What is Domestic Violence?
Domestic Violence is when a family or household member uses physical violence, threats, intimidation, and/ or emotional sexual or economic abuse to maintain power and control over the other person, usually within an intimate relationship. Domestic violence is most often a combination of psychological and physical actions; the physical results are just the most visible. Domestic violence is a pattern of conduct in which one intimate partner uses force or threats of force to control the other person.
When a family or household member tries to cause you bodily harm by hitting, punching, beating, or physically hurting you, that is domestic violence. When a family or household member makes you afraid that you will be harmed, that is domestic violence. When a family or household member stalks, commits sexually oriented offenses against you or forces sexual relations on you, that is domestic violence. When a family or household member abuses your children, that is domestic violence.