Why should we talk about dating violence?

In this episode of Stuff Mom Never Told You, Molly and Cristen discuss how to recognize dating violence, tips for dealing with abuse and why it's a topic that should be addressed.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to step Mom Never Told You?
From housetop works dot com. Hey thereon, Welcome to the podcast.
Is this Kristen and this is Molly, So Molly. This

(00:20):
week marked the fifteenth anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act,
which was passed in nineteen and it formally recognized domestic
abuse as criminal behavior. And this is really landmark legislation
for women and men um in the United States because
while we might not think of domestic abuse is something

(00:41):
that we talk about a lot, we might not think
of it as something that would ever happen to us.
But the fact of the matter is, according to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one point five million
women are raped or assaulted annually by a spouse or
intimate partner, and one third of female homicides are perpetrated
by an intimate partner. Those are some depressing statistics, Christen, Yeah,

(01:03):
they're very startling. It's it's it's sort of a it's
an awful problem. But I think what really makes it
perhaps more awful is the fact that it's not talked
about and then if it is talked about, people are like,
why do I need to hear this? This is very
Debbie Downer. Why should we talk about violence dance women, Jenny,
We're going to focus specifically on dating violence. You know,
we see a lot of things about women who are

(01:25):
married and abused by their husbands, or not as much
about husbands who are abused by their wives, but that
happens as well. But we know we have a lot
of young listeners out there, and it seems like it's
a real problem that these young kids don't know when
violence and relationship takes place right. And obviously the case
to point back to is the now very famous incident
between Rihanna and Chris Brown that really got a national

(01:47):
conversation going about dating violence and especially teen dating violence
and how it all gets started. So to start, I
think that we should just throw out a definition of
what exactly dating violence is, and dating violence is the
occurrence of physically, sexually, and or psychologically violent episodes in
the intimate interpersonal relationship. And I think it's important to

(02:07):
recognize that it is a threefold uh definition, because when
we hear violence, we just think about someone slapping you
or hitting you. But there are all these different layers
to dating violence that can occur that can make it
hard to recognize. Right, So I found the stuff from
the A p A that kind of breaks down what
something just like psychological abuse means. So here are some

(02:28):
examples of things that are considered dating violence. Name calling, insults,
public humiliation, yelling, threats, put downs, telling a person's secrets, jealousy, possessiveness,
isolating a person from friends and family, destroying gifts, clothing, letters,

(02:49):
damaging a car, home, or other prize possessions. Uh, those
are the things I think that we really don't think
about that often. We might just assume that their normal behavior.
These are the things we probably think about. Slapping, hitting, shoving, grabbing,
hair pulling, biting, throwing objects at a person, um insisting
physically or verbally that a person who said no have
sex anyway, forcing sex, and then um abuse of privilege. Also,

(03:13):
so one person in the couple makes all the decisions. Uh,
Like and a guy. This is an example from the apia.
The guy expects his girlfriend to wait on and pamper him,
or a guy makes his girlfriend treats his girlfriend as
if she is a property he owns. Which that can happen.
You know, either party in a in any in any
relationship can do that, right, And as we'll talk about

(03:33):
later in the podcast, all of these behaviors feed into
what's called the cycle of violence. But Molly, let's um,
let's talk about how prevalent dating violence is, because to me,
this was one of the most shocking findings from our research. Because,
according to the CDC's two thousand seven Youth Risk Behavior Survey,
nine point nine percent of teen respondents answered yes to

(03:55):
the question during the past year, did your boyfriend a
girlfriend ever hits up or physically hurt you on purpose?
And that's just physical abuse, Like, that's what we're saying
is the easiest to recognize, but the number just jumps
if people are asked whether they have been called a
name or insulted. Are just made to feel humiliated? Right? Yeah.

(04:15):
According to Safe Youth dot org, first of all, it
is difficult to to say how common dating violence is
because different surveys are going to pinpoint different types of abuse.
But they say that past estimates of physical and sexual
dating violence among high school high school students typically ranges
between ten and twenty five percent, and then esthmates for
college students go up to between twenty and thirty percent,

(04:37):
and then once they take into account verbal threats and
emotional abuse, those estimates go up even higher. So this
is a very prevalent problem. It might it might be
as highest fifty seven according to UM Pediatric Nursing, a
study that was published there. So, I mean, it depends
how you ask the question, it depends what you are
viewing as abuse. UM, I think the number to stick
with probably that is most pinpointable as this nine percent.

(05:00):
But I think why one of the reasons we've decided
some port to talk about DAN violence is because of
these other things that aren't easily noticeable. Yeah, this article
that we found in the journal Pediatric Nursing pointed out
that especially with teens, they have a difficulty discriminating between
what is actually abuse and what's just kidding around or

(05:20):
just a show of affection. You know, because when you're
in think about it on the playground, you know, when
you like to boy you would push them down and
like kind of silly things like that, and you have
raging hormones going on. Maybe you know you are misinterpreting behaviors.
And I think for teens especially, They also aren't expecting
to ever be in an abusive relationships, so it can

(05:42):
be very hard for them to spot right. So what's
interesting to me about this UM article that you cited, Kristen,
is that boys and girls have very different viewpoints on
what is abuse and how each gender perpetrates abuse because
we do have sort of the stereotype that women are
of victims and men are the abusers. But you know,

(06:03):
it's just as easy for the tables to be flipped.
But men and women or you know, young teens inflict
this abuse in different ways. It's more likely that women
are trying to exert control over the male in terms
of you know, cutting them off from friends, um, being
very jealous, you know, going through a cell phone or
something like that, and they might that might also involve
more minor physical violence. Yeah, mind games. I mean, you know,

(06:25):
that's the old thing is that girls are always good
at that. So how can you determine between when a
girl is just being controlling and when it's abuse. But
males were more likely to use this physical violence as
a way to punish a woman for something she had done.
And while abuse can be mutual and is mutual, in
a number of relationships and especially in uh teen dating
violence scenarios. Uh, there is a difference in um, the

(06:50):
type of abuse, but the girls and guys give because,
like you said, the stuff that girls are doing is
more mind or physical violence and more of the mind games.
And as you said, whereas with boys, UM, they're a
lot more likely to use severe physical violence and actually
terrorize the girls. So while there is abuse going on
on both sides of the spectrum, UM, it is usually

(07:12):
more severe on UM on the girl's side when she
is the victim. So dating violence, UM, it's sort of
a new thing in terms of being studied because you know,
we we typically just think more about because you know,
it's it's such a private thing right now, researchers think
that it starts around the tenth grade. It may start
becoming you know, lower and lower in terms of grade
level as girls get involved the relationships earlier. You know,

(07:34):
we've talked about how girls are maturing much faster these days,
So that might involve getting into your first romantic relationship
at a really young age. UM, and you don't have
sort of that background in relationships to let you know
what's right and what's wrong. And I think you know,
it's important to say that abuse can happen to anyone,
regardless of where you live, your background, your beliefs, anything

(07:55):
like that. But there are a few risk factors for
UM abusive relations ships. Yeah, certain behaviors MOLLY that UM
are more associated with dating violence include UM high risk
behaviors such as smoking, unsafe, unsafe sex, gang membership, low
academic achievement, access to weapons, and alcohol abuse. And they're

(08:16):
also certain perpetrator personality traits UM that are shared among
abusers UM, such as expressing feelings of betrayal, jealousy, and security, hostility,
and a correlation to earlier victimization in life. Like when
the Chris Brown Rihanna case came out, one of the
first things that people started talking about was the fact

(08:36):
that one of Chris Brown's mom's ex boyfriends was abusive
toward her. And in the Larry King Live interview that
he gave, they kind of talked a little bit about that,
and he talked about being able to UM not necessarily
being abused directly by the boyfriend, but being able to
hear his mom being beaten up by the boyfriend and
how traumatic that was and how that probably fed into

(08:57):
a cycle of abuse later on in life. And speaking
of teen male abusers, UM, there was one l a
times blog posts that I ran across that was pointing
to UM a study in the American Journal of Men's
Health that was looking into the lives of violent boys.
Because a lot of times this research about dating violence
and domestic violence is usually focused on the women because

(09:18):
it's generally assumed that the women are going to be
the victims, which our statistics are showing is not necessarily
the case. But UM, this study looking into kind of
the home lives of these these boys who UH were
displaying violent tendencies, UM found a correlation between that and
problematic home environments, inadequate supported school UM community contexts characterized

(09:40):
by violence and peer interactions that encourage sexual maltreatment of girls.
So it's problems starting on so many different levels, and
the at home, in the community, at school, all these
different factors going into UM erupting into a violent relationship. Yeah.
The Journal Pediatric Nursing points out that while you know,
many of these abusers have this history, it's more of

(10:02):
the fact that uh, this violence as a means of
controlling your significant other is accepted by your peers. If
a guy is trying to, you know, get along with
his buddies and his girl is doing something that embarrasses him,
it seems like a lot of it. You know, how
he's gonna deal with it depends on what his friends
think is acceptable. And I think it's also important to
point out, UM, what we're talking about dating violence is

(10:24):
that while it's often framed in terms of guy girl relationships,
UH Safe youth dot Org points out that this also
happens in team homosexual relationships and transgender relationships, especially UM
when the relationship is more covert and the abuser might
be able to exert a little more control over that
person because they don't want to be out in the

(10:44):
public right have them know what's going on, and it
might be harder for these people to get help because
already they are not they're outside of a norm in
their school environment. So Molly wants the cycle of abuse
has started. It can have obviously behavioral effects on the
person and who is being abused. For instance, UM adolescent
girls who report abuse UM abuse from dating partners have

(11:06):
been found to have elevated risk of engaging in risky
sexual behaviors. The use of alcohol, tobacco, and cocaine, unhealthy
weight control. There's a big correlation between abuse and eating
disorders and also um early pregnancy, which is we'll talk
about this later, but it only makes it harder to
get yourself out of a situation with an abuser if

(11:28):
then you find yourself pregnant with an abuser's baby. Yeah,
because in adult relationships, pregnancy is one of the main
triggers for abuse to start happening, which is pretty disturbing. UM.
So let's talk about once this, uh, the abuse starts,
how this cycle of violence uh perpetuates this pattern. So
I think the cycle of violence takes into account the

(11:49):
fact that that both people recognize that some sort of
line has been crossed. You know, you slap someone, you're like, oh,
shouldn't have done that, and then you go into a
cycle of guilt where you know you're worrieded, you're gonna
get caught, You're worried the person is gonna leave you,
and the person is going to do what they can
to regain control, act like nothing's happened. You might have
a nice little honeymoon period where you know, they try

(12:10):
and make it up to you, and you might think
everything is fine. But then after that phase of normal behavior,
when uh, the the abuser and the victim are kind
of back in their their regular routine and and the
victim is feeling better about things, then there's this phase
called fantasy where the abuser will start to fantasize again
about UM abusing either hitting or slapping, or UM sexually

(12:34):
abusing UM the partner and UM. Then there will be
some kind of set up in which um uh there
Let's say someone he sees like a text from it's
a guy girl relationship, and the guy sees a text
on his girlfriend's phone from a guy friend of hers.
No nothing, no hanky bank going on bcs A text,

(12:56):
and he goes into some jealous rage and blames her
for leading this guy on, setting her up for um
the situation where he then gets violent again, and so
the abuse happens, and then the guilt happens, and then
once again we're back into the excuses in the normative
period where um, you know, he calms her down and
everything is fine and it uh. It's all also often

(13:19):
preceded by a period of psychological abuse, where the girl
is usually her self confidence is battered and you know,
she takes on this victim mentality that you know, she
does deserve the treatment that she's getting, and I'm using
he she And obviously this pronounce can be switched around
depending on whatever kind of relationship we're talking about, but
I think it's important that UM, for a lot of

(13:39):
that cycle. As you point out, there's this fantasy stage
where it's just sort of in one person's head, which
is why it might if you're in that situation. Seems
so hard to fathom that you're in an abusive relationship
because it happens and then the guilt, fantasy, etcetera. Is
sort of on the other person's head and you think
everything's fine, it was out of the ordinary, it was
just a one time thing, and um, then when it

(14:01):
happens again, it's it's almost like a sister and your
self confidence because it seems so out of the ordinary,
right because dating violence usually doesn't happen after you know,
like a few weeks of dating. It's something where people
have been in there an established relationship, and it would
seem like out of the ordinary behavior for someone to
lash out like that. So, like you said, they could,
you know, just think that it's going to be a

(14:21):
one time thing, and well, I think that this is
a good time to bring up UM. An email that
we received which is one of the main reasons why
we're even doing this podcast, and that kind of um
illustrates uh, this dating violence teen dating violence. Today. We
got it from a girl who was very concerned. She's
in the tenth grade, which, as we said, is that

(14:42):
the grade when this type of stuff usually starts to happen.
And UM, she was very concerned because she saw another
girl in the tenth grade and with her UM with
her boyfriend who was a junior in high school. She
doesn't know them very well, but they're an established couple.
They're a really cute couple at school, and it made
her very uncomfortable because she saw him yelling at her

(15:05):
in the hall and grabbing her around the neck when
she tried to pull away, and he was demanding to
see her phone to look through her text messages. She
said he pulled it right out of her pocket while
holding her still and pushed her away against the wall,
and then he yelled at her about who she was texting.
But then the bell ring and everyone left her class,
and she felt terrible because she saw this obviously abusive

(15:26):
scenario with this couple who has been going out for
a while, so everyone knows him that this as this couple,
but um, she doesn't know what to do. She's not
good friends with a girl, but at the same time,
she doesn't want to stand by and know that some
other woman is possibly being abused, especially you know, I
mean they're teph grade there, what's sixteen years old? And
so I think that there's the fear that you would
go to the girl and she would say, oh, it's

(15:48):
a one time only situation. And that's what we're trying
to put ourselves in that mindset of how you can justifyed,
I guess, because I think the question that when you
see it from the outside, you're like, well, how can
you put up with that? How you should just leave?
Obviously she should just break up with her boyfriend and go.
And I think that that's a really damaging viewpoint. We
want to try and show how this cycle happened so

(16:09):
that you would think that it was something out of
the ordinary. And you need to know that if you're
trying to approach someone about this situation, because even though
it makes perfect sense to you that you need to
get out of that situation. I mean, think about a
teen relationship. There's nothing more serious or precious or worth
protecting in the world than like your first big relationship. Absolutely,
and you might get defensive, especially if it's someone you

(16:31):
don't know very well coming up to you and saying
that you know your boyfriend's being abusive towards you. And
even if you know that something wrong is happening, I
mean plenty of people might just there need your reaction
might just be very defensive and say, no, what are
you doing but out of my business? Right, And if
you do take on that mentality of I did deserve it.
You know, he did ask to see the phone. We

(16:52):
don't know the whole story about what was going on.
I shouldn't be texted. He's right, I shouldn't have texted
that guy. Yes, I mean I think that if you're
trying to protect that relationship, that's how you get in
that mindset. And we're not saying that that mindset is
right or wrong, just you need to know, I think
what you're up against if you're going to approach someone
like this. Yeah. So first, when we're talking about how
to address um teen dating violence or dating violence in

(17:13):
general while you, um, you found a good suggestion for
what people, guys and girls can do to make sure
that they don't end up in a dangerous situation. Yes,
this comes courtesy of the Alabama Coalition against Domestic Violence,
which has a really great site about all types of
domestic violence, including dating violence. And it are just teams

(17:34):
to put up a dating safety plan. And so let's say,
if you're on your first date with someone, um considered
a double date, let everyone know where you're going and
when you're going to be back. Um, you may not
want to do that when you're a team. You've got
these parents who are bearing, but it's important for your
own safety for that too, for that plan to be
in place and to have a trust of person you

(17:55):
can call should the date go sour. And really that's
a good idea if you're a teen or your our age.
I mean, it's just or if you're aiding and going
on a first date exactly, it's just smart. That's just smart.
So everyone needs to have this dating safety plan. Now,
let's say you're a few dates in and um, you're
not quite sure about a guy. All these sources just
urge you to trust your guy. If something doesn't seem right.

(18:15):
Even though you might not have a whole lot of
experience dating, it's probably not right. But these are sort
of the UM standard warning signs that your date may
eventually become abusive. UM extreme jealousy, controlling behavior UH, unpredictable
mood swings, alcohol and drug use, explosive anger, isolates you
from friends and family. UM hyper sensitive believes in rigid

(18:37):
sexuals and blames others for his problems or feelings. So
you may see that, you may think, oh, it's just
one part. As time goes on, and you know, let's
say you're in this relationship. You love the guy, but
he still has this side of his personality. Don't let
this isolation from friends and family leave you without that
same person you can call when things go sour. It's
really important to have at any point relationship someone you

(18:59):
can call that can get you out of the situation.
UM I means you know, immediate means just driving you away.
So always have away, always have an escape plan. Yeah,
because that is one UM when you when you're talking
about domestic violence and kind of the pathology of an abuser,
that is one of the main ways that victims get
trapped in that cycle is uh, they isolated, end up

(19:21):
isolating themselves away from friends and families. So, like you said,
in a case of an emergency, they don't have anybody
to call, So always be sure you have someone to call. UM.
If they take your cell phone, you shall always have
UM change on, you have a calling card, have ways
to get around your sort of normal ways of communication
if the person you're with starts to monitor your cell phone,
use things like that. UM and Uh, we're talking about,

(19:45):
you know, having somebody to call. And the thing is, like,
Molly and I can't exactly say that there's one person
you know, if you you find yourself in a dating
violence situation, there isn't one person you definitely should talk to.
It's gonna vary for everybody, Like some people might want
to talk to their guidance counselor with their school nurse,
with their mom, or their friend whoever. And even in
this pediatric nursing article that Molly and I keep referencing,

(20:06):
um It mentions that girls are more likely to divulge
information about this to friends, siblings, and parents, whereas boys
are more likely to talk to non family members and professionals. Okay,
So that's sort of the explanation of how UM the
person in the situation deals with it and recognizes it.
But our email dealt with someone who's seeing it from
the outside, And I think it's a lot easier to

(20:28):
see from the outside, but it's a lot harder to
know how to approach the person about it. Yeah, so
let's just talk UM for a second about some warning signs.
These are from safe Youth dot org, and these are
some warning signs that someone might be in a violent situation.
And this includes do you see signs that the individual
is afraid of his or her boyfriend or girlfriend. Does
a boyfriend or girlfriend seem to try to control the

(20:50):
individual's behavior, making all the decisions, checking up on behavior,
acting jealous, possessive. Does the individual apologize for the boyfriend
or girlfriend's behavior to you or others? UM? Has the
person lost interest in school and other activities as a
person's appearance or behavior suddenly changed. Like we were talking
about the link between UM, female abuse and eating disorders.

(21:13):
UM has individual stuff spending time with friends and family,
going back to that isolation factor, And has the individual
recently started uh using alcohol or drugs and seen UM
sudden changes in mood, and those are all warning signs,
you know of of that kind of relationship. But once
you know so our listener who wrote in she's seen

(21:34):
you know what, definitely seems like some pretty clear red
flags about this relationship. So what does she do? How
do you approach someone, um, even someone especially you might
not be a friend of yours, to say, hey, I'm
really worried about you. Well, I think that that's the
best thing you can say is I'm really worried about you.
Can't go in and I think accuse a boyfriend of something,

(21:56):
because you know, we read about how I mean, like
we've just named of all these things. Women are going
to be apologizing for the behavior. They're not in a
state to admit the mail is wrong necessarily yet because
it's so out of the ordinary, they may be making excuses.
So you say this is why I'm worried about you.
Don't accuse anyone of doing anything, but say this is
wrong because you know that's not joking around, that's not

(22:19):
a punishment for anything you did. That's inappropriate. Yeah, And
I think it's important before you approach someone to educate
yourself about this cycle of abuse, to kind of understand
from the victims perspective what is going on, um, Because
like right after the Chris Brown Rihanna incident, UM, there
was obviously a lot of discussion, UM among women. There

(22:40):
are a lot of blogs that you and I checked
regularly that we're kind of debating this whole issue because
right after uh he was arrested, there was the news
that they had been seen together. You know, when women
were like, what is she doing with him? She should
just drop him? This is absurd, um. But the fact
of the matter is, with the cycle of abuse, UM,
it is much easier so than done to has dropped

(23:00):
somebody because of women that I know, and I do
know a handful of women who have been in UM
violent relationships before they were long term relationships. It wasn't
just a couple of months he started hitting her and
she left. It took a while for them to first
recognize the pattern of abuse and then actually be able
to cut ties totally with the guy. Right. So don't
approach it the way some of these blogs approached this

(23:22):
very infamous incident. Don't say, oh, you need to leave him,
Just say, let's talk about this, be very open Endedn't
don't be judgmental, because that is just the way for
someone to put the wall down, because how I mean,
especially if you don't know the couple that well, as
in this situation, it would be so easy for the
girl to say you don't understand, you don't know me,
and that would be the end of it. But I

(23:43):
think just knowing that UM, someone cares for you and
doesn't want UM, that wants the best for you. Yeah,
even as simple as just asking if they're okay and
if they ever need to talk, you know, it's a
very good way to open the door. And I think this, Molly,
would be a great time for us to throw out
the number for a National domestic Violence hotline. This is
something you can call if you are in a violent relationship,

(24:05):
or if you're worried about a friend or family member
or whoever who might be in a violent relationship. They
can help you out there the experts and the number
to that is one hundred seven nine nine Safe And
they also have um a website I'm sure if you
just google National Domestic Violence Hotline. So it's very easy
for Kristen and I to do all this research and

(24:25):
to read off things about how you know you just
go and have this very open ended conversation. It's not judgmental.
You just tell them you're concerned about their safety. UM.
But I personally, I have never been in a situation
where I tried to have this conversation, and I think
it's one of those things where reading everything you can
in the world, it's not going to prepare you for
being in that situation. So we want to hear from
people who have been in this situation. UM. Not necessarily

(24:49):
the abuse sad, but maybe what did you do if
you saw a friend in an uncomfortable situation? Was there
any tip that you can give us that actually does
make a difference? And what will do of us? Will
keep everything anonymous, But Kristen, I have a blog how
to stuff, and we would like to eventually jo post
how to talk to a friend who's in a dating
violent situation. So let us know what should be in

(25:11):
that blog. What are the good tips or this concerned?
What are the useless tips? What's helpful to know about
this cycle of violence? What hit home and what didn't? Yeah,
we wanna, we wanna call real world information to help
UM other people out there in this situation because the
reason why we should talk about dating violence, UM is
because it happens a lot and not enough people are

(25:32):
addressing it right And if you know, I hope no
one saw the topic and thought, oh, what an old retread.
You know, people get abused, they should leave, it's bad.
I mean why we should talk about is because, especially
if you're a team, it's just so hard to recognize
the difference between joking around, as we said, and a real, violent,
dangerous situation. Yeah, and it happens, happens more than you think. Yeah. So,

(25:54):
if you have any questions or comments UM about any
of this, UH, please feel free to give send me
and Molly an email at mom stuff and how stuff
works dot com. And we always make sure to respect anonymity,
especially in UM more private UH issues like this, And

(26:14):
as always, you can head over to our blog during
the week to check out what we're writing on. It's
called how to stuff and UM. You can also go
and educate yourself more on a variety of topics, including
how jealousy works, which is one of the behavioral factors
that can lead into domestic in dating violence at how
stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands

(26:38):
of other topics. Doesn't how stuff works dot com. Want
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