Impact of IPV on Survivors

Responding to Intimate Partner Violence

When a friend, family member, or coworker chooses to disclose to you that they are experiencing intimate partner violence or intimate partner sexual violence, it is easy to feel overwhelmed, nervous, or scared. It's normal to want to help someone who has entrusted you with their experience, but it is important to know how to respond in ways that will be supportive to the survivor.

By the end of this module you will be able to:

The Importance of Listening

Listening to survivors is critical in understanding the problem that people experiencing intimate partner violence face. Survivors like Rebel explain the challenges they faced and the ripple effect that victimization can have on family members and the community at large.

Pay particular attention to how survivors talk about the abuse they experienced and their difficulty recognizing it as intimate partner violence. As you can see from survivor accounts, abuse does not fit neatly into a single box, which can make it hard for people to identify the abuse happening to them.

There is no one who understands the impact of intimate partner violence more than a survivor who has experienced it, but it can be helpful for them to know that they are not alone in this experience and the abuse is not their fault.

Messages That Are NOT Helpful, but Survivors Often Hear

If you have ever encountered a survivor of intimate partner violence, you will have probably heard horror stories about the ways individuals have tried to "help" them or "give advice." Friends, colleagues, relatives, community members, and even people causing harm themselves have been known to offer what they thought was helpful information, but was actually harmful information, to individuals in an abusive relationship.

Click each speech bubble to see why these common messages are harmful

Language Matters

These harmful messages place responsibility for stopping abuse on the survivor instead of the person causing harm, create shame and isolation, demonstrate a lack of understanding about IPV dynamics, and can cause survivors to stop seeking help.

Why Do Some Survivors Stay?

One of the questions survivors of intimate partner violence get asked the most is "Why do you stay?" People often wonder why survivors would stay with a partner who is abusing them.

The Right Question:

Intimate partner violence is never a survivor's fault. By asking survivors why they choose to stay, we are putting the responsibility on them to stop the violence they are experiencing. Instead, we should be asking people who cause harm why they choose to abuse so that we are putting the responsibility on them to stop their violence.

The Danger of Leaving

We often focus on how dangerous being in an abusive relationship is for a survivor but forget to think about how dangerous leaving can actually be.

There Are Many Reasons a Survivor May Stay

Understanding Individual Circumstances

As you can see, survivors stay with abusive partners for many personal reasons. Each circumstance is different, and the reason one survivor stays may be different than someone else.

For some, threats to family or children can create a sense of responsibility that keeps women in abusive relationships. For others, lack of resources, finances, or support make it difficult to leave.

Often a survivor's decision to stay is an informed one, made with their safety in mind.

Understanding how individual circumstances and variables interact with a survivor's ability to leave an abusive relationship is necessary to develop a proper safety plan with a survivor or a family.