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Does domestic violence have to be physical?

When you think about domestic violence, what do you imagine? Do you think about someone getting hit? Do you imagine a battered victim? The reality is that domestic violence doesn’t actually have to involve physical harm coming to anyone.

Physical abuse is not the only kind of domestic violence. Domestic violence can also include emotional, verbal or economic abuses, all of which rarely involve physical harm.

What are nonphysical forms of domestic violence?

The nonphysical forms of domestic violence include emotional, verbal and economic abuse. Here is more about each of them.

Emotional abuse

Emotional abuse is a form of abuse where one person is possessive, intimidating, disrespectful or threatening to another person. You may be accused of emotional abuse if you have extreme displays of jealousy, for example. Preventing someone from seeing their family also falls into this category.

Verbal abuse

Verbal abuse happens when a person yells, screams, criticizes or humiliates another person.

Economic abuse

Economic abuse may occur if one person refuses to give control of the family’s finances to another or destroys property without the other person’s consent.

Is it possible to be falsely accused of nonphysical domestic violence?

It is certainly possible that you could be falsely accused of domestic violence without physical abuse taking place. If your spouse or partner accuses you of threatening them, for example by pulling a gun on them, then that would be damaging and could lead to a restraining order.

Similarly, you could be accused of financial or economic abuse if you gave away property belonging to your spouse without their permission. For instance, selling their vehicle for them because you believed they wanted to get rid of it but then finding out that they didn’t want to sell it could lead to an economic abuse claim. They may claim that you were trying to control where they were going, as an example.

Not all domestic violence claims are honest or well-intentioned. False allegations do happen. If you’re facing them, then it is extremely important that you take steps to protect yourself and build a strong defense against the claims.