Violence In Relationships

Women are traditionally vulnerable to abuse when they are in a relationship. Even in the 21st- century women still, carry the relationship with their violent and abusive partner. Such violent relationships can seem extremely strange, but sometimes we have to take a look into the root of the problem of the relationship and look at the logical explanation of what can be causing the individual to act in such violent behavior. Majority of the times men and women who are in an abusive relationship will most likely still be with that partner years down the road, they will not separate or divorce their partner because to them it may seem unbearable and at times they will feel like they cannot live without their significant other, when in actuality
they can but cannot come to terms with that outcome. Marriage was once held at a high standard, now the new thing that’s closest to know “dating”. Dating has predominately changed in the last decade. Most couple who start to talk within a couple of weeks have or will be moving in with their significant other. Keeping in mind dating a person is ok, but moving in without knowing the person can really cause issues. A new study has been examined that a male to female ratio of dating has been shown that there is more risk factor and they are more prone to physical, abusive and violent acts in a relationship. A study was done using male and female participants and scores on fourteen individual-level variables were used to predict the abuse. The first set of analysis found that male to female who were abused was predicted by six individual characteristics of male and six individual’s characteristic of females. Only one of this characteristic was significant enough for the predictor of the occurrence of male to female abuse in a relationship. (Cleveland, Herrera, & Stuewig, 2003). Violence in dating has gained an increased attention according to Makepeace (1981) there is more violence in dating than a martial relationship. Enough evidence has been conducted on both male and female, it is reported that in an abusive relationship females have a greater impact than males do. According to Makepeace, it has been found that fifty percent of the female victims have suffered more physical abusive injuries than their male counterparts, who have reported that they have suffered only 30 percent of emotional traumatic injury. Nevertheless, 19% of males who have claimed that they have been physically abused and have suffered traumatically and only 15% have actually reported that it has caused traumatic event in their lives. In order to understand dating violence in adolescents we need to take a look at the root cause of the problem and where It lies, if it goes undetected and untreated then this violence can escalate and can continue within the new relationship that has been formed and will most likely continue in the future as well as in marriage.
Deal and Wampler (1986) concluded that if violence occurred in the previous relationship then, it is more likely to occur in the relationship. These violent relationships do not change after marriage either. O’Leary et al. (1989) found that most of the couples still continued to be abused even after marriage. And he compared the pre-relationship and the post relationship after marriage and it was confirmed by retrospective reports of battered married women was preceded by aggression during courtship (Riggs et al., 1990). Learning about the dating violence in relationships not only provides us with better understanding but, it also provides us with an insight of the individual as adolescents and their behavioral pattern as an adult and what it can lead into in their
future. According to O’Leary and his colleagues many of the factors that play a role in a relationship has been identifying as using the “background Situational” model.
This model is based on the social learning and conflict theories. Which provides a better understanding in the socialization of experience contributed to violence in dating. Violence in dating is expressed as one’s potential for aggression and how they will react in a relationship. A good example that O’Leary and his colleagues give are, an individual who gets into relationships with a background of violence may at first not show any signs until later on when the relationship becomes more stressful or complicated than that is when aggression kicks in and it leads to the act of violence. It is very important when a person starts to date, that they know the other person background characteristics also referred as contextual factors and situational factors. When using this model of “contextual” and “situational factors O’Keefe (1997) found that male and female are different in these variables of the act of violence. Males violence tends to relate them to their background characteristics and how they grew up (contextual), while females tend to relate to the most situational factors, such as their past experience in prior
relationships. Some of the contextual factors that an individual show in a relationship has been contributed to the domains such as family, school, past relationships, internalization problems and externalizing problems. This goes to show that the environment that the individual grows up in does have an impact on their lives. For example, if individual grows up in a violent family where he/she has seen their parents act out in a violent behavior then as an adult they are more likely to experience the same type of behavior with their significant other. As opposed to an individual who has grown up in a less violent environment are more likely to succeed in a relationship where violence is not involved. Another aspect that can lead an individual into violence in dating is their poor achievement in school and their overall negative experience that they had in middle school and high school for example like being expelled or even suspended for showing bad behavior, these types of incident that have to happen when a person is young. Their behavior will most likely transition into adulthood and when an individual gets into a relationship another correlation that can also lead into dating in violence is drinking and drug usage. When a person is intoxicated, they typically show their true colors as in their real behavior comes out. And while being intoxicated the individual can hurt and be abused in a relationship. Being on drugs is almost the same thing as drinking you are not aware of yourself which can lead to violent behaviors.