Love shouldn’t hurt

Love Shouldn't Hurt - Ever

Tuesday, 18 March 2025 09:49

What is Reactive Abuse?
by Teresia Smith

Despite what its name suggests, reactive abuse is actually a form of self-defense that some people take in response to ongoing harm in an abusive relationship. Reactive abuse describes situations where a person who has experienced continued abusive behavior reacts aggressively towards their abuser. The abuser deliberately provokes their partner, pushing them to react in anger or frustration. The abusive partner often manipulates this reaction to shift blame and create a false narrative of “mutual abuse”. However, the victim’s behavior is actually self-defense in response to ongoing harm, and should not be equated with abusive behavior.
An abuser will try to claim reactive abuse when the survivor fights back or defends themself, sometimes claiming that the victim is mentally unstable or “crazy” and reacted through physical violence. It’s a manipulation tactic that is meant to shift blame to the victim. Why does someone get called an abuser when they are trying to defend themself against the perpetrator? Shoving your way out of danger doesn’t make you an abuser. The reality is, if you were being attacked on the street by a stranger, no one would call it reactive abuse for you to fight back to save your life. But when you are attacked by your intimate partner, and you need to save your own life through defending yourself, you may find law enforcement questioning you as the abuser.
Author Alex Bachert shares, “Once the partner reacts, the abuser quickly seizes the opportunity to use this reaction as proof that the partner is the abusive one. This can involve recording the outburst on video, taking photographs of any physical responses, or simply recounting the incident to friends, family, or authorities in a way that frames them as the victim. By capturing these moments of reactive behavior, the abuser constructs a narrative that supports their version of events and shifts attention away from their abusive actions.”

In “Help Police Determine Who Is the Primary Aggressor,” Lisa Fontes writes, “If the police misidentify the victim as an aggressor, the victim can face harmful legal consequences including domestic violence prosecution, and loss of child custody, housing and immigration rights. In addition, people who are not identified properly as crime victims may not be eligible for orders of protection, shelter, and funding and psychotherapy through the Victims of Crime Act.”
Even if the survivor is not arrested in that moment, abusers have been known to claim reactive abuse later on in court in order to try to make their case. Sometimes they will use the term “mutual abuse” as though both survivor and victim are equally abusive toward one another. It’s another form of manipulation by the abuser. In an intimate relationship, abuse is not two people who simply fight. Abuse is a deliberate pattern of power and control by one person that escalates over time.

At times, an abuser may try to “flip the script” and might claim they were just trying to defend themselves against the survivor. They might say they never even touched the survivor initially, that the survivor was the one who pushed or hit them first. Unfortunately, police and courts often fail to view the pattern of controlling and coercive behavior, and tend to look only at each incident separately. An abuser often makes threats of violence against the survivor, other family members or children, commits animal abuse, is stalking the survivor or obtains a weapon and keeps it out in the open as a subtle threat. Over time, this pattern of ongoing abuse builds up to a point where the survivor feels afraid for their life and when the time comes that they feel like they might not make it out alive, they fight back. And that’s when the abuser claims the survivor is attempting to harm them. It is important to look for the pattern of abuse and the emotional response to be able to determine who is the actual abuser.

At the end of the day, if you are in a situation where fighting back is the only option, your life matters more than anything an abuser may try to tell afterward. It may be helpful when police are called to try to show proof of previous abuse, signs of injuries inflicted prior, previous police reports, protection orders, threatening text messages or witness who can vouch that you are the survivor. Manipulation, gaslighting and emotional abuse can often wear down a survivor’s sense of self-worth to the point they believe they are at fault. However, always remember that abuse is never the fault of the survivor.

If you feel you are in an abusive relationship, we offer trained victim advocates to help you establish a safely plan and help prepare for a plan of escape. Crisis Services of North Alabama offers free and confidential services and an office in Jackson County. You may reach this office at 256.574.5826 for an appointment with an advocate. We also offer a 24/7 HELPline at 256.716.1000. Reach out today. You are not alone.