Violent Love.

I was reading the title. In fact, I’ve been reading it for a couple of days. The more I looked at it, the more my brain wanted to run away as fast as possible, not wanting to face the problem. Truly, who can blame it? No one wants to take this bull by the horns: it’s a bull so wild it could cause harm, even irreversible harm.

I find myself here, in front of a screen, with a clouded mind and no idea what to write. Actually, I would know what to write; I just don’t know how to organize the ideas. It’s a very delicate subject that, if not handled well, risks being not only useless but also harmful to myself. On this web page, I will be constantly walking on a wire, with a firing squad in front of me, ready to shoot if I move to one side or the other.

I don’t feel like writing a post where I scream the whole time "violence is bad" or "no more violence." It would be not only cliché and useless but also childish. Now that I think about it, those are two excellent prerequisites for being successful on TikTok.

But I wanted to talk about it. Not that it makes any difference, let’s be clear (I’m hardly the universal paladin of justice), but it is right to talk about it. As the Emperor said in the movie Mulan, "A single grain of rice can tip the scale; one man may be the difference between victory and defeat." Maybe my grain won’t be the decisive one, but perhaps it can help support the grain that eventually tips that scale.

I know reading about this topic won't be pleasant, because it is something too thorny and painful, but pretending nothing is happening and failing to see the drama constantly perpetrated in our lives seems truly unintelligent and immature to me. Because whether we like it or not, violence in love is something that shouldn’t exist, and yet it is all too present.

Now the real problem is: where to start? Where can I begin talking about a subject so deep and complex? What came to mind is starting with the definition. No reasoning can be made if we don’t know what we are talking about.

Definition.

Violence in couple relationships is technically defined as Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). We aren’t talking about an argument where people scream at each other and then live happily and carefree for six months. This definition goes beyond the concept of a "domestic spat" or a "momentary lapse." That moment of shouting can happen, and it is also a moment of true confrontation that tests a love. Because after an argument, either the couple explodes or the couple becomes stronger. Not that you necessarily have to argue, but if it happens, it is not the definition of "Intimate Partner Violence."

What I want to talk about is that violence which follows a pattern of coercive behavior used by one partner to establish and maintain power and control over the other. The violence that interests me is something that happens constantly, even on a daily basis, for only one purpose: to be the dominant being.

In short, "Intimate Partner Violence" is nothing more than a plan designed and implemented in the most meticulous way possible to have physical and mental power over the other. Every day, every hour, every second, that "violent" person thinks of only one thing: how to humiliate, nullify, and annihilate the other person physically and morally.

What I wonder is just one thing: is it still possible to define a relationship as one of love, if that relationship is based on the dominance of one party and the nullification of the other?

Types of Violence

Physical

When people talk about systematic violence, they often think of visible violence. Physical violence is certainly the most well-known, because it is the most conspicuous and causes the most outcry. There is nothing more visible than a black eye, wounds, broken bones, and even an open casket during a wake.

This violence includes all those acts aimed at damaging the body, whether they are a sudden explosion or a systematic plan. They can be shoves, slaps, beatings or, in the most serious cases, acts that lead to death.

Here, a clear distinction must be made. For example, it is not violence if, in bed during a high-energy CONSENSUAL encounter, someone sprains an ankle; nor is it violence to give that light slap on the back after a partner has teased us, WITHOUT HUMILIATING US. If, however, that act ALWAYS becomes violent—meaning it not only causes pain but leads to a constant emotional state of alert—that is violence.

Psychological.

Then we have psychological violence. Here, we walk on a border that is far too thin. Yes, there is also violence linked to the mind. Because you don’t need to raise your hands to be violent. Words and attitudes are often decidedly more damaging than a slap. Words create an invisible prison from which it is then terribly difficult to escape.

Psychological violence is defined as the set of choices and attitudes aimed at "humiliation, insult, social isolation, threats, and constant control." It therefore includes all those systematic and subtle acts that have the purpose of having total moral and psychological control over the partner. For example, psychological violence is forcing—WITHOUT FREEDOM OF CHOICE—one's partner to give up their career, their friends, to change their lifestyle, hobbies, and ideals, as well as being constantly denigrated and humiliated just to ensure the partner's life is under total control.

The problem with this violence is that it is something difficult to prove. Sure, one can say they suffered it and can report the alleged executioner, but sometimes the line between true violence and exaggeration is very blurred. Follow my reasoning.

Suppose you tell your partner every time they go out, "I don’t like you hanging out with those people." The issue is this: if they do it with the goal of keeping you always under control, then it becomes psychological violence. However, I wonder: if they do it because they know those people are dangerous for you, but they leave you the freedom of choice whether to go out or not, can it still be defined as violence?

The big loophole in psychological violence is that it is a primarily subjective fact. Everything revolves around how an action is perceived, not the action itself. If a person has a broken arm, the fracture can be examined and the origin can be established immediately, confirming the theory of violence or unmasking a lie. With psychology, what is violence might not actually be violence.

A practical example: if someone calls me a "dwarf" because I am short, I don't get offended. Another person might jump off a bridge out of humiliation. Same phrase, different person—one time it’s a joke (so no violence), the other time it can be interpreted as incitement to suicide (punishable by prison).

In blatant cases of social isolation, I can understand a report, because one is systematically forced by someone to stay at home and there is no way out. But for everything else? How do you prove the goal of control if there is no evidence other than the victim's word?

Think about the fact that one of the two gives up their career for love. Suppose that choice was consensual and free. Years later, due to internal frustration and anger, that same person—who freely decided to abandon their career—reports the partner saying "there was coercion that day!" The other person is screwed, because they cannot prove it was a free choice.

With this type of violence, one must be very careful. Out there, many people have reported their partner for psychological violence when that perceived violence was just a state of personal insecurity that originated before or outside the relationship itself. Or there have been people who reported their partner just because they had the nerve to say "no."

I am not stating that psychological violence should not be prosecuted or that it doesn't exist. If I doubted it, I wouldn't have written it in this post. I am just saying it is not something that can be judged universally for every couple. Think of sadomasochism. An outside couple might see that lifestyle as "domestic violence" because it is effectively "systematic violence" (seen from the outside), while from the inside, it is something exciting, wanted, and requested. What do you do in that moment? Do you try to protect someone who doesn't need protection?

"Well, if nothing can be done, then let's forget it!" I’m not saying the issue should be ignored. I simply find that reporting has become both a means of protection and a means to apply psychological violence. Since it is now known that a person can report for anything, just one word said at the wrong moment and your life is ruined. The even more "controversial" thing is that you cannot make a law that fits everyone, for every case, regardless. It is a terrible paradox: the difficulty of proving this violence protects the guilty, but exposes the innocent to permanent damage. In both cases, the losers are truth and the dignity of the relationship.

Economic.

Psychological violence is bad, but economic violence is no joke. The concept here is simple: it is theft, and therefore a punishable crime. Economic violence is nothing more than the control of one's financial resources exercised by the partner, preventing work, or withholding a salary to make the victim dependent.

There isn't much to say: we are facing a full-blown crime. If they steal your salary, prevent you from spending your own money, and prevent you from having a job, that warrants a report.

Yes, but can it always be reported? Let’s make a small distinction. Let's talk about a couple that has three accounts: two personal and one joint. The joint account pays the bills and all those household expenses, while the personal accounts are for personal spending. In this case, there shouldn't be violence, right? Well, not exactly. Suppose one of the two wants to buy a car for themselves. The money is their own and they can do what they want. Add the detail that there is no space in the house for that car and the other prevents the purchase. In this case, the question is: is this reportable behavior? Because theoretically, one is controlling the use of their partner's money and limiting their freedom of choice.

Or take the case of the couple with a single account. Let's assume the two decided together how to spend the money for the month. Suddenly, one of the two wants to spend a large portion of that money on clothes or video games. The other tries to prevent it, saying "it's my money too." What do you do? Do you report the partner because "they are trying to make me dependent?"

Even better, one of the two works, the other stays at home without a job. The partner who works decides to spend money on a watch. Does the other partner—the one who doesn't work—have the right to say something or even to report it? By law, the two partners have equal rights and duties when it comes to money, but morally, can you really say no to the person who is supporting you and whom you accepted would support you? This too would be economic violence: systematically blocking the freedom of the person who brings home the money is morally questionable.

Again, how do you establish what is a crime and what isn't? Simple. There is only one question: is there a malicious plan to make you dependent? In all three cases, the answer is no. They are all necessary objections and resistances. Economic violence only works if one partner forces the other to quit their job and gives them a starvation-level monthly "allowance," because you are effectively limiting another person's freedom. However, I wonder: why give up your own life for love?

People often talk about eventually helping those who are victims of violence. It isn’t that automatic or simple. Physical and especially moral violence is difficult to intercept from the outside, because it knows only one boundary: inside the walls of the home. Violence has only one rule: no one must know what is happening. Outside, they are a perfect couple; at home, they live through hell on earth. Inside that house, however, there are no rules; every corner is a good place to mistreat one's partner. It can be the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom, and the bedroom.

I find there is nothing worse than literally abusing not only the body but also the partner's will to exercise a carnal and mental dominance that, frankly, shouldn’t even exist. Taking away the right of choice over one's own body and existence is something that goes beyond violence itself. It is the nullification of human self-determination that no one should touch.

Men vs. Women.

We know how violence manifests. But how does it strike? Why don't we divide humanity in two and see how males and females suffer violence and how they behave.

Women.

We know it all too well. Women suffer violence and die in relationships. Anyone who doesn't want to see it is someone who either won't accept the truth or is a man who perhaps should keep his hands in his pockets and think before speaking.

For years, perhaps decades, violence against women was underestimated. That violent behavior and systematic control over a partner was always seen as something normal. The classic excuse was "well, it's not violence! It's just a strong personality!". There was this conception that the moral and physical violence of a man wasn't really that, but just his way of transmitting "sincere and authentic love." The reason? Men were always raised that way and it's their nature. So every slap, every humiliation, every annihilation was seen as something normal and absolutely acceptable. If a woman was beaten or humiliated, it was because "she didn't stay in her place!"

When I was a child—so throughout the 90s—domestic violence or "violence in love" was hardly ever talked about. It was a debate that wasn't taken into consideration by public opinion. You heard news, but it was limited to a single episode. People always said "that man is sick and should be locked up!". It was almost impossible for that society, especially from the male side, to see the multitude of events with the same pattern. Each single case was always judged on its own, without looking at the systemic problem.

Then associations appeared—even state-funded ones—that broke through the barriers. Only then did women feel "protected" enough to be able to report abuse and violence, allowing people affected by violence not only to escape and take refuge from a terrifying situation but also to speak and bear witness to that drama inside those home walls.

What we know now—that violence in a relationship can manifest in highly diverse and sometimes very subtle ways—is thanks to those associations that provided a shield for women to defend themselves and recover from a trauma that is nonetheless impossible to erase.

We know that women suffer violence. But what numbers are we talking about?

According to the latest reports from the World Health Organization (WHO) and UN Women (updated to 2025/2026), the phenomenon remains pervasive and structural.

The ugly thing about these numbers is that it doesn’t matter where a woman lives, what social rank she belongs to, or how old she is—a woman will very often suffer violence.

Globally, about 30% of women (equal to nearly 840 million women) have suffered physical and/or sexual violence by a partner or sexual violence by third parties at least once in their lives. Effectively, nearly a billion women in 2026 have suffered violence from men. That is many, it is a lot, and it is too many. As far as I’m concerned, even one single woman suffering physical and moral violence is one too many.

To top it off, 60% of female homicides occur within the home at the hands of loved ones.

The even sadder thing? The stability. Despite awareness campaigns in recent years or decades (this dynamic has been talked about for at least a couple of decades), this percentage has remained substantially unchanged over the last ten years. Even though we shout that violence is a crime, the rhythm of blows in homes shows no sign of slowing down.

One could say "the campaigns aren't working." Well, that’s not entirely true. Sure, if you look at the numbers, we clearly have too many women who have suffered a trauma that will scar them for life. But we know it. This makes an enormous difference. Think of the past when no one cared about this issue. To the world, women were living a dream because no one wanted to see. Statistically, the women suffering violence were "0." Now we know that isn’t the case, and now women have a whole series of legal protections and associations that help them escape such horror and pick up the pieces of a destroyed psyche.

Men.

If the numbers for women leave us breathless, those regarding men leave us in an even deeper silence. A silence made of shame, prejudice, and a violence that, while existing, seems to have no right to citizenship in the eyes of the world.

We know that 30% of women suffer violence in various forms. And men? Because the rhetoric exists that men are the only ones who are violent and women are the only victims. Out of curiosity, I started looking for data on this. Well, I found something.

In 2024, 11% of male homicides in the world were perpetrated by partners or family members. While for women the home is undeniably one of the most dangerous places (60% of women killed in a relationship), we must not forget that for men too there is a portion (11% of male homicides) who fall at the hands of those who should love them. These are thousands of lives that often don't make the news.

There are two things here that make me reflect. The first is that domestic violence is a two-way street: both men and women kill. Second thing—so women kill too? Strange, because they say only men are capable of such an act.

Why are these millions of people not talked about? They too suffer violence and they too need protection and care. Yet there is an almost deafening silence.

It took me a while to find a reason. And there are two reasons.

The first is in the human conception of man. A man is used to keeping everything inside and enduring. Furthermore, a man is strong—he can handle a bit of violence! This idea exists that a man cannot allow himself weaknesses, because the woman is the "weaker sex," so she must be the fragile part of the couple that needs protecting. He doesn't need protection because he is strong; he has to be, if he wants a chance in life.

To recap: if a woman suffers at the hands of a man, the world mobilizes. If a man suffers the same thing, it is ignored and denigrated. How many men must suffer before the matter is taken seriously?

Here the "well, but women suffer more" story no longer holds up, because it isn't fair. Violence shouldn't be calculated based on quantity or the damage suffered. Violence should be eradicated and fought regardless, even if it’s just one victim. Whether that victim has a broken bone or a superficial scratch, if that pain was intentional, it must be fought.

Reducing the discourse to "we are women, there are more of us, so it gives us priority" is a truly horrible argument, because it is stating that a woman deserves more attention than a man. So, in this case, gender equality doesn't apply because a man suffers female violence less?

But what type of violence do men suffer?

The data available is not as accurate as the female data because there is a "submerged" reality. Many men do not report, or when they do, they are not taken seriously. Because if a man slaps a woman it’s violence, but if a woman slaps a man it’s "passionate love." Furthermore, services are lacking: only a tiny fraction of men who are victims of abuse (about 4.4% in some European contexts) receive support from specialized services, often because they don’t know who to turn to.

From the analysis of support centers (like the ManKind Initiative), it emerges that men suffer a specific mix of abuses:

Almost all the violence suffered by men is psychological and emotional. We are talking about nearly all cases. A woman who wants to exercise violence against a man knows perfectly well she is not stronger than a man and won't be able to hurt him physically. So she uses the psyche. Often it involves humiliations of every form, denigration, and the nullification of freedom of action and autonomy.

Then we have coercive Control, duch as controlling who he sees, due to personal or pathological insecurities; threats of being kept away from children or of false accusations of all kinds, just to obtain control or what she wants, using as weapons those means that a woman should use to defend herself.

We also have physical Violence. Even if a woman is weaker than a man, a woman tries to cause physical harm anyway. We are talking about direct attacks, often using objects. There are women who punch and slap men, use bladed weapons just to control the man and get what they want. Often the justification is "he really made me angry." The incredible thing is that this justification is accepted by the world.

Last, but not the least, we have also economic violence. This is the most underestimated violence. The problem is that the man earns and the woman uses that money, even if she also earns money. Along the lines of "your money is my money and my money is my money." When a woman has that control, the man can do nothing. A woman who wants to induce violence will have control over the finances or will block the man's access to money. Yet the same woman can spend whatever she wants, because she is a woman. Furthermore, she will complain about the fact that he doesn't provide a better life, forcing him to work more just because her own life is unhappy and she wants more. A woman uses a man's love against him to obtain an economic advantage... an advantage she could have had by working more herself, or just by working.

Conclusions.

Violence has no gender and has no excuses. It is a cancer that eats human dignity and love from the inside, feeding on silence and a culture that too often chooses to look only where it is easiest to point the finger.

I wanted to talk about this not to turn a firing squad against anyone, but to add my grain of rice to the scale of awareness. If we really want to talk about equality, we must have the courage to see the whole picture: defend the woman without forgetting the man, condemn physical abuse without ignoring the psychological or economic.

Love is not dominance, it is not control, it is not silence. Love is the courage to remain free, together. Because if a relationship requires the nullification of the other to exist, then let's call it by its name: it is not love, it is just violence. And violence is a weight that no one, man or woman, should be forced to carry alone.

It is not a race to see who suffers more. Reducing the discourse to a matter of percentages is horrible: it means stating that the pain of one individual is worth less than that of another just because of the sex they have between their legs. Equality cannot be a one-way street.

The world unfortunately only has eyes for the violence of one side, completely forgetting the small detail that both sexes have violent and animalistic instincts. Just as a man knows how to be violent, so can a woman; just as a man knows how to be fragile, so can a woman.

Violence is a phenomenon that affects all human beings. Falling into the marketing trap of certain feminist fringes, who manage to sell their situation better, is a grave error, because it creates that mentality of some violence being more violent than others. No such idea exists. Violence is violence and must be fought regardless of who perpetrates it, and those who suffer it must be protected, independent of their gender.

This too is what equality means. Because even just one person suffering violence is one person too many. Love must be a safe place, not a one-way ticket to hell.

M.