What Is Domestic Violence?
Recognizing The Batterer
Do You Need Help Right Now?
How You Can Help Someone Else
Effects of Domestic Violence on Children
Domestic Violence in the Workplace
Articles and Information
Links and Resources
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Your Rights in a Relationship
You have basic rights as a human being and as a partner in any relationship. You don't deserve to be abused, manipulated, exploited or harmed, under any circumstances.
What You Can Expect and Demand from an Equal Relationship
- Non-threatening bahavior, including during disagreements and crises
- Respect
- Listening in a non-judgmental way
- Valuing each other's opinions, even if you don't agree
- Being emotionally affirming and understanding
- Accepting differences
- Never putting down or insulting each other
- Trust and Support
- Supporting each other's goals and aspirations
- Respecting each other's right to his or her own activities, friends, feelings and opinions
- Making a sincere effort to see things from the partner's perspective
- Honesty and Accountability
- Both accepting responsibility for his or her own actions, words, and feelings
- Each one admitting when he or she is wrong
- Acknowledging past violence, without blaming the abused partner in any way
- Communicating openly, truthfully, and fully
- Responsible Parenting
- Sharing parental responsibilities equally
- Being a positive, non-violent role model for the children
- Working out parenting disagreements when the children can't see or hear
- Shared Responsibility
- Mutually agreeing on a fair distribution of work
- Making family decisions together
- Economic Partnership
- Making decisions about money, finances and property together
- Making sure both partners benefit equally from financial arrangements
- Neither partner exploits the other or tries to make him or her financally dependent
- Negotiation and Fairness
- Being willing to compromise, with grace
- Accepting changes in each other and the relationship
- Seeking mutually satisfying resolutions to conflict
- Maturity and Self-Reliance
- Each partner takes responsibility for meeting his or her own basic emotional, physical and social needs and obligations
- Neither partner claims to "own" the other
- Neither partner expects the other to give up or change things he or she values
- Neither partner ever blames the other for his or her life problems or misfortunes
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