Domestic violence is a pattern of assaultive and coercive behaviors, including physical, sexual, and psychological attacks, as well as economic coercion, that adults or adolescents use against their intimate partner.

Domestic violence is:

• A pattern of behaviors including a variety of tactics – some physically injurious and some not, some criminal and some not – carried out in multiple, sometimes daily episodes.
• A combination of physical force and terror used by the perpetrator that causes physical and psychological harm to the victim and children.
• A pattern of purposeful behavior, directed at achieving compliance from or control over the victim.
• Behaviors perpetrated by adults or adolescents against their intimate partner in current or former dating, married, or cohabiting relationships of heterosexuals, gays and lesbians.