Intimate partner violence, conjugal violence, domestic violence... what are we talking about ?

Violent behaviours

Violent behaviours aim to gain power and to coerce the other victim into something. They can be non-physical (swearing, screaming, insulting, putting down, guilt tripping, belittling, humiliating, prohibiting, obligating, ridiculing, blaming, threatening the person, isolating from family or friends, destroying objects, etc.) or they can be physical (hitting, pushing, pinching, restraining, spitting, hitting with an object, sexually assaulting, etc.). In addition, violence may be directed against children, loved ones and pets (lying or manipulating children or loved ones, harming a pet out of vengeance). Violence can also be economic (criticizing financial management, incurring debts in the victim's name, stealing money, manipulating financial information, limiting access to financial resources, preventing the victim from working or studying, etc.) or spiritual (ridiculing the victim's spiritual beliefs, forcing or preventing the victim from practising her religion, using religion as a pretext to justify violence, attacking the victim's deepest values and aspirations, etc.). The use of the judicial system against the victim is also often present (filing a false criminal complaint or reporting the victim to youth protection services, lying to lawyers and judges, maintaining post-separation control over the victim through multiple legal actions in Superior Court, etc.).

Some forms of intimate partner violence are criminal (all forms of physical violence, sexual assaults, death threats or threats of physical harm, confinement, harassment, attempted murder, murder), but many of the daily forms of violence committed within a couple are not criminal despite their destructive impact.

Domination, power and control

In the context of intimate partner violence, these violent behaviours all have the same goal : establishing and maintaining power and control over the other person. The abuser wants to make their needs and desires the focus of the relationship and of the family. In practice, the abuser choses to constrain their partner in order to impose their will. Examples of this include imposing opinions, forcing the partner to do or not do something, preventing them from going out, controlling their money, or insisting on having the last word in an argument. Essentially, the abuser wants to take control and to eliminate the partner's right to self-determination.

Coercive control

In recent years, we've been hearing more and more about coercive control when it comes to intimate partner violence. Coercive control is not a new form of violence, but rather a different way of looking at IPV. This new pair of glasses puts the emphasis on the abusive partner's objective: to take control of the person, to deprive them of their freedom and access to resources, using a wide range of control strategies. The concept also helps us to see the bigger picture and, we hope, will allow to criminalize the dynamics of violence itself, rather than individual violent behaviours.