MYTHS AND REALITIES

Myth: Most abusers are poor or unemployed.
Reality: Less than 15% of batterers are unemployed during the battering relationship. Thus, there is no link between unemployment and violent behaviour.

Myth: Battered women tend to go into one violent relationship after another.
Reality: In one study, battered women interviewed were less likely to go into another relationship and, when they did, it was rarely another violent one. However, the batterers did seem to go into another intimate relationship, although it was not generally known if there was a repetition of the violence.

Myth: when the abuser is sorry for what he/she has done, the violence will stop.
Reality: The violence escalates in frequency and severity over time.

Myth: When a women is pregnant, the batterer would not likely abuse her.
Reality: Women were at a high risk to be battered during pregnancy.

Myth: Children are not affected unless they are beaten.
Reality: Children in battering-relationship homes are at high risk for physical child abuse and almost all were psychologically abused by living in the violent atmosphere. The typical child abuse professional's condemnation of the mother for not protecting her children from abuse may be unfair in that it does not take into account that she may be without the ability to control the violence against herself or her children.

Children who come from violent homes are at a great risk of becoming abusers of victims as adults. Children of abused persons often become neglected and abused themselves.

Myth: Abuse only happens within a married relationship.
Reality: Abuse occurs in relationships of all kinds (and to all ages), in married and unmarried relationships, casual dating relationships, gay, lesbian and straight relationships, and may continue after the intimate relationship has ended (divorce, break up, separation).

Myth: Divorce will end the abuse.
Reality: An abused partner is likely at greater risk for injury or homicide after leaving the relationship. Once the abused partner leaves, the abusive partner experiences heightened feelings of powerlessness. The abusive partner will do anything to get the power back. Abusive partners will often stalk and harass the abused partner at home, work, etc.

Myth: The abused person causes or deserves the abuse.
Reality: The assumption that victims provoke the violence justifies the abusive behaviour of the abuser. The facts are that no one, man or woman, has the legal right to abuse another person and it is never justified.

Myth: If the victim wasn't hit, it's not abuse.
Reality: Domestic abuse is not only categorized as physical violence. Abused persons often experience emotional, psychological and financial abuse. Some may never experience physical violence. These other types of abuse may be just as damaging, if not more so in the long-term, than physical violence.

• Breaking the Pattern: Understanding Wife Abuse, Office for the Prevention of Family Violence, Alberta, 1991
• The Battered Women Syndrome, 2nd Edition, Lenore E. A. Walker, 2000
• Stop the cycle of violence, Gary Kirby & Anne McFaul, Men's Transition Centre, Calgary, AB.