For many years, the five main forms of violence have been considered to be physical, psychological/emotional, verbal, financial and sexual. On the other hand, over the years, some forms have been added, such as spiritual/identity violence, judicial violence, proxy violence, and cyberviolence.

Reference Unmasking intimate partner violence — SOS domestic violence (sosviolenceconjugale.ca)

Here are some examples of these violences

Physical

  • Spitting in the person’s face
  • Hitting the other person
  • Tightly holding the person’s arm
  • Breaking objects
  • Throwing objects
  • Etc.

Psychological/emotional

  • Blackmail
  • Blaming non-stop
  • Sulking
  • Threatening
  • Putting into question the victims mental health
  • Etc.

Verbal

  • Raising their tone of voice
  • Using sarcasm
  • Insulting
  • Degrading
  • Giving orders
  • Etc.

Financial

  • Denying access to accounts
  • Controlling finances and spending
  • Forcing or prohibiting the other person to work
  • Using the other person’s identity
  • Threatening to cut off access to accounts
  • Etc.

Sexual

  • Forcing the other person to have sex
  • Sulking if the other person refuses sex
  • Forcing the other person to have sex with a third party
  • Forcing the other person to watch pornography
  • Engaging in sex when the other person is not conscious
  • Etc.

Spritual/identity

  • Denigrating the beliefs of the other person
  • Forcing the other person to practise a religion
  • Preventing the other person from practising their religion
  • Ridiculing the individual values of the other person
  • Diminishing the ambitions of the other person
  • Etc.

Judicial

  • Prolonging legal proceedings
  • Using legal proceedings to maintain control over the other person
  • Filing an unfounded complaint against the intimate partner
  • Lying to case workers
  • Non-compliance with legal agreements
  • Etc.

By proxy

  • Threatening to hurt the children to punish the intimate partner
  • Hurting children to punish the intimate partner
  • Manipulating children so they refuse the intimate partner’s authority
  • Threatening to injure the intimate partner’s loved one
  • Injuring the intimate partner’s pet
  • Etc.

Cyberviolence

  • Harassing the intimate partner by text messages
  • Harassing the intimate partner on social networks
  • Spying on the intimate partner on social networks
  • Reading their text messages
  • Filming the other person without consent
  • Etc.

Impacts of violence

Domestic violence necessarily has an impact on the intimate partners who are victims of it as well as on the children who are exposed directly or indirectly to it.

It has immediate and more or less long-term consequences, which are the result of all the violence suffered and repeated for many years.

The types of impacts are much the same for the vast majority of intimate partners. However, these consequences can be experienced differently from one person to another depending on the initial vulnerability, social support, the interventions received following the assaults, the intensity of the aggressions and the duration of the abusive relationship.

Here are a few examples.

Physical consequences

Immediate consequences

  • Scratches
  • Bites
  • Fractures
  • Burns
  • Death
  • Etc.

More or less long-term consequences

  • Overuse of medications, alcohol, drugs
  • Chronic disorders/pain
  • Physical trauma
  • Disability
  • Suicide
  • Etc.

Psychological consequences

Immediate consequences

  • Feeling helpless
  • Confusion
  • Sense of responsibility for the situation
  • Feeling of humiliation
  • Increasing threshold of violence tolerance
  • Etc.

More or less long-term consequences

  • Learned helplessness (victimization)
  • Loss of self-esteem
  • Dependencies
  • Different mental health problems (OCD or obsessive-compulsive disorder, phobias, anxiety attack, anxiety disorders, depression)
  • Suicidal ideation / suicide attempts
  • Etc.

Social consequences

Immediate consequences

  • Less social and family support
  • Job loss
  • Loss of money
  • Etc.

More or less long-term consequences

  • Isolation
  • Indebtedness
  • Problems with institutions (social assistance, justice, immigration, social services)
  • Threat of deportation for sponsored immigrant women
  • Removal of children
  • Etc.

Emotional consequences

Immediate consequences

  • Fear
  • Shame
  • Guilt
  • Sadness
  • Doubt
  • Etc.

Sexual consequences

Immediate consequences

  • Complications in pregnancy
  • Sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections (STBBIs)
  • Genital lesions
  • Unwanted pregnancy
  • Abortion
  • Etc.

 

More or less long-term consequences

  • Loss of desire
  • Chronic pain
  • Difficulty having children
  • Gynecological disorders
  • Disgust for one’s own body
  • Etc.

 

Consequences for children

Children are like little sponges. They see and hear everything, even if we think they don’t.

They may not be direct victims of violence but are still likely to suffer many impacts due to this violence. Here are a few examples:

  • Behavioural problems
  • Symptoms of post-traumatic stress
  • Anxiety, anguish
  • Poorer self-esteem
  • Reproduction of their parents’ relational models
  • Etc.
     

REFERENCE: https://www.inspq.qc.ca/violence-conjugale/comprendre/consequences