URBANA. Ill. -- When a marriage that has included violence ends, is co-parenting possible? It depends on whether intimate terrorism or situational violence was involved, says a new University of Illinois study published in Family Relations.

"There's a tendency to treat all violence as if it's the same, but different types of violence require different interventions," said Jennifer Hardesty, a U of I assistant professor of human and community development.

Goal is Control

"In intimate terrorism, the goal is to control the other person, and the abuser may use not only physical violence but also psychological and financial abuse to dominate his spouse. This calls for rigid, formal post-divorce safety measures, including supervised visitation of children and treatment approaches, such as a batterer's intervention group or alcohol or substance abuse treatment," she said.

"Situational violence is more likely a result of poor conflict management rather than a desire to control their partner. There may have been a heated argument about finances that ended with a shove. These fathers can probably learn new ways to manage their anger, and they do have the potential to safely co-parent their children," she said. Hardesty's study used in-depth interviews with 25 women to explore differences in their co-parenting relationships with their abusive ex-husbands.

Role differentiation was a big problem for fathers who had engaged in intimate terrorism, said the researcher. "These men had difficulty separating their role as a father from their desire to hold onto their relationship with the mother. And because they weren't able to differentiate those roles very well, control issues and abuse of the women tended to continue after the separation."

Challenges on Boundaries

According to Hardesty, renegotiating boundaries after divorce poses unique challenges and risks for abused women. "Separating from an abusive partner does not necessarily end the violence. Instead, separation may threaten an abuser's sense of control and instigate more violence," she said.

Risk may continue if former partners co-parent after divorce because abusers still have access to their former wives, she said. "Women in the study who had been victims of intimate terrorism all continued to be afraid that their ex-husbands would hurt them or their children," she said.

In contrast, women who had experienced situational violence in their marriages often described safe co-parenting relationships characterized by respect for each other's boundaries.

Currently the legal system assumes it's in a child's best interests to maintain relationships with both parents after a divorce, Hardesty said. "As a result, women's attempts to protect their own and their children's safety are often undermined or overlooked," she noted.

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http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/news/stories/news4704.html

Contacts:

Jennifer Hardesty, (217) 333-0725, hardesty@illinois.edu

Phyllis Picklesimer, (217) 244-2827, p-pickle@uiuc.edu