What Are the Different Types of Domestic Violence?

According to the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress, many domestic abusers are actually quite pleasant most of the time, and only occasionally descend into abusive behavior. They may be quite apologetic and apparently sincere between abusive episodes, making it difficult for their victims to recognize the abuse and leave the abuser.

Physical Abuse

• Physical abuse is any use of physical force to control or hurt a domestic partner. It can range from physically restraining someone or not allowing them to leave the house to beating them or even murder. Physical abuse doesn't have to cause physical injury to be domestic violence. Throwing or pushing a partner relies on physical violence to control and intimidate just like battering or choking a partner does.

Emotional or Verbal Abuse

• It's possible to be abusive without being physically threatening. Verbal abuse is not physically violent and, in some cases, isn't even illegal, but it is abuse nonetheless. Threatening a partner, yelling and screaming, calling him names or intentionally saying hurtful things, embarrassing him in front of friends and family and putting him down or minimizing his accomplishments are all verbal types of emotional abuse.

  Emotional abuse can take other forms of destructive and controlling behavior. Emotionally abusive people may destroy their partners' possessions or threaten to. They may get jealous of other social relationships and try to keep their partners from going out or check up on them continuously. They may strand their partners somewhere after a fight to "teach them a lesson."

Economic Abuse

• Economic abuse is an attempt to punish or control a partner through control of economic resources. An economic abuser may not allow her partner access to money or credit cards or may steal or control her partner's money. She may try to keep her partner more dependent on her by not allowing him to work or may withhold basic resources, such as food and clothing or even medicine and shelter as a way to dominate her partner.

Sexual Abuse

• Sexual abuse is frequently linked to physical abuse. It includes outright violent acts such as sexual assault, but does not have to. Sexual harassment--humiliating a partner based on her lifestyle or sexuality--is a form of sexual abuse that is often not physically violent. Sexual exploitation--coercing a partner into looking at or making pornography or engaging in unwanted sex acts--is also abuse.

Stalking

• Stalking is a type of abuse that overlaps with emotional abuse. According to the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress, "stalking is harassment of or threatening another person, especially in a way that haunts the person physically or emotionally in a repetitive and devious manner." Stalking can include physically following someone around or tracking him with a global positioning system tracker, making repeated phone calls, installing hidden cameras, spying on computer use or sending frequent, unwanted gifts or letters. Stalking can include making threats to hurt a partner or her friends and family, or destroying or vandalizing her property. Stalkers may turn violent, either to the victim or to friends and family members the stalker perceives as making her inaccessible.