9781422276082

Dealingwith Dating and romance

You might have heard the terms domestic violence or intimate partner violence and concluded that these terms can’t apply to your relationship because you aren’t married or living together. You might not even consider your relationship to be particularly serious. On the other hand, maybe it is serious, but you haven’t been sexually intimate yet. Or maybe you are dating someone of the same gender, and you think that abuse is something only straight men do to straight women. That’s why experts have started to prefer to the term teen dating violence . It’s an umbrella term for a whole spectrum of abusive behaviors, ranging from rape to physical assault all the way to seemingly “minor” things like insults and humiliation. It’s better to think of teen dating violence as a pattern of behavior over time, rather than one isolated incident. The term teen dating violence is considered an improvement on earlier names, but it’s not perfect. The word violence may make you think that someone has to be hit to be abused. In reality, not all abusive behaviors include physical violence.

• Frequent/intense jealousy • Demeaning your accomplishments • Controlling who you see or how you spend time • Breaking things that belong to you

• Insulting/criticizing you • Pressuring you for sex or to use alcohol or drugs • Intimidating, threatening, or scaring you

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