Domestic Violence Quotes

Life is meant to be enjoyed, not trying to dissect your self-worth to others or even yourself."
~Love is respect ♥~ ~ Charlena E. Jackson

There certainly are some women who treat their male partners badly, berating them, calling them names, attempting to control them. The negative impact on these men's lives can be considerable. But do we see men whose self-esteem is gradually destroyed through this process? Do we see men whose progress in school or in their careers grinds to a halt because of the constant criticism and undermining? Where are the men whose partners are forcing them to have unwanted sex? Where are the men who are fleeing to shelters in fear for their lives? How about the ones who try to get to a phone to call for help, but the women block their way or cut the line? The reason we don't generally see these men is simple: They're rare.
I don't question how embarrassing it would be for a man to come forward and admit that a woman is abusing him. But don't underestimate how humiliated a woman feels when she reveals abuse; women crave dignity just as much as men do. If shame stopped people from coming forward, no one would tell. ~ Lundy Bancroft

I want my girls to know who they are and have strong family connections. I want them to be educated. I want them to travel the world. I want them to be able to support themselves, and if they choose to be in a long-term relationship, it will be based on their strengths, not their weaknesses.
And I know that in order for them to get there, it is important that I take more than a surface glance at how I ended up in my unhealthy and unsafe relationship with their father. Only then will I ever have any hope of keeping my history from repeating itself in their future. ~ Lizbeth Meredith

We live in a society where people are often more offended by those who point out child abuse than by the abuse itself. In other words, society does not view abuse as the problem; the problem is you pointing it out. Society's basic mindset is that "If we don't talk about abuse, then it's not happening." Similarly, children are attacked when they point out the dysfunction around them. ~ Darius Cikanavicius

Several times in my life, I've sat with women, friends of mine, who reveal, sometimes shyly, sometimes proudly, bruises of one kind or another, and I know I've said, "If it happens one time, leave him," I've said, "It doesn't matter how much you love him. Leave him if it happens one time." And I've said it with utter confidence, as if I knew what the hell I was talking about, as if violence was something that could be easily defined. ~ Pam Houston

Marginalised and abused children are often overlooked even today, and risk becoming marginalised and abused adults who may never receive acknowledgment or respect for the immense physical and emotional burden they carry from childhood or indeed have their full potential realised. ~ Jane Hersey

The year the police called Sherrena, Wisconsin saw more than one victim per week murdered by a current or former romantic partner or relative. 10 After the numbers were released, Milwaukee's chief of police appeared on the local news and puzzled over the fact that many victims had never contacted the police for help. A nightly news reporter summed up the chief's views: "He believes that if police were contacted more often, that victims would have the tools to prevent fatal situations from occurring in the future." What the chief failed to realize, or failed to reveal, was that his department's own rules presented battered women with a devil's bargain: keep quiet and face abuse or call the police and face eviction. ~ Matthew Desmond

Clouds of confusion
rolled into illusion
He veils perversion
forcing her coercion
Her body he takes
while she flies away
unbelievable, she's invisible ~ Diana Rasmussen

There is a subconscious way of taking violence as a way of expression, as a normality, and it has a lot of effects in the youth in the way they absorb education and what they hope to get out of life. ~ Salma Hayek

What are you going to do? Are you going to live in the dark, locked in here? Afraid to look out, answer the door, leave? Yes, he's out there, and he's clearly not going to leave you alone until one of three things happens: he hurts you and gets arrested, or he makes a mistake and gets arrested, or you stop him. ~ Rachel Caine

Marriage is for committed lovers, not hostages. Marriage is a sacred relationship created for two people who complete each other spiritually. While it requires sacrificial service, it is not a call to martyrdom. In many cases of domestic violence, a therapeutic separation is necessary to gain safety and direct attention to the gravity of the need for change. ~ Rob Jackson

Do not be blind in love and try not to suffer in silence. -Alba Castillo ~ Alba Castillo

Life is giving you another chance to plant your seeds. Take care of them by watering them, nurturing them throughout all seasons, and watch your flowers bloom."

~Love is respect ♥~ ~ Charlena E. Jackson

There's no such thing as "just a domestic". ~ Patrick Stewart

I am living in hell from one day to the next. But there is nothing I can do to escape. I don't know where I would go if I did. I feel utterly powerless, and that feeling is my prision. I entered of my own free will, I locked the door, and I threw away the key. ~ Haruki Murakami

Why Does He Do That?
That's the number one question, isn't it? Maybe it's his drinking, you say. Maybe it's his learning disabilities. It's his job; he hates it. He's stressed. I think he's bipolar. It's his mother's fault; she spoiled him rotten. It's the drugs. If only he didn't use. It's his temper. He's selfish. It's the pornography; he's obsessed.
The list could go on and on. You could spend many years trying to pinpoint it and never get a definite answer. The fact is, many people have these problems and they aren't abusive. Just because someone is an alcoholic doesn't mean he is abusive. Men hate their jobs all the time and aren't abusive. Bipolar? Okay. Stressed? Who isn't! Do you see where I am going with this?
Off the subject a bit, when someone commits a violent crime, they always report in the news about his possible motive. As human beings, we need to somehow make sense of things. If someone murders someone, do you think it makes the family of the victim feel better to know the murderer's motive? No. Except for self-defense, there really is no excuse for murder. Motive, if there is any, is irrelevant.
The same is true of abuse. You could spend your whole life going round and round trying to figure out why. The truth is, the why doesn't matter. There are only two reasons why men commit abuse - because they want to do so and because they can.
You want to know why. In many ways, you might feel like you need to know. But, if you could com ~ Beth Praed

For most of recorded history, parental violence against children and men's violence against wives was explicitly or implicitly condoned. Those who had the power to prevent and/or punish this violence through religion, law, or custom, openly or tacitly approved it ... The reason violence against women and children is finally out in the open is that activists have brought it to global attention. ~ Riane Eisler

The attacks of which I have been the object have broken the spring of life in me ... People don't realize what it feels like to be constantly insulted. ~ Edouard Manet

Nearly one in four women will experience domestic violence during her lifetime. And slightly more than half of female victims of domestic violence live in households with children under age 12. ~ Lucille Roybal-Allard

Violence against women is an appalling human rights violation. But it is not inevitable. We can put a stop to this. ~ Nicole Kidman

With two women every week in England and Wales being killed by their partner or ex-partner, we need to act now to end domestic violence. I am only too pleased to add my name to the Real Man campaign for Women's Aid. ~ Tom Aikens

Arleen thanked Pana. Getting off the phone, she thanked Jesus. She smiled. When she smiled she looked like a different person. The press had loosened its grip. From landlords, she had heard eighty-nine nos but one yes.

Jori accepted his mother's high five. He and his brother would have to switch schools. Jori didn't care. He switched schools all the time. Between seventh and eighth grades, he had attended five different schools - when he went at all. At the domestic-violence shelter alone, Jori had racked up seventeen consecutive absences. Arleen saw school as a higher-order need, something to worry about after she found a house. ~ Matthew Desmond

My niece was a sexual-assault victim. My sister is a survivor of domestic violence. We have more shelters for animals than for battered women. That's not the message we should be sending. ~ Hilda Solis

I have been broken down many times before - and I am always the one who is left to pick up the pieces. Most of the time, there are too many pieces to pick up, so I leave them where they lay and never look back. I have to be honest with myself, that is one of my mistakes, instead of walking away, I should have picked up the pieces. That way, I would have learned and grown from what was left behind."
~Love is respect ♥~ ~ Charlena E. Jackson

There is one universal truth, applicable to all countries, cultures and communities: violence against women is never acceptable, never excusable, never tolerable. ~ Ban Ki-moon

I used to pray you know, pray to God that He would somehow stop it. All the nights of listening to my mother scream and things breaking. Of holding my brother and sister and listening to them cry and begging me to stop it.'
My voice is slow and steady like a freight train at night.
'I was too young, and we were always told that they'd put us in foster homes where people would rape us if we ever said anything. So we explained away the bruises and my mom wore big sunglasses whenever she left the house. And we invented car accidents if the bruising was too bad to cover with make-up. ~ Emily Andrews

Believe in yourself and be proud of who you are. Don't let anyone tell you differently. There is beauty in everyone and no one should stop you from growing into a confident and strong young person. ~ June Sarpong

The problem with depicting abusers as full-time monsters is that when a person is actually experiencing abuse in their own life, they'll think "oh but he's the sweetest guy most of the time so he can't be an abuser " or "but he's not ALWAYS horrible, he's usually amazing, so he's not an abuser", and they'll make the mistake of thinking they mustn't really be being abused when they actually are. ~ Miya Yamanouchi

When politicians like Sen. Joseph Lieberman target video game violence, perhaps it is to distract attention from the material conditions that give rise to a culture of domestic violence, the economic policies that make it harder for most of us to own our own homes, and the development practices which pave over the old grasslands and forests. Video games did not make backyard play spaces disappear; rather, they offer children some way to respond to domestic confinement. ~ Henry Jenkins

A lot of people think that domestic violence is if someone hits, kicks, [or] punches you. ~ Robin McGraw

Society has seldom considered the vicarious effects of domestic violence between partners on the lives of children. ~ Asa Don Brown

Even those who drink until blacking out, those who beat women, are not the exception, hopefully not the norm, trapped somewhere in society in a dark place nobody wants to talk about. ~ Justin Donner

Men who, in their hearts, really care no more for mankind than See-wise cared for the fish, lift their voices in shouts of a spurious humanity, in order to raise themselves to power, on the shoulders of an excited populace. Bloodshed, domestic violence, impracticable efforts to attain an impossible perfection, and all the evils of a civil conflict are forgotten or blindly attempted, in order to raise themselves in the arms of those they call the people. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

Nothing has emerged more clearly from the Everyday Sexism Project than the urgent need for far more comprehensive mandatory sex-and-relationships education in schools, to include issues such as consent and respect, domestic violence and rape. It's not just girls who need it so desperately. For boys porn provides some very scary, dictatorial lessons about what it means to be a man and how they are apparently expected to exert their male dominance over women. It is as unrealistic to expect them, unaided, to instinctively work out the difference between online porn and real, caring intimacy, as it is to demand the same intuition of young women. According ~ Laura Bates

Dammit woman, stop trying to beat me. I'll sue you for domestic violence. ~ Karen Mahoney

Truth: Rape does indeed happen between girlfriend and boyfriend, husband and wife. Men who force their girlfriends or wives into having sex are committing rape, period. The laws are blurry, and in some countries marital rape is legal. But it still is rape. ~ Patti Feuereisen

Domestic violence has often gone unnamed and unblamed in my society. It is the norm for men to teach their wives a lesson, and for the women to bear that beating and teaching with no complaints. ~ Fatima Mohammed

It was never the poverty that deterred me, never the disease, unsanitary conditions, bugs or garbage, those things were never even a thought in my head as a reason for not staying. I kept looking for the good and always found it each day. I was happy on the reservation.
It would have all worked out if Chief could have been a little nicer to me. The only thing I was missing was love and respect from my partner. Maybe he had changed. ~ Little White Bird

Jemima Jane Erickson was one drunken pass away from jumping Ethan Weston's bones. He just didn't know it. ~ Amy Andrews

My heart has been bruised, and the scars will never heal because they will always be visible. Maybe they need to be visible as a reminder that I cannot go back."
~Love is respect ♥~ ~ Charlena E. Jackson

I loved books. Loved reading. It not only gave me an escape from my own world, but opened a door into other worlds. It allowed me, at the beginning of my marriage, to suffer with some grace. As long as I had another world to go to, what did I care about how small and strange and terrifying my own life had gotten? ~ Molly O'Keefe

Suspicion of Abuse gets to your toes before you see it in your face. ~ Auliq Ice

Do you ever worry you're being a teenager wrong?" I thought of the last three years. "I KNOW I'm being one wrong." "I mean, what's wrong with finding songs glorifying domestic violence offensive? What's wrong with finding live music too loud? What's wrong with a nice cup of tea and a chat? ~ Holly Bourne

I was heart broken, scared, I had a lot of anxiety, I was worried, I felt weak, and I had no idea how I was ever going to come up with the strength. But I just closed my eyes, and took a blind leap. I knew I had to get out of there. ~ Bob Casey, Jr.

We don't necessarily know how to hear stories about any kind of violence, because it is hard to accept that violence is as simple as it is complicated, that you can love someone who hurts you, that you can stay with someone who hurts you, that you can be hurt by someone who loves you, that you can be hurt by a complete stranger, that you can be hurt in so many terrible, intimate ways. ~ Roxane Gay

People who harm you will blame you for it. Remember, an abuser will generally always play the victim, spin a story, tell everyone and they generally call you crazy. ~ Maranda Pleasant

If you give me any problem in America I can trace it down to domestic violence. It is the cradle of most of the problems, economic, psychological, educational. ~ Salma Hayek

When [an abusive man] tells me that he became abusive because he lost control of himself, I ask him why he didn't do something even worse. For example, I might say, "You called her a fucking whore, you grabbed the phone out of her hand and whipped it across the room, and then you gave her a shove and she fell down. There she was at your feet where it would have been easy to kick her in the head. Now, you have just finished telling me that you were 'totally out of control' at that time, but you didn't kick her. What stopped you?" And the client can always give me a reason. Here are some common explanations:

"I wouldn't want to cause her a serious injury."
"I realized one of the children was watching."
"I was afraid someone would call the police."
"I could kill her if I did that."
"The fight was getting loud, and I was afraid the neighbors would hear."

And the most frequent response of all:

"Jesus, I wouldn't do that. I would never do something like that to her."

The response that I almost never heard – I remember hearing it twice in the fifteen years – was: "I don't know."

These ready answers strip the cover off of my clients' loss of control excuse. ~ Lundy Bancroft

People see my body, but my soul is lost, and I do not have anything left to give."
~Love is respect ♥~ ~ Charlena E. Jackson

She spent much of her childhood and adolescence planning elaborate scheme to remove herself from family conflict: staying completely silent, keeping her face and body expressionless and immobile, wordlessly leaving the room and making her way to her bedroom, closing the door quietly behind her. Locking herself in the toilet. Leaving the house for an indefinite number of hours and sitting in the school car park by herself. None of these strategies had ever proven successful. In fact her tactics only seemed to increase the possibility that she would be punished as the primary instigator. ~ Sally Rooney

Emotional abuse is like being continuously kicked in the shins. It can be worse than getting one punch in the face, and it cements itself. ~ Ashley Banjo

For the Wife Beater's Wife

With blue irises her face is blossomed. Blue
Circling to yellow, circling to brown on her cheeks.
The long bone of her jaw untracked
She hides in our kitchen.
He sleeps it off next door.

Her chicken legs tucked under her
She's frantic with lies, animated
Before the swirling smoke.
On her cigarette she leaves red prints, red
Like a cut on the white cup.
Like a skin she pulls her sweater around her.
She's cold,
She brings the cold in with her.

In our kitchen she hides.
He sleeps it off next door, his great
Belly heaving with booze.
Again and again she tells the story
As if the details ever changed,
As if blows to the face were somehow
Different beating to beating.

We reach for her but can't help.
She retreats into her cold love of him
And looks across the table at us
As if across a sea.
Next door he claws out of sleep.
She says she thinks she'll do something
After all, with her hair tonight. ~ Bruce Weigl

You're never too old or too damaged to make a difference. Nancy Walker ~ Nancy Jean Walker

THE MYTHS ABOUT ABUSERS
1. He was abused as a child.
2. His previous partner hurt him.
3. He abuses those he loves the most.
4. He holds in his feelings too much.
5. He has an aggressive personality.
6. He loses control.
7. He is too angry.
8. He is mentally ill.
9. He hates women.
10. He is afraid of intimacy and abandonment.
11. He has low self-esteem.
12. His boss mistreats him.
13. He has poor skills in communication and conflict resolution.
14. There are as many abusive women as abusive men.
15. His abusiveness is as bad for him as for his partner.
16. He is a victim of racism.
17. He abuses alcohol or drugs. ~ Lundy Bancroft

Domestic violence is often ignored as it usually happens behind closed doors and it can seem easier not to get involved. Yet, domestic violence continues to affect 1 in 4 women at some point in their lifetime, regardless of their background, career, race or age, and it is vital that we do something now to protect those directly affected by abuse in the home. ~ John Nettles

When you're trapped in an abusive home environment you can feel completely hopeless and lost. Remember that situations can change with time, and that it won't be this way forever. ~ Reggie Yates

Our soul ties were beyond toxic."
~Love is respect ♥~ ~ Charlena E. Jackson

We're number one in domestic violence homicides. We also have a high rate of alcohol abuse and drug abuse and there's a high lethality rate when you get those factors involved, so the shelter has 52 beds, certainly it is never empty. ~ Diane Birch

It's time to treat domestic violence and hate speech as the neon red flags they are and take the necessary steps to reduce the risks instead of hoping that they'll go away. ~ Mikki Kendall

There's far greater awareness now – and the great thing is women know there's help available. ~ The Guardian

Hit me again, and I'll report you to the authorities. Follow me to my bed one more time, and I swear to the gods, I'll search for the most painful way to murder you. ~ Kien Nguyen

They don't like the thought of someone else making demands on the person whom they see as belonging entirely to them. ~ Jodi Picoult

We all know the protocol. But more powerful than our protocol is our grooming to believe in something more. ~ Danielle Valenilla

You tried to play on my weakness, but you were the weakest link."
~Love is respect ♥~ ~ Charlena E. Jackson

I do believe our culture is doing a bad job raising boys. The evidence is in the shocking violence of Paducah, Jonesboro, Cheyenne, and Edinboro. It's in our overcrowded prisons and domestic violence shelters. It's in our Ritalin-controlled elementary schools and alcohol-soaked college campuses. ~ Mary Pipher

The underlying attitude comes bursting out of his words: He believes his wife is keeping something of his away from him when she doesn't want intimate contact. He sees sexual rights to a woman as akin to mineral rights to land - and he owns them. ~ Lundy Bancroft

Never let a man put his hands on you without your permission. ~ Melda Beaty

I'm very anti-domestic violence. ~ Ronda Rousey

According to the CDC, more than one in three women and one in four men in the United States have been victims of domestic violence. It is a widespread public health problem, and every year 1,600 women and 700 men are killed by their intimate partners. One of the biggest risk factors that domestic violence will become fatal is the presence of a gun. ~ Melissa Harris-Perry

The most brutal form of domestic violence is the violence against unborn children, and this particular bill would prohibit abortions after the fetus feels pain, which is 20 weeks and older. ~ Joseph Fischer

You have the right to your own ideas and opinions, to make your own decisions, and to have things go your way at times. Stand up for those rights. ~ Beverly Engel

You pulled through like a falling star that has risen and now owns its spot."
~Love is respect ♥~ ~ Charlena E. Jackson

In the process of my evolution, I became a victim of domestic war, an emotional casualty for a major portion of my life, entwined, entrapped and emotionally involved, until I learned how to become free.
Sara Niles
Torn From the Inside Out ~ Sara Niles

Although I haven't experienced violence in a relationship, I know that two women every week in England and Wales are killed by their partner or ex-partner, and that unless we act now, many more women will die because of domestic violence. We must speak out now against all forms of domestic violence, not only physical abuse but also the emotional, sexual and financial abuse which means that many women are afraid to be at home with their partner. ~ Jemma Kidd

Often, to keep the family together, the woman will accept repeated beatings and rapes, emotional battering and verbal degredation; she will be debased and ashamed but she will stick it out, or when she runs he will kill her. Ask the politicians who exude delight when they advocate for the so-called traditional family how many women are beaten and children raped when there is no man in the family. Zero is such a perfect and encouraging number, but who, among politicians in male-supremacist cultures, can count that high? ~ Andrea Dworkin

I have to do better. I have to own up to the choices I made in life."
~Love is respect ♥~ ~ Charlena E. Jackson

Life is short, but I never thought my life would end this way. I have myself to blame for that. I saw all of the red flags, but I ignored them one at a time. Every time I ignored them, I was buying more time, I received more time, and I gambled with the time that I was given. It shows you that buying time is temporary because sooner or later time runs out."
~Love is respect ♥~ ~ Charlena E. Jackson

For too long the term domestic violence has been used as a
"soft" term which suggests it emerges in an intimate context that is
private and somehow less threatening, less brutal, than the violence
that takes place outside the home. This is not so, since more women
are beaten and murdered in the home than on the outside. ~ Bell Hooks

Domestic violence and sexual assault go hand in hand. ~ Georgia Taylor

All the stuff you were saying went in one ear and out the other, and I always found myself back in your arm."
~Love is respect ♥~ ~ Charlena E. Jackson

I have been working with Women's Aid since 2003 when I became the charity's first Ambassador, and am so pleased to be able to be a part of the 'Real Man' campaign against domestic violence. I studied domestic violence at university and feel passionately that we need to raise awareness of violence against women and children and refuse to ignore it. Just by speaking out against domestic violence and being supportive of those directly affected we can all make a positive difference. ~ Will Young

For too many women pregnancy is just the start of loneliness and abuse. It is a cruel reality. ~ Fay Ripley

I know betrayal can unravel a man. I learned early on from watching my parents that men are capable of doing terrible things to women when they feel deceived. When the bubble of trust and honesty bursts, nothing is off-limits. ~ Sadeqa Johnson

When a man starts my program, he often says, "I am here because I lose control of myself sometimes. I need to get a better grip." I always correct him: "Your problem is not that you lose control of yourself, it's that you take control of your partner. In order to change, you don't need to gain control over yourself, you need to let go of control of her. ~ Lundy Bancroft

In community work, you reach some people, but in writing, I can reach many more people, not only in exploring issues of domestic violence, but also by showing the importance of strong women in communities. ~ Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

The best protection against rape, stalking, and domestic violence is to raise men who both understand that women are different, and would never dare take advantage of this difference. ~ Wendy Shalit

She was in a terrible marriage and she couldn't talk to anyone. He used to hit her, and in the beginning she told him that if it ever happened again, she would leave him. He swore that it wouldn't and she believed him. But it only got worse after that, like when his dinner was cold, or when she mentioned that she'd visited with one of the neighbors who was walking by with his dog. She just chatted with him, but that night, her husband threw her into a mirror. ~ Nicholas Sparks

If you alter your behaviour because you are frightened of how your partner will react, you are being abused. ~ Sandra Horley

Women initiate most domestic violence, yet out of a thousand cases of domestic violence, maybe one is involving a man. And this has made a victim of culture out of women. ~ Dov Charney

The Truth was staring me in the face, but I let you easily persuade me with lies on top of lies. You made a fool of me over and over again and I allowed you to control my thoughts…you never cared. You didn't give a shit. I was blind to the truth…and what was so crazy is that the truth and the red flags were waving me down, but I thought I could change you. However, the only person it changed was me."
~Love is respect ♥~ ~ Charlena E. Jackson

The louder he shouts,
The weaker is his self confidence! ~ Nitya Prakash

You only said you loved me to hold on to me. All I did was fight with you day in and out. I wasn't ever your enemy. You were your own worst enemy, you just happened to keep me in your shadow."
~Love is respect ♥~ ~ Charlena E. Jackson

Loving you had a lot of consequences that I never dodged."
"~Love is respect ♥~ ~ Charlena E. Jackson

I do know is at the beginning and end of the day, I know I paid my dues."
~Love is respect ♥~ ~ Charlena E. Jackson

She looks in the mirror
seems vaguely familiar
like steam on the glass
shame covers her past
the fog slithers down
as evil surrounds. ~ Diana Rasmussen

How she realized at last that not even love
could justify this, that no affection could, not ever.
Still, in the glass, she sees her own mouth,
opening and closing and silent as a fish. ~ Zoe Brigley

My thoughts are haunting me because the truth has set me free."
~Love is respect ♥~ ~ Charlena E. Jackson

The class, on the other hand, buzzed and hummed with the anticipated pleasure of writing it up, one day. They were vindicated. Miss Fox belonged after all in the normal world of their writings, the world of domestic violence, torture and shock-horror. They would write what they knew, what had happened to Cicely Fox, and it would be most satisfactorily therapeutic. ~ A.S. Byatt

I yearned for love from a person who didn't have it to give. I yearned for love from a person who was never loved, so why in the hell did I think she could give me what she never had?"
~Love is respect ♥~ ~ Charlena E. Jackson

Men and boys are constantly portrayed as predatory, sexist, their sense of humour is vilified and their behaviour is regarded as unacceptable. Factor in the constant diet we are fed of men as perpetrators of rape, murder and domestic violence. Boys must wonder whether they will ever be able to do anything right. This must make it painfully difficult for young men and women to build up relations based on honesty, love and trust. ~ Belinda Brown