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Is this abuse?
Some behaviors everyone agrees are abuse. Plenty of others are argued over in courtrooms every week, and the difference is never the behavior itself.
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Physical battering, rape and threatening to kill someone are abuse by any measure. Here are six that are not so clear.
Answer each one the way it looks to you. Then see the answer a family law attorney is trained to give.
Each one is shown with the two readings a court would weigh.
So what is the actual test
- Intent
- What was the person trying to accomplish by doing it.
- Meaning
- What did the behavior mean inside this particular relationship, given everything that came before it.
- Effect
- What did it actually do to the person on the receiving end.
This is why counting violent acts does not work. A judge asking who is doing what to whom, and with what impact, reaches a better order than a judge counting incidents. New York defines domestic violence as a pattern of coercive tactics, which can include physical, psychological, sexual, economic and emotional abuse, perpetrated by one person against another adult intimate partner, with the goal of establishing and maintaining power and control.
Three categories of violence get sorted by that test. Coercive control is the patterned use of violence, intimidation and coercion to establish dominance. Resistive or reactive violence is produced and shaped by that abuse. Situational violence is not tied to establishing an ongoing relationship of dominance at all. They call for completely different responses from a court, and mislabeling one as another is how people get hurt.
Power and control
The eight tactics below are the framework developed by the Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs in Duluth, Minnesota, and used in domestic violence training nationally. The New York legal notes attached to each one are ours.
Coercion and threats
- What it looks like
- Threats to leave, to take the children, to report you to immigration or to welfare, to have you committed, to drop charges, to hurt themselves. Making you do something illegal.
- In a New York case
- Threats to kill and threats of suicide are both recognized lethality factors. Menacing and aggravated harassment are chargeable, and coercion of this kind belongs in the petition, not just in your head.
Intimidation
- What it looks like
- Looks, gestures and actions that create fear without a word being said. Smashing things, destroying property, abusing pets, displaying weapons.
- In a New York case
- Criminal mischief covers the destroyed property. Family Court Act section 842(i) lets the order protect the animals. Display of a weapon is a lethality factor whether or not it was used.
Emotional abuse
- What it looks like
- Putting you down, humiliating you, name-calling, making you think you are crazy, mind games, making you feel guilty.
- In a New York case
- This is the hardest to evidence and the most commonly dismissed. It is nevertheless part of the statutory definition, and a pattern of it supports a finding of aggravating circumstances.
Isolation
- What it looks like
- Controlling what you do, who you see and talk to, what you read, where you go. Limiting outside involvement. Using jealousy to justify all of it.
- In a New York case
- Isolation is why so many survivors reach a courtroom with no witnesses. Its presence is itself evidence of the pattern, and a court can be told that directly.
Minimizing and blaming
- What it looks like
- Making light of the abuse, saying it did not happen, shifting responsibility, saying you caused it.
- In a New York case
- Expect this in the responsive pleading. It is a tactic before it is a defense, and naming it as a pattern in advance is more effective than answering it after the fact.
Using the children
- What it looks like
- Making you feel guilty about the children, using them to relay messages, using visitation to harass you, threatening to take them away.
- In a New York case
- New York has never codified a best interests checklist. Those factors come from case law. Domestic violence is one of the very few the Legislature actually wrote into the statute, at Domestic Relations Law section 240(1)(a), and since 2009 a court must state on the record how proven domestic violence factored into its determination. Proven child abuse carries the same requirement. Carefully drafted access orders can require supervised exchange, no contact exchanges, and communication about the children only through a monitored app.
Economic abuse
- What it looks like
- Preventing you from getting or keeping a job, making you ask for money, giving you an allowance, taking your money, hiding the family income.
- In a New York case
- Temporary child support under Family Court Act section 828, temporary maintenance under Domestic Relations Law section 236(B)(5-a), lease termination under Real Property Law section 227-c. Economic relief equals autonomy, and autonomy is what makes leaving survivable.
Asserting privilege
- What it looks like
- Treating you like a servant, making all the big decisions, acting like the master of the house, being the one who defines the roles.
- In a New York case
- This one rarely produces a charge, but it is the organizing logic behind the rest. Describing it gives a judge the frame that makes the other seven make sense.
Physical and sexual violence sit on the outer ring for a reason. They are not a ninth tactic. They are what gives the other eight their force, which is why a case built only on the incidents misses most of what happened.
Several of these tactics are also recognized risk factors, and each has something a court can do about it. See what an order of protection can include.
There is no crime called domestic violence in New York
The law handles it as a family offense. Family Court can issue an order of protection when one of the offenses below is committed by someone you have a qualifying relationship with.
- Disorderly conductincluding when it happens in a private place
- Harassment and aggravated harassmentrepeated conduct that alarms or distresses you, including by phone, text or online
- Stalkingfollowing, monitoring or tracking you, in any of its four degrees
- Menacingthreatening you in a way meant to make you fear injury
- Reckless endangermentputting you in danger of being hurt
- Strangulation and criminal obstruction of breathingany pressure on the neck or blocking the nose or mouth
- Assault and attempted assaultcausing or trying to cause physical injury
- Sexual misconduct, forcible touching and sexual abuseunwanted sexual contact
- Unlawful dissemination or publication of an intimate imagesharing, or threatening to share, intimate images without consent
- Criminal mischiefdamaging or destroying property
- Identity theftusing your personal or financial information without permission
- Grand larcenytaking property of significant value
- Coercionforcing you to do, or not do, something you have a right to
This is a plain-language summary of the list in Family Court Act section 812(1). Several offenses are limited to particular degrees, so the exact wording matters in a petition.
Who counts as an intimate relationship
You do not need to have lived together, had a child together, or had a sexual relationship. The court looks at what kind of relationship it was, how often you saw each other, and how long it lasted. A casual acquaintance, or ordinary contact through work or socializing, does not count. Married and formerly married couples, people with a child in common, relatives by blood or marriage, and since November 2024, relatives of a former partner, are covered separately.
What these pages are
General legal information about New York law, published by Weinrieb Law, a family law firm in Williamsville, New York. This is attorney advertising. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney client relationship, and it is not a risk assessment of any individual situation. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
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Statutory references are to the New York Family Court Act, Domestic Relations Law, Penal Law and Real Property Law. Statutes change. Confirm current law before relying on any of it.
Sources
- Identifying Risk and Lethality Factors in Domestic Violence Cases, Erie Institute of Law and Bar Association of Erie County, presented by Hon. Sheila Schwanekamp (Ret.), December 10, 2025.
- Domestic Violence Risk Factor Guide for Civil Legal Attorneys, January 20, 2024, adapted from the New York State guide for Family Court judges. Center for Court Innovation.
- Lawyer's Manual on Domestic Violence: Representing the Victim, 6th Edition, New York State Unified Court System.
- Domestic Violence, Developing Brains, and the Lifespan, Lynn Hecht Schafran, The Judges' Journal 53(3), Summer 2014.
Sources, continued
- Working with Survivors of Abuse: A Trauma Informed Approach, Public Interest Pro Bono Association.
- Laws of New York 1996, Chapter 85, and Laws of 2009, Chapter 476.
- Campbell et al., Risk Factors for Femicide in Abusive Relationships, American Journal of Public Health 93(7):1089 (2003).
- Campbell, Helping Women Understand Their Risk in Situations of Intimate Partner Violence, Journal of Interpersonal Violence 19(12):1464 (2004).
- 2025 Domestic Violence Court Advocate List for Erie County, last updated January 31, 2024.