“People will come in and say, ‘I never wanted to be like my parent and yet, here I am,” explains Mary Jane McCarthy, the Professional Training Manager at JBWS. “They’re recognizing that they’re repeating the behaviors they saw in childhood that they never wanted to have.”

People who abuse in their relationships may have grown up watching their parents, grandparents, aunts or uncles engage in these behaviors. Even if they swore to be different in their adult relationships, people using abuse may not have learned another way of handling their emotions.

“Let’s say I saw my dad scream at my mom growing up and I said, ‘I’ll never do that to my partner.’ Then, I get into a relationship, emotions get heightened, something happens, and it triggers that behavior,” says Mary Jane. “Unless I know something else to do in that moment, I am going to fall into the behaviors that I know.”

Abuse intervention programs, like those offered at JBWS’ Jersey Center for Non-Violence (JCNV), gives people options. It teaches them numerous methods for handling emotional responses so that using abuse isn’t their only choice. 

“There is this idea in our society where people think ‘If I’m not in control, then that means that someone else is in control of me,’” says Mary Jane McCarthy, the Professional Training Manager at JBWS. “And there are benefits to control. To some people, control means that they have safety and security.”

This fear of being controlled may motivate a person to then exert control over their partner or family members. They may feel a sense of comfort in knowing that no matter what, they are in control of their own home. However, feeling the need to control everything in a relationship can led to abusive behavior.

“What we work on in our abuse intervention programs is talking about the idea of control together,” explains Mary Jane. “How do two people work together to have that sense of control where they are lifting each other up.”

When looking at abusive behavior, it’s important to consider a person’s thought process. Are they motivated by a need to “win” in an argument with their partner? Do they feel like their partner can’t be trusted to handle the finances? Or do they feel like their partner needs to be protected in some way? 

“We ask people who have used abuse to reflect on what got them to that point,” says Mary Jane McCarthy, the Professional Training Manager at JBWS. “What is it within them that allowed them to say, ‘it is okay to abuse my partner.’ Because, at some point, they made that choice.”

Abuse intervention programs work to challenge belief systems that allow the abuse to continue. For many, it’s this fundamental belief that they know better than their partner. If a person believes they are superior to their partner, then they will act in ways that reflect that power imbalance.

Sometimes people use abuse because it benefits them in some way. For instance, if a person is in an argument with their partner and are getting frustrated, they may scream at their partner.  This may force their partner to stop arguing. Because their abuse got them what they wanted, it reinforces the behavior, and the pattern may continue.

Over time, their partner may no longer stop arguing when they’re screamed at. In this situation, the abuse may then escalate into physical violence. If their partner stops arguing after experiencing physical violence, then the behavior once again benefits the person using abuse.