What is it?

Domestic violence can be defined as a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner.

Domestic violence can be physical, sexual, emotional, economic, or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person. This includes any behaviors that intimidate, manipulate, humiliate, isolate, frighten, terrorize, coerce, threaten, blame, hurt, injure, or wound someone.

• Physical Abuse: Hitting, slapping, shoving, grabbing, pinching, biting, hair-pulling, biting, etc. Physical abuse also includes denying a partner medical care or forcing alcohol and/or drug use.
• Sexual Abuse: Coercing or attempting to coerce any sexual contact or behavior without consent. Sexual abuse includes, but is certainly not limited to marital rape, attacks on sexual parts of the body, forcing sex after physical violence has occurred, or treating one in a sexually demeaning manner.
• Emotional Abuse: Undermining an individual's sense of self-worth and/or self-esteem. This may include, but is not limited to constant criticism, diminishing one's abilities, name-calling, or damaging one's relationship with his or her children.
• Economic Abuse: Making or attempting to make an individual financially dependent by maintaining total control over financial resources, withholding one's access to money, or forbidding one's attendance at school or employment.
• Psychological Abuse: Causing fear by intimidation; threatening physical harm to self, partner, children, or partner's family or friends; destruction of pets and property; and forcing isolation from family, friends, or school and/or work.

Domestic violence can happen to anyone regardless of race, age, sexual orientation, religion, or gender. Domestic violence affects people of all socioeconomic backgrounds and education levels. Domestic violence occurs in both opposite-sex and same-sex relationships and can happen to intimate partners who are married, living together, or dating.

Domestic violence not only affects those who are abused, but also has a substantial effect on family members, friends, co-workers, other witnesses, and the community at large. Children, who grow up witnessing domestic violence, are among those seriously affected by this crime. Frequent exposure to violence in the home not only predisposes children to numerous social and physical problems, but also teaches them that violence is a normal way of life - therefore, increasing their risk of becoming society's next generation of victims and abusers.

Sources: National Domestic Violence Hotline, National Center for Victims of Crime, and WomensLaw.org.

Warning Signs for Domestic Violence

Unknown Pasts/No Respect for Women: Secretive about past relationships; refers to women with negative remarks, etc.

More Warning Signs

1. Was or is abused by a parent.

2. Grew up in a home where an adult was abused by another adult.

3. Gets very serious with boyfriends/girlfriends very quickly – saying “I love you” very early in the relationship, wanting to move in together or get engaged after only a few months, or pressuring partner for a serious commitment.

4. Comes on very strong, is extremely charming and an overly smooth talker.

5. Is extremely jealous.

6. Isolates partner from support systems – wants partner all to themselves, and tries to keep partner from friends, family or outside activities.

7. Attempts to control what partner wears, what she/he does or who she/he sees.

8. Is abusive toward other people, especially mother or sisters if he is a male.

9. Blames others for one’s own misbehavior or failures.

10. Has unrealistic expectations, like expecting partner to meet all of ones needs and be the perfect partner.

11. Is overly sensitive – acts ‘hurt’ when not getting one’s way, takes offense when others disagree with an opinion, gets very upset at small inconveniences that are just a normal part of life.

12. Has ever been cruel to animals.

13. Has ever abused children.

14. Has ever hit a boyfriend or girlfriend in the past.

15. Has ever threatened violence, even if it wasn’t a serious threat.

16. Calls partner names, puts him/her down or curses at him/her.

17. Is extremely moody, and switches quickly from being very nice to exploding in anger.

18. If a male, believes women are inferior to men and should obey them.

19. Is intimidating, for example using threatening body language, punching walls or breaking objects.

20. Holds partner against his/her will to keep him/her from walking away or leaving the room.

Florida Statute 741.30 - Domestic Violence

Domestic Violence means any assault, aggravated assault, battery, aggravated battery, sexual assault, sexual battery, stalking, aggravated stalking, or any criminal offense resulting in physical injury or death of one family or household member by another who is or was residing in the same single dwelling unit.

Your relationship with the person whom the injunction is being filed against must be that of a spouse, an ex-spouse, a relative by blood or marriage, who lives or has lived with you in the same dwelling as a family unit, anyone who lives or has lived with you in the same dwelling as a family unit, or anyone with whom you have had a child, with or without having lived together.

Domestic Violence must have occurred between you and this person or you must have reasonable cause to believe that domestic violence is about to occur between you and this person in order to be eligible to obtain an injunction under this statute. An assault does not have to be physical violence.

An assault can occur if someone intentionally threatens to cause you physical violence, even if they do not touch you. This threat must be by word or act and the person threatening you must have done something to make you believe that this violence is about to happen. If the person uses a deadly weapon when committing this act, it is an aggravated assault.

An act of Domestic Violence becomes a battery when someone intentionally touches you without your permission. If that person's touching you causes you great bodily harm or permanent disability or disfigurement, or if the person uses a deadly weapon, or if you were pregnant and the person knew or should have known, the act becomes an aggravated battery.

If someone purposefully follows or harasses you repeatedly over a period of time for no legitimate purpose, which causes you a great amount of emotional stress, they have committed the act of stalking. If in doing this they threaten your life or threaten to cause injury to you, with the intent to cause you to reasonably fear for your safety, then the act becomes Aggravated Stalking.

Florida Statute 784.046 - Repeat Violence

Anyone can be eligible to obtain an injunction under this statute if one (1) incident of stalking has occurred or if two (2) incidents of an assault, battery, or sexual battery have occurred, but one (1) of the incidents must have occurred within the last six (6) months.