The Dynamics of Family Violence*

Domestic violence may seem unpredictable, simply an outburst related just to the moment and to the circumstances in the lives of the people involved. In fact, domestic violence can follow a typical pattern no matter when it occurs or who is involved, despite that every relationship is unique.

In the Ecological Model, we understand relationships that experience abuse as being part of relational dynamics. Other models may describe the patterns of abuse in relationships, but confuse part of the relationship (the abuse) as being the whole of the relationship. At Tubman Family Alliance, we serve over 50,000 men, women, and children annually, so we have come up with a model that aims to look at the whole relationship, which includes abuse. We aim to answer the question: Why do some people stay together in abusive relationships?

The Two Energies of Relationships

Autonomy ™ & Togetherness ™ can be viewed as opposing sides of a relationship pendulum. The farther someone swings to either side, the stronger the pull to go in the opposite direction, which is back into the familiar and known. For instance, a woman in an unhealthy and abusive relationship may feel an extreme draw to leave her abuser completely, but as soon as she leaves, she may feel compelled to get back together again because that is what she knows and is comfortable with.

In all relationships, people need to balance and acknowledge both their autonomy and togetherness. It is also important for friends, family members, and relationship professionals to acknowledge both energies and help the person in need balance those energies as well as safety concerns.

Possible Reasons Why Some People Stay in Abusive Relationships

People stay in abusive relationships for a variety of reasons, which can include children, housing, employment, a child's access to education, or threats of violence, etc. 

The Dynamics of Family Violence provides possible reasons why some people stay in the familiar and known territory of an abusive relationship, including:

Remission

• Anxiety around abuse returning to relationship, but relief that it’s gone for now
• Reinforces reasons of being together
• Reinforce the familiar to manage or keep the peace in the relationship
• Recognize common interests
• Desire to reconnect to the way the relationship used to be

Ambiguity/Anxiety/Avoidance refer to relationship stages

Ambiguity: Mixed feelings surface and arguments begin to occur.
I’m getting tired of being the person who always has to give in and give up a part of myself in order to get along with you. I love you, but I’m not sure that love is supposed to be like this. I still love and want to be with you but I am missing parts of myself that I freely gave up for “us.” I sometimes feel trapped, resentful or bored. I want to be with you, but I sometimes want to do my own thing. Things that didn’t used to bother me are beginning to really bother me. I don’t always recognize myself, and I don’t think you do either. And you’re different now. I see all these ways that we are different. You start to judge and criticize me too.

Anxiety: Partners start feeling stressed and take on each other’s tensions.
It used to be that being in a relationship with you made me feel good; now the relationship itself is making me feel nervous. I don’t like it when you get mad or frustrated because I’m afraid it means you don’t love me. But I don’t like it when you are far away and you act like you don’t care. I don’t want to do anything that could cause more tension, so I start holding things back. I have few skills in tolerating anxiety.

Avoidance: Partners ignore each other and/or the problems for lack of a better solution.
I don’t want to think about the hard things in our relationship. It’s easier to act as if everything is fine. I don’t have to face my feelings then. I cope by giving in or by pushing you away. I find myself giving in, ignoring issues, pushing you away or over-doing the things that distract me like work, TV, domestic violence, alcohol/drugs, overeating, engaging in marital sadistic behavior, affairs, spending time with friends, sleeping. These are done to try to reduce anxiety. They get worse when you try to make me deal with our problems. My tactics, such as intimidation, stonewalling, partial information-giving or receiving, shutting down the process of you knowing who I am instead of my self-presentation.

Adversity refer to relationship stages

Adversity: The partners want different things and are at a point of impasse.
I think we have a “communication problem.” I feel stuck. We can’t get past these issues because neither one of us is willing to change. It hasn’t worked to ignore the problems, but I don’t even know how to talk about them because we both get mad. I know what you will say and you know what I’ll say because we’ve already said them. We have done as much of that as we can. Only the hard issues remain. Everything about this relationship feels hard.

Disruption

• Escalation – Relaxes the system momentarily. As partners move towards self instead of relationship, this upsets equilibrium and increases anxiety.
• Reduces anxiety after incident

This is a very fluid dynamic and one can move between different stages as the path above indicates. To break out of gridlock and exit the Dynamics of Family Violence, one has to make a unilateral decision to move from the familiar to the unknown.

™ David M. Schnarch, Marriage and Family Health Center.

*The Dynamics of Family Violence model is based on the work of Dr. David Schnarch, Dr. James Maddock, and Dr. Noel Larson.