Help for Abusive Partners
Only your partner can make this decision...
Women who batter often do not accept full responsibility for their violent behavior. Instead, they blame their partners, stress, alcohol/other drugs, anger, loss of control, an unhappy childhood, or someone or something else. But the fact is, lots of people are under stress, drink, use drugs, get angry, or were abused as children.
Yet most of those people do not choose to use violence and coercion in their intimate relationships. Battering is about an individual woman's decision to use violence and coercion as a way to control her partner. Batterers can change.
But it means giving up patterns of behavior, attitudes and beliefs she's probably had for a long time... and that kind of change doesn't come quickly or easily. Even when batterers say they want to stop and they get help, it doesn't guarantee that they will stop battering or abusing.
What if she attends a batterers program?
Some women attend a batterer's program voluntarily because they want to change. But many women promise to go in order to convince their partners to stay with them or to take them back. Predictably, most of these women drop out of the program once they feel less worried about losing the relationship.
Although not available in all communities, BIPs are generally better sources of help for women who batter than mental health therapy or individual counseling. BIPs are educational groups that are designed to hold batterers accountable for both their physical violence and other forms of coercive behavior.
These programs work exclusively with batterers because they understand that involving victims in their services is not only dangerous, but can interfere with the goal of women accepting full responsibility for their violence and coercion. Since not all BIPs operate in ways that make your safety a priority, ask your local domestic violence program for information about BIPs in your area.
While it may be a positive step for your partner to reach out for help from a BIP, it's not a guarantee that she will choose to stop her violent behavior or that you will be safe. Women stop being violent and abusive only when they decide they want to and they keep working at it. Many women who are attending or have attended a program continue to be violent and controlling.
What about marriage counselling?
According to battered men who have been involved in marriage counseling, it not only doesn't work, it sometimes makes things worse. One explanation for this is that going to counseling together suggests that a man shares some of the responsibility for his partner's violence, a belief that many abusive women already have.
So, couples counseling can help batterers to justify blaming their partners, and give them even more excuses for being violent. A batterer's violence is her responsibility, no one else's. It is unlikely that she will change unless she accepts full responsibility for her actions.
Another concern about couples counseling is that it is often unsafe for battered men to express their feelings and discuss the violence or the relationship in front of their partners. Many men report being threatened or assaulted after couples counseling sessions for things they said or did during the session.
Services that require victims to participate in joint sessions with their partners, including mediation programs and alcohol/other drug family treatment programs, increase victims' risk of physical and emotional harm and are therefore not recommended for dealing with domestic violence.
What if she stops drinking or using drugs?
Even when women who batter stop drinking or using drugs, their violence most often continues. In fact, many battered men say that the violence got worse during substance abuse recovery. Alcohol and other drug abuse do not cause domestic violence, although batterers often use it as an excuse. Batterers who drink or use drugs have two separate problems - battering and substance abuse - that need to be dealt with separately.
[ "What about help for my partner?" paraphrased from The Safety Zone. Thank you for making this information available. ]
