struggling to eat or sleep properly
- We spend less time with friends or family to avoid conflict
- We stop expressing our own opinions
- We feel like we’re “walking on eggshells”
- We are scared or on edge because their reactions feel unpredictable
An important sign is feeling pressured to change who we are, how we dress, speak, think, or behave. From this point, controlling behaviour often escalates.
When a Relationship Becomes Controlling
A relationship may be abusive if our partner:
- Threatens or intimidates us
- Constantly criticises or belittles us
- Uses guilt or emotional blackmail to control us
- Takes our money or possessions without consent
- Uses physical force, such as hitting, pushing, or choking
- Ignores consent or pressures us into sexual acts
- Is extremely jealous and possessive
Abuse is not just about physical violence. It is about power, control, and fear.
Isolation
Isolation makes it harder to get help.
This can look like:
- Monitoring or blocking calls, messages, or social media
- Deciding where we can go and who we can see
- Preventing contact with friends or family
- Making no effort to engage with people who matter to us
- Keeping us inside the home or making leaving difficult
Isolation increases dependence, and that is the point.
Destructive Criticism & Verbal Abuse
This can include shouting, mocking, name-calling, humiliating jokes, or false accusations.
Over time, this often leads to us:
- Doubting our own judgement
- Losing our confidence
- Believing the criticism about our body, personality, or intelligence
- Feeling we are lucky to be loved at all
- Thinking we couldn’t cope without them
Humiliation
They may disrespect or humiliate us by:
- Putting us down in front of others
- Embarrassing or humiliating us in public
- Ignoring us or refusing to listen
- Interrupting our calls or invading our conversations
These behaviours communicate: you don’t matter.
Monitoring
Control often appears as “concern” or “rules for our own good”, but it removes choice.
This can include:
- Constantly monitoring where we are
- Controlling money or threatening to withhold it
- Telling us what to wear or how to behave
- Restricting access to our phone, social media, internet or car
- Forcing decisions
- Tracking us by apps, trackers, or door cams
- Insisting on accompanying us everywhere
This is not love. It is control.
Showing Disrespect
Putting a partner down in front of family, friends or other people; embarrassing a partner in public; not listening or responding when they talk; interrupting their telephone calls; refusing to help with childcare or housework; stealing items or money from them; or damaging their possessions, including heirlooms.
Pressure Tactics
Sulking; being jealous and possessive; wanting to know where their partner is all time; threatening to withhold money; getting the partner to buy things for them; telling them what to wear; denying a partner access to a phone, computer, tablet, internet or car; altering the heating controls to uncomfortable levels; taking the children away; lying to a partner’s friends or family about them; forcing a partner to move the relationship further than they want to; or telling them they have no choice in any decisions.
This can result in the victim avoiding saying things because they are unwilling to risk upsetting their partner, the ‘walking on eggshells’ situation, because they are frightened about how their partner, who may well have Jekyll-and-Hyde mood swings, will react.
Breaking trust
Regularly checking up on their partner, following them; not allowing them privacy by opening their post, going through their laptop, tablet, mobile, emails or social media accounts; constantly checking to see who has called them; or accompanying them everywhere they go.
Threats
Making angry gestures; using physical size to intimidate; shouting their partner down; using violent language; threatening to destroy a partner’s possessions; threatening to report them to the police, social services or the mental health team unless they comply with the perpetrator’s demands; pressurising a partner to use illegal substances; threatening to withhold medicines from a partner; threatening self-harm or suicide; deliberately scaring their partner; wielding a knife or gun; or threatening to kill or harm their partner, the children and/or family pets.
Sexual Violence
Forcing a partner to look at pornographic material; forcing them to perform sexual acts they do not wish to; forcing them to have sex when they don’t want it; or forcing them to have sex with other people.
Physical Violence
Any combination of restraint, hitting, pushing, shoving, pinching, slapping, punching, kicking, biting, pulling hair out, burning, holding by the neck or strangling.
Denial
All too often the perpetrator says the abuse isn’t happening, or their partner caused it by their so-called provocations. The perpetrator will often say they can’t control their anger, and then appear to be gentle and patient in public. They may cry and beg for forgiveness, saying the abuse or violent outburst will never happen again. But it does.