Reply to Has anyone's marriage successfully overcome domestic violence?

Forum Index » Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)

Reply to "Has anyone's marriage successfully overcome domestic violence?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Actually I DO think cultural expectations are relevant to determining what counts as "abuse," not necessarily in a legal sense, but when it comes to understanding motivation and likelihood of change.

Think of parent-child relationships. In some jurisdictions, using physical force to punish a child is a crime, period. In others, it's not. Say a parent comes from a culture that views spanking as part of "healthy" discipline for children. In that context, the occasional spanking is unlikely to presage ongoing or worsening "abuse," even if that parent moves to a jurisdiction in which it is unlawful, because the parent is not spanking the kid because he is out of control and violent. This is not the same as saying I think spanking is ok - just noting that context does matter.

I think a lot of people grow up in contexts in which an arm grab, a cheek slap, or a shoulder shake is NOT considered abusive. That doesn't mean no abusers use these tactics, it just means that not everyone who does this from time to time is a died in the wool abuser who will never change.

I agree, however, that there is no moral or cultural universe that I would tolerate in which choking, stabbing, threats with guns, broken bones, punches, etc. count as anything other than abuse.

All this is a long way of saying, OP, that i think people CAN learn to control "minor" bad habits. I am not sure they can ever learn to change the really nasty stuff.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics