Myths and Misconceptions About Domestic Violence, Perpetrators, and Survivors
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month
On January 8, 1988, the front page of the New York Times Metro section reported the killingHe of 36-year-old Willie Jean Dukes on a New York City subway platform. “Dukes was shot in the back (by her ex-boyfriend) and rushed to Bellevue Hospital Center, where she was pronounced dead a short time later, the police said….”
“The police said they did not immediately know the circumstances that had led a judge to issue the protection order against Mr. (John) Royster … (and) other details about his relationship with the dead woman remained unclear because Cynthia Dukes [Editor’s Note: the victim’s sister] was too distraught to provide more information.”
In most domestic violence (DV) cases, the “circumstances” preceding the killing of a partner are predictable, and include, escalating mental and physical abuse, stalking, denigrating, or dehumanizing the victim, and shifting blame for the abuse to the victim.
The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that men perpetrate 95% of all serious domestic violence incidents. [Editor’s Note: This statistic obscures the fact that men can be victims of DV.]
During Domestic Violence Awareness Month, campaigns center around educating the public about the prevalence of abuse, recognizing forms of abuse, providing strategies for safely leaving an abusive situation, and alerting survivors to options and resources available to them.
Since 1988, USAFacts notes, “Domestic violence (or DV, a broad term that includes violent acts perpetrated by family members or intimate partners) declined by nine percentage points” between 1993 and 2019.”
Despite the decline, according to Gitnux.org “Black women experience nearly double the rates of intimate partner violence compared to White women … (and) account for approximately 35% of all homicides of women involving intimate partners in the United States.”
Having attended conferences on DV, as well as having written articles on the subject, I considered myself knowledgeable about its prevalence, consequences for victims/survivors and their families, and societal costs.
The most-asked question from the public, family members, and even law enforcement, is, “Why doesn’t/didn’t she just leave?” Thus, putting the onus on the victim, rather than the perpetrator, to stop the abuse.
An online seminar, “Just Lovely People: The Way We Talk About Domestic Violence is Killing Us” sponsored by the Nashville Office of Metro Family Safety (NOMFS), however, enlightened me about the ways perpetrators justify their actions, gaslight their victims, and maintain power and control.
Presenter Heather Herrmann, assistant director of education for NOMFS, shared a quote from Rachel Louise Snyder’s 2019 book, No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us, “The average abuser is more likable than his victim because domestic violence affects victims more than it does batters.”
This notion makes sense when you understand how effectively perpetrators deflect, deny, and defend their actions. According to Herrmann, the acronym DARVO (Deny, Attack Reverse Victim and Offender), based on the theoretical work of psychologist Jennifer Freyd, is the tactic that perpetrators use to avoid accountability and manipulate outsiders’ perceptions of events.
DARVO
Deny: The perpetrator denies their actions or minimizes the harm they caused. (“It never happened.” “I never hit you; you must be imagining things” “You’re saying these things to hurt me.”)
Attack: They attack the credibility of the person confronting them, attempting to discredit them and make others doubt their trustworthiness. ("You're too emotional and can't be trusted" or "You're just trying to get me in trouble because you're jealous.” “It was your behavior that hurt me.”)
Reverse Victim and Offender: They position themselves as the true victim and the person who confronted them as the aggressor or offender. (“I can't believe you're trying to destroy me.” “You're the real abuser here.” “After everything I've done for you, you're treating me like this?”)
Perpetrator Stereotypes
A common stereotype about perpetrators is that they attack victims in a sudden burst of rage, preceded by punching a wall or throwing something. However, explains Herrmann, “… these things appear as mood swings, but they all are tools in the perpetrator’s toolbox…directed toward a primary target, who often is an intimate partner … the moment the police pull up the perpetrator calms down …and speaks to them in a reasonable tone.”
Other misconceptions about perpetrators include they have mental health issues; they are uneducated and unskilled; they abuse drugs or alcohol; they are violent in all their relationships; their abuse is primarily physical. DV perpetrators, in fact, come from all socioeconomic classes, religions, ethnicities, races, and the LGBTQ+ community.
Ironically, perpetrators benefit from their violent behavior in several ways. They get satisfaction from exerting power and control (e.g., over household finances), assure that their needs are prioritized, get to have their way, and disempower their partners.
Sadly, only after a homicide occurs does the issue of domestic violence attract the attention of the public and law enforcement. The killing is considered a rarity than the culmination of repeated acts of violence behind closed doors. Neighbors, family, and friends often express surprise that a husband or boyfriend could commit a heinous crime because he seemed like a “nice” person.
In a 2018 article,“Just Lovely People”: How Neighbors’ Media Descriptions of Domestic Violence Homicide Perpetrators Normalize Abuse, Meggie Royer, education and outreach coordinator, for Women’s Advocates says that media sources and interviews depict “a picture of quiet, simple domesticity, ordinary, everyday couples and families whose murderers and abusers were merely “in the wrong frame of mind at the wrong time….
“(DV) is nearly always a cycle, complete with tension-building, acute battering, and honeymoons. Often, it involves numerous forms of abuse, such as emotional, financial, and physical/sexual.”
Why They Can’t “Just Leave”
According to Rebecca Campbell, Ph.D., during a physical assault, four hormones-- catecholamines (releases adrenalin), corticoid steroids (increases energy), opioids (blunts pain), and oxytocin (promotes good feelings) --are released that affect the memory and behavior of DV assault victims.
Campbell says that when these hormone levels are extremely high, they interfere with structures in the brain that affect memory. While they are helpful for “fight for flight” responses and mitigating pain, the memory of physical trauma is stored in a very disorganized way within the brain.
Consequently, when a survivor explains to a responding officer or detective what happened in the assault, it comes out in this bits and pieces, or the victim throws in random details, which can be confuses law enforcement, so they might conclude that the victim is making things up as she goes along.
The One Love Foundation, a national non-profit with the goal of ending relationship abuse, provides education on the difficulties of ending an abusive relationship. For example, society normalizes unhealthy behavior so people may not understand that their relationship is abusive.
Some other factors:
1. Lack of self-esteem caused by persistent emotional abuse, makes it feel impossible to start fresh.
2. After an abusive incident, there is a “honeymoon” phase, which makes a partner minimize the original abusive behavior.
3. It’s extremely dangerous to leave. Women are 70 times more likely to be killed in the weeks after leaving their abusive partner than at any other time during the relationship.
4. It’s hard to escape the cycle of control. On average, a person in an abusive relationship will attempt to leave 7 times before finally leaving for good.
5. They believe that if they stick it out, things might change.
6. Marriage, children, and shared finances are often huge reasons that people in abusive relationships stay in them.
Judith Lewis Herman, psychiatrist, author, and expert on the treatment of incest and traumatic stress, states InTrauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Domestic Abuse to Political Terror, “It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystanders do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear and speak no evil. The victim, on the other hand, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement, and remembering.”
If you are in an abusive relationship, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline, 1-800-799-SAFE (or 7233); text BEGIN to 88788; Visit thehotline.org to Chat.
2025 Wista Johnson (Reprint by permission only.) Image by Rosy/Bad Homburg/Germany from Pixabay