The following information gives some strategies for dealing with a violent or potentially violent partner, but please remember that if you feel unsafe at any time trust your instincts and seek immediate help. The information on this page has been compiled by local, state, and national domestic violence coalitions and offers some helpful advice on staying safe. However, while implementing these strategies may help improve your situation they cannot guarantee your safety. In addition to these strategies you may also want to contact a local advocate about these or other steps you might decide to take to ensure your safety.
Personal Safety Tips to use with an Abuser
Reduce your Partner’s Ability to Trace Your Internet Activity
Tips for Leaving an Abusive Relationship
After Leaving the Abusive Relationship
Additional Tips for Students Living on a College Campus
Personal Safety Tips to use with an Abuser
• Identify your partner's use and level of force so that you can assess danger to you and your children before it occurs. If an abusive situation seems likely, try to diffuse your partner's anger.
• Try to avoid an abusive situation by leaving. Go for a walk, and let your partner cool down.
• Identify safe areas of your home where there are no weapons and there are ways of escape. If arguments occur, try to move to those areas.
• Don't run to where the children are as your partner may hurt them as well.
• If violence is unavoidable, make yourself a small target; dive into a corner and curl up into a ball with you face protected and arms around each side of your head, fingers entwined.
• If possible, have a phone accessible at all times and know the numbers to call for help. Know where the nearest pay phone is located. Know your local domestic violence shelter number. Don't be afraid to call the police.
• Let trusted friends and neighbors know of your situation and develop a plan and visual signal for when you need help.
• Teach your children how to get help and work with them to identify a safe place (for example, a room within your home that has a lock or a friend’s house where they can go for help). Instruct them not to get involved in the violence between you and your partner. Plan a code word to signal to them that they should get help. Tell your children that violence is never right even when someone they love is being violent. Tell them that neither you nor they are at fault or cause the violence, and that whenever your partner is being violent, it is important for them to stay safe.
• Practice how to get out safely. Practice with your children.
• Plan for what you will do if, for instance, your children somehow tell your partner of your plan or if your partner otherwise finds out about your plan.
• Keep weapons, like guns and knives, locked up and as inaccessible as possible.
• Make a habit of backing the car into the driveway and keep it fueled. Keep the driver's door unlocked and others locked for a quick escape.
• Develop the habit of not wearing scarves or long necklaces that could be used to strangle you.
• Have several plausible reasons for leaving the house at different times of the day or night.
Reduce your Partner’s Ability to Trace Your Internet Activity**
You have probably heard that your Internet activities are not always private or anonymous. Your partner may have access to information about you through your email records or through "cached" files; automatically saved web pages and graphics. This means it may be possible for your partner to discover that you are viewing particular websites, which may alert your partner that you have considered leaving or asking for help.
While you can't make your Internet activities completely private, you can take steps to make them safer. To delete records of email and web travel history complete the following steps:
• In your email program, look for a folder called "Sent Mail" and delete any mail you don't want traced.
• On the hard drive (C:\) locate the folder: C:\\Windows\Temporary Internet Files and delete any relevant or all files.
• On the hard drive, locate the folder: C:\\WINDOWS\Cookies and delete any relevant or all files EXCEPT the C:\\WINDOWS\Cookies\index.dat file.
Finally, your web browser (the program you use to surf the web or Internet) sometimes keeps track of recently visited websites. To find out if your program does, look at the box/space that you type in the web address; at the right side of the box may be an arrow down symbol. If you click on the arrow and a list of recently visited sites appears, you may want to check out your browser's "Help" index for how to clear the history of your recent internet travels. Here are some suggestions for commonly used browser programs:
• Netscape.
Pull down the Edit menu and select Preferences. Click on Navigator and choose "Clear History". Click on Advanced and select Cache, then click "Clear Disk Cache". On older versions of Netscape: pull down the Options menu, select Network Options, then select Cache and click on "Clear Disk Cache."
• Internet Explorer.
Pull down the View menu and, select Internet Options. On the General page, under Temporary Internet Files, click on "Delete Files". Under History, click on "Clear History."
• AOL Pull down the Members menu, and select Preferences. Click on the WWW icon, then select Advanced, and then Purge Cache.
Please remember that while these steps may make it more difficult to track, they may not completely hide your Internet activity. Consider using another computer owned by a friend you trust, the local library, or your work computer.
Finally, if an abuser sends you threatening or harassing email messages, they may be printed and saved as evidence of abuse. Additionally, these messages may constitute a federal offense. For more information on this issue, contact your local United States Attorney's Office www.usdoj.gov/usao/offices/index.html.
Tips for Leaving an Abusive Relationship*
• Keep any evidence of physical abuse, such as pictures, etc., in a safe place that is accessible for you.
• Know where you can go to get help; tell someone you trust what is happening to you.
• If you are injured, go to a doctor or an emergency room and report what happened to you. Ask that they document your visit.
• Contact your local domestic violence shelter and find out about laws and other resources available to you before you have to use them during a crisis.
• Keep a journal of all violent incidences involving your abuser: those aimed at yourself and those aimed at others.
• Acquire job skills as you can, such as learning to type or taking courses at a community college.
• You may request a police stand-by or escort while you leave.
• If you need to sneak away, be prepared:
- Make a plan for how and where you will escape, and include a plan for a quick escape
- Put aside emergency money as you can
- Hide an extra set of car keys
- Pack an extra set of clothes for yourself and your children and store them at a trusted friend or neighbor's house. Try to avoid using next-door neighbors, close family members and mutual friends, if at all possible.
• Take with you a list of important phone numbers of friends, relatives, doctors, schools, etc., as well as other important items, including:
- Driver's license
- Regularly needed medication
- Checkbooks and information about bank accounts and other assets
- List of credit cards held by self or jointly, or the credit cards themselves if you have access to them
- Pay-stubs.
• If time is available, also take:
- A copy of marriage license, birth certificates, will and other legal documents
- Verification of social security numbers
- Citizenship documents (passport, green card, etc.)
- Titles, deeds and other property information
- Welfare identification
- Medical records
- Children's school records and immunization records
- Insurance information
- Valued pictures, jewelry, or personal possessions
• Create a false trail. Call motels, real estate agencies, and schools in a town at least six hours away from where you actually are located. Ask questions that require a return call to your current house in order to leave numbers on record with your abuser.
After Leaving the Abusive Relationship*
• If getting a restraining order and your abuser is leaving the residence:
- Change residence locks and phone number as soon as possible
- Change your work hours and the route you take to work
- Change regular route you use to take your children to school
- Keep your copy of the restraining order in a safe place
- Inform friends, neighbors, and employers that you have a restraining order in effect. Always call the police to enforce the order even for the slightest violation.
• If you leave:
- Consider renting a post office box for your mail or using the address of a friend
- Be aware that addresses are on restraining orders and police reports and they can be accessed by your abuser
- Be careful to whom you give your new address and phone number
- Change your work hours if possible
- Alert school authorities of the situation, and the fact that a restraining order is in place
- Consider changing your children's schools
- After you leave, reschedule any appointments that your abuser was aware of before you left
• Shop at different stores and frequent different social spots than you previously frequented so your abuser will be less likely to find you.
• Alert neighbors of your situation, and request that they call the police if they feel you may be in danger.
• Talk to trusted people about the violence.
• Replace doors with solid-core wood, steel or metal doors. Install security system, if possible.
• Install a lighting system that lights up when a person is coming close to the house (motion sensitive lights).
• Tell your co-workers about the situation; ask their assistance in screening all calls you receive during office hours.
• Explicitly inform your children's caretakers about who is allowed to pick up the children and that your partner is not allowed to do so.
• Call your telephone company about "Caller ID." Ask that your phone be blocked, so that if you make the phone call, your partner nor anyone else will be able to get your new, unlisted phone number.
Create Your Own Safety Plan
If you are interested in or considering leaving an abusive partner you may want to create a personalized safety plan. While this plan can’t ensure a safe escape, it will help you work through potential problems in leaving, and it will help you identify who can help and what items you should take with you when you leave. You can start the planning process by printing and filling out the following form. Remember to keep this in a safe place where your partner will not be able to find it.
Domestic Violence Personal Safety Plan***
Additional tips for students living on a college campus
See the Street Safety Tips page
More Resources
To find state-by-state listings of domestic violence coalitions, hotlines, and resources, visit the Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women: http://www.ovw.usdoj.gov/statedomestic.htm or the Feminist Majority Foundation: http://www.feminist.org/911/
For the National Domestic Violence Hotline call 1-800-799-SAFE (7223) or visit: http://www.ndvh.org/
For information on how emails may be used in harassment or domestic violence cases contact your local United States Attorney's Office at: http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/offices/index.html
For Iowa City and Johnson County (IA) resources visit The Domestic Violence Intervention Program at: http://www.dvipiowa.org/
For resources on Domestic Violence in Iowa visit the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence (ICADV) Website: http://www.icadv.org/
