By Christine Murray

As Valentine’s Day approaches, we’re continuing our two-part mini-series on dating in the aftermath of abusive relationships. Last week, we shared insights for survivors interested in dating again. Today, we’re focusing on another perspective here in the Pathway for Supporters Blog: What to consider when you’re dating someone who has experienced an abusive relationship.

If you’ve recently started dating someone and learned they have a history of being in an abusive relationship, you might feel a mix of emotions—interest, care, and possibly nervousness about navigating this dynamic. It’s natural to wonder how their past experiences might influence your relationship and how you can be supportive. This post offers some insights on approaching this situation with understanding, patience, and respect.

See the Person, Not Just Their Experience

First and foremost, remember that your partner’s history of abuse is just one part of who they are. Like anyone, they’re shaped by a unique mix of positive and challenging life experiences. Resist the temptation to make assumptions or draw conclusions based solely on their past experience of an abusive relationship. Instead, focus on getting to know them as an individual—including their interests, values, dreams, and personality.

Their experiences in an abusive relationship may inform some of their perspectives or behaviors, but they don’t define them. Approach your relationship with curiosity and a genuine desire to understand and appreciate the whole person.

Create a Safe and Supportive Space

If your partner shares their history with you, thank them for trusting you with that information. Let them know you’re open to hearing more, but respect their boundaries and timeline. Survivors often have personalized preferences for whether and how to talk about their past—some may want to discuss their experiences, while others may prefer to focus on the present and future.

Ask them how you can best support them. A simple question like, “Is there anything you’d like me to know or do to support you?” can go a long way in showing your care and thoughtfulness.

Avoid Stigma, Shame, or Blame

Many survivors of abuse carry feelings of internal and external shame due to their experiences. It’s essential to approach this with sensitivity and avoid any words or actions that might suggest blame or judgment. Be mindful of your attitudes and ensure your interactions reinforce the fact that they are not at fault for the abuse they experienced.

Educate Yourself About Abuse Dynamics

Taking time to learn about the dynamics of abusive relationships can help you better understand your partner’s past experiences and reactions. Resources like the National Domestic Violence Hotline provide valuable insights into the patterns of power and control that characterize abusive relationships. While this knowledge is helpful, remember that every survivor’s experiences are unique. Avoid making assumptions or projecting generalizations onto your partner’s story.

Practice Healthy Relationship Skills

Building a healthy relationship benefits everyone, but it’s especially important when dating someone with a history of abuse. Focus on qualities like open communication, reliability, respect, kindness, and honesty. If you’re not in a place to consistently offer these qualities to a romantic partner, consider taking time to work on yourself before pursuing a new relationship.

Be clear about your intentions, and approach the relationship with sincerity. Creating a safe, supportive space for your partner helps both of you develop trust and emotional security.

Recognize Your Own History

While your partner may have a history of abuse, it’s worth reflecting on your own experiences as well--and it’s possible you also have experienced unsafe or unhealthy past relationships. Consider how your past challenges or relationships have shaped you and how they might influence your current connection. Sharing your own story in time, when appropriate, can foster mutual understanding and support.

Avoid Harmful Behaviors

Certain behaviors can harm a survivor’s healing journey and erode trust. For example, avoid:

• Judging or labeling your partner as “damaged” or “problematic.”
• Using their past against them in conflicts.
• Rushing them to share their story before they’re ready.

Instead, focus on creating a respectful and caring foundation for your relationship.

Embrace Growth Together

Relationships grow and evolve in unique ways, and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to building a healthy connection with someone who has experienced past abuse. However, kindness, patience, and mutual respect are universal essentials.

As you navigate this new chapter, remember that your relationship is a journey. Take the time to get to know each other, build trust, and explore your shared goals and interests. By prioritizing a safe, supportive context for your relationship, you’re laying the groundwork for a meaningful and fulfilling connection.

For more resources on fostering healthy relationships, explore the Healthy Relationships Initiative that I’ve developed with my colleagues to find other tools designed to support couples in building positive, lasting connections.

By Christine Murray

If someone you care about—a family member, friend, neighbor, or coworker—disclosed to you that they were in an abusive relationship, would you feel confident in offering support and providing a caring and informed response? It's common to feel anxious, nervous, and uncertain when faced with this scenario. However, there are steps you can take to prepare yourself to help someone in an abusive relationship.

Here's a brief checklist to offer some steps you can take to be prepared if someone in your life is impacted by an abusive relationship:

Things You Can Say:

1. Express Concern: Let them know you're there to help and support them whenever they're ready to talk.
2. Validate Their Feelings: Assure them that their experiences are valid and not their fault.
3. Offer Encouragement: Remind them that they deserve to be treated with respect and love.

Resources You Can Call:

1. Local Emergency Services: Call 911 or your local emergency line if there are any immediate dangers or safety risks.
2. Crisis Hotlines: Save numbers like the National Domestic Violence Hotline and the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
   
3. Local Domestic Violence Agencies: Research and contact agencies in the survivor’s own community for support and guidance.

Things You Can Do:

1. Educate Yourself: Learn about the dynamics of abusive relationships and safety planning through available resources.
   
2. Be Supportive and Non-Judgmental: Commit to understanding their unique needs and helping them navigate safely.
3. Practice Self-Care: Take care of your own well-being while offering care and support to your loved one.

Offering support to someone in an abusive relationship can be challenging, but a strong support system can make a huge difference in the life of a survivor. Recognize your limitations and seek professional help if needed. The steps outlined here are a starting point to equip yourself with the knowledge and resources to support your loved one effectively.

Explore our Other Resources page for additional information and support opportunities.

By Christine Murray

The Source for Survivors has two main audiences: (1) Survivors of intimate partner violence and other forms of interpersonal violence who are walking the long-term healing journey and (2) Community supporters -- including both professionals and personal supporters like family members and friends -- who are interested in supporting survivors on their long-term healing journeys. 

Focusing on community supporters, our Pathway for Community Supports outlines 6 Commitments to Being Survivor-Centered. Over time, we’ll share a lot of resources for community supporters related to each of those 6 Commitments. However, as we’re just getting started, today I’ll share a working definition of what being “survivor-centered” means.

The term survivor-centered has long been used in the arena of services for domestic violence and other forms of interpersonal violence and abuse. Below is a brief list of some ways others have described this approach:

• Annika Huff, in a guest blog for the Polaris Project, which focuses on human trafficking, describes a survivor-centered approach as “putting survivors’ lived experiences at the heart of the work an organization or movement is doing.”
• USAID describes four principles that underlie a survivor-centered approach: (1) ensuring survivors’ safety; (2) protecting their confidentiality, (3) respecting their needs and wishes, and (4) honoring diversity and practicing nondiscrimination.
• Digna, a Canadian organization focusing on sexual abuse and exploitation, writes that “a survivor-centered approach seeks to empower survivors by prioritizing their rights, safety, well-being, needs and wishes.” 

As these examples illustrate, being survivor-centered means that individual and organizational helpers strive to understand and prioritize the needs of survivors in all aspects of the support they offer. 

Building on the definitions above, our Source for Survivors working definition of being survivor-centered while supporting survivors in their long-term healing journey following experiences of abuse has four parts:

1. Understanding survivors’ needs, experiences, and perspectives.
2. Prioritizing survivors’ needs, experiences, and perspectives in the ways you offer support.
3. Empowering survivors to lead the way through all phases of their healing journeys.
4. Engaging survivors by “making space at the table” for them whenever possible.

Below, I’ll share a few examples of actions that community supporters can take to bring each aspect of the survivor-centered approach to life.

Understanding survivors’ needs, experiences, and perspectives. There are two main ways that community supporters can gain more insight into survivors’ needs, experiences, and perspectives. 

First, you can learn directly from the survivor(s) you are supporting. Take time to listen to their stories, use active listening practices, ask open-ended questions, create a safe space for the survivors to share more of their experiences (while also honoring their right to choose how much to share, and how soon), and withhold judgments and assumptions that may get in your way of truly understanding the survivors’ own experiences (versus your own interpretations of those experiences). Seeking to learn directly from each survivor you encounter is extremely valuable, because every survivor has a unique story to tell and has their own personal needs and perspectives. 

Second, you can seek out credible sources of information to learn about general dynamics of abusive relationships and the process of recovering from past abuse. While it’s so important to learn directly from each survivor about their unique experiences, it also can be extremely helpful to gain more general knowledge and awareness about abusive relationships and trauma recovery. This knowledge will help you bring a baseline level of understanding to the support you’re offering. 

In an upcoming Source for Survivors blog post (coming up the week of January 15th!), I’ll share some excellent free, online educational resources about domestic violence, abuse recovery, and mental health. In the meantime, you can visit our Other Resources page for a few initial sources of additional information on these topics.

Prioritizing survivors’ needs, experiences, and perspectives in the ways you offer support. Understanding the lived experiences of survivors is an important first step to being survivor-centered. It’s important to build on that understanding and make an intentional commitment to make that understanding a priority in your interactions with survivors. Being intentional about this is so important that it’s the first Commitment in our Source for Survivors Pathway for Community Supports.

Below are two examples of ways that helpers can bring this priority to life:

• Asking yourself (personally or at an organizational level): 
  • Is this action based on the survivor(s)’s needs or my/our assumptions?
    
  • Have I/we taken enough time to understand the survivor(s)’ needs?
  • How can I/we seek more input from the survivor(s) before taking action?
  • What more can I/we do show genuine care and concern for the survivor(s)’ unique circumstances? 

• Keeping an eye out for blind spots and barriers that may get in the way of survivors’ needs being met. 
  • Blind spots are ways in which individual or organizational helpers can’t fully understand survivors’ experiences because they fall outside their personal experiences and knowledge. 
  • Barriers are practical or systemic roadblocks to accessing services or supports that survivors may need, such as a lack of transportation or child care to access services, or the stigma that may keep survivors from reaching out for help because they have been made to feel ashamed of their experiences. 
  • When new blind spots or barriers are identified, community supporters can (ideally, in partnership with survivors) work to brainstorm solutions and strategies to overcome them. 

Empowering survivors to lead the way through all phases of their healing journeys. For decades, an empowerment approach has been integrated into domestic violence service agencies. This approach focuses on supporting survivors to make decisions for themselves and their own well-being. An empowerment approach is a valuable framework for supporting survivors who are in abusive relationships, and also while they are breaking free from those relationships. 

The empowerment approach also is a useful way to approach supporting survivors through the long-term healing journey, especially because abusive relationships are disempowering for most survivors because of the many ways that abusers exert power and control. 

For many survivors, the long-term journey of recovering from past abuse is a “long way home to myself,” as a survivor who participated in the See the Triumph research I’ve conducted with my colleagues described it. I’ve always loved that quote because it underscores how individualized the healing journey is. 

Unless there are immediate safety risks (e.g., if a survivor is in a mental health crisis and at risk of harming themself or others) or there are legal mandates for intervening (e.g., if there is suspected child maltreatment that needs to be reported to the authorities), in general it is wise to empower and support survivors in making decisions for themselves, even if you as a helper may disagree with those decisions.

For example, if a survivor says they are not ready to seek counseling, but you think they really should do so, you should likely honor their decision and avoid pressuring them to seek that type of support. Aim to support the survivor right where they are, and continue to empower and support them in making the right decisions for themselves at any given moment.

I’ll add that it’s very important for helpers--whether professionals or friends and family members--to take good care of themselves and set healthy boundaries while using this empowerment approach. We’ll cover the topic of self-care for helpers a lot in future blog posts here, but I want to acknowledge that the empowerment approach can be very challenging at a personal and emotional level for supporters, especially if you’re personally concerned about the impact of a survivors’ decisions on their own or others’ well-being. 

Keep in mind that you can also personally use an empowerment mindset in thinking about how to care for your own well-being, while also supporting survivor(s) along their healing journey.

Engaging survivors by “making space at the table” for them whenever possible. Finally, especially at the organizational level (e.g., service agencies, healthcare providers, community systems), being survivor-centered often involves actively creating opportunities for survivors to partner with you to inform decisions and plans about how services and resources are offered to survivors. 

There are many possible ways to engage survivors in organizational decision-making, such as the following:

• Using research or evaluation strategies to seek their input, such as through feedback surveys, focus groups, and/or individual interviews.
• Including individuals with relevant lived experiences on organizational decision-making committees (e.g., Boards, Leadership Teams, Task Forces). 
• Establishing advisory committees that include survivors, such as the VOICES Committee model developed by the Family Justice Center Alliance. 
  
• Empowering survivors to share their stories, whether privately or publicly, in ways that are meaningful and comfortable to them. (Check out the See the Triumph Collection my team developed on this topic: Every Survivor Has a Story). 
  

Recognizing the uniqueness of each survivor’s healing journey, it’s also important to aim for diversity in the types of experiences and backgrounds among the survivors represented in these ways. 

Conclusion. Being survivor-centered is a continuous journey, not a one-time task to check off. Just as survivors embark on a long-term process of recovery, community supporters, too, are on a journey to build and sustain a survivor-centered approach. 

In this post, we've reviewed a four-part working definition, urging an understanding of survivors' needs and experiences, prioritizing their perspectives, and empowering them in decision-making. Stay connected to the Pathway for Community Supports Blog as we delve deeper, offering more resources and insights to carry out the survivor-centered commitment.

By Christine Murray

Starting something new is almost always exciting and nerve-wracking.

This is my first blog post for The Source for Survivors, aside from the introduction posts to provide an overview of the Pathway for Survivors and the Pathway for Community Supports. As I pondered what my next first post should be, I couldn’t help but feel some pressure to figure out the “perfect” starter blog to set the right tone for the two Source for Survivors blogs.

I’ve brainstormed lots of topics that I can cover in future posts for both survivors and community supports, but figuring out the “right” topic to start with felt really important. While sorting through my internal sense of pressure to pick the “best” place to start, I realized that this pressure is similar to how many people feel when they are facing new beginnings.

Most relevant to The Source for Survivors, I realized the pressure of trying to figure out the “right” starting place for this blog is likely similar to how many survivors feel as they are starting on their healing journey, as well as to how community supporters may feel when they want to figure out the best starting point for making changes to be more survivor-centered.

Why do so many of us put so much pressure on ourselves to figure out the right place to start? I think there are at least three big reasons:

1. We feel like we’re starting from scratch.
2. We compare our starting point with others’ journeys that are at different stages of progress.
3. We’re afraid if we don’t start at the “right” spot, it will set us off course and we’ll end up in the wrong place.
   

Just because we're facing a new start doesn't mean that we're starting from scratch. It's easy for me to look at The Source for Survivors as something totally new. But, the truth is that even though this is a new resource I’m gearing up to launch, the resource and this specific blog post are, in many ways, building on my life's work and experiences that led me to this point of recognizing the need for this resource and mustering up the courage to launch it.

Similarly, if you’re a survivor who is either entering a new phase of your healing journey or who feels like you’re starting a brand new healing process, remember that you’re not starting from scratch, either. Instead, you're building on a series of successes, challenges, failures, life lessons, and experiences that have brought you right to this point.

The same could be said for community supporters who are looking to become more survivor-centered. The truth is, while you might at times feel like you're stepping outside of your comfort zone and don't know where to begin, in reality, you’re building on the collective wisdom, organizational history, and/or life experiences that you've had.

It’s also important to resist the temptation to compare your starting point with the journeys of others. There’s a part of me that wishes that this were my 100th (or even 1,000th) blog post for The Source for Survivors.

Wouldn’t it be nice to just fast forward to where other, more sustained blogs are, where any one single post didn’t feel like it carried so much weight? Perhaps, but I need to be careful not to compare my process with this blog with others (and even my own prior work, such as the See the Triumph blog, which has been in existence for over 10 years now!).

If you're a survivor and you're facing a fresh starting point along your journey from healing from abuse, honor where you are today and try to avoid getting derailed by your perception of where other people are. Outwardly, others may look to be farther along, but we never know what kinds of internal struggles people are facing. 
It’s also possible that others are more progressed in their healing, but you only know a little bit about how long and difficult a struggle they’ve faced. Try to withhold judging or belittling yourself for where your starting point is in comparison to others. Keep in mind that your journey is your own.

If you represent a community-based organization or service provider, or if you’re an individual striving to support a loved one who is healing from past abuse, honor your unique starting point as well. Look to other organizations or individuals who have taken steps to infuse survivor-centered supports in their approach for inspiration, not self-condemnation.

It takes time and dedication to grow in your capacity to offer truly supportive, trauma-informed approaches. Making an initial commitment to being survivor-centered may not feel significant, but it’s an important catalyst for further change.

Finally, it's crucial to acknowledge that there isn’t one 'perfect,' 'right,' or 'best' starting point when it comes to healing from abuse or embracing a survivor-centered approach. Honor your unique starting point. In time, you might reflect and think about starting earlier, later, or in a different way. But looking back, we don't always see things clearly, and hindsight isn’t always 20/20. Trust that you are getting started right where you should be. Embrace your journey, and remember, every step forward is a significant achievement.

Today is a starting point for you (or your organization). Tomorrow will be a new starting point, and the day after that, and every day after that as well. Each day brings a new opportunity to commit to your healing if you’re a survivor, or your dedication to being survivor-centered if you are a supporter. Don't worry if it's perfect, if it's right, or if it's the best place to start. Just know that your starting point today is right where you need to be, and it'll take you where you need to go, especially if you commit to learning and growing along the journey.

So, cheers to new beginnings, fresh starts, and starting points - even when we don’t know exactly where they will take us!

I would love to hear about your thoughts about starting points, so feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.