Intimate Abuse, Essay Example

Intimate abuse entails any physical or emotional violence between a two people in a romantic or  sexual relationship. This can involve people courting, dating, and merely living together (musc.edu, 2004). The ideal situation existing between two people in a relationship involves love, safety, and commitment.

Often one of the major questions asked about abused spouses or partners is why they continue to spend time in a relationship that contains abuse. The answers vary but the result remains the same: the victim either will not or cannot leave their partner. Sometimes the victim convinces herself that the abuser will change. Sometimes the victim has no family or friends due to the fact that the abusive spouse as forced a life of seclusion for his partner. And sometimes, the abused victim is simply too afraid to leave due to the assumption or even an explicit promise of violence from the spouse who will come after them.

As the number of abuse victims grows each year, there is an obvious need for the creation of more help resources. The availability of resources for abuse victims  needs to be more prominent and readily available. There should be more commercials and advertisements offering the numbers to help lines. Additionally, more shelters for battered spouses should be built. With government funding and donations from philanthropic citizens, there can more .

References

Mouradian, V. E.  “Abuse in Intimate Relationships: Defining the Multiple Dimensions and Terms”. Retreived on July 26, 2011 from musc.edu: http://www.musc.edu/vawprevention/research/defining.shtml