The Implications Of Parental Intimate Partner Violence On Young Adults’ Intimate Relationships

Abstract

Intimate Partner Violence is a significant global, social, and general medical condition in both developed and developing nations. Violent behavior can be transferred from a present generation to the next when one witnesses or gets exposed to violence between one’s parents, although the impact may differ from males to females. Witnessing Intimate Partner Violence in the initial stages of your life as a child can be very disturbing. Objective: This study sought to explore the implications of parental intimate partner violence on young adults’ intimate relationships by exploring participants’ knowledge on the types of IPV, ways by which participants navigated through their experiences of IPV, implications for their own intimate relationships and finally ways they navigated the good and bad aspects of their intimate relationships. Method: With the use of purpose sampling technique and snowball sampling, a total of fifteen participants were selected for the study. The data was organized and analyzed by employing Thematic Analysis Format. Findings showed that there is a gendered experience of intimate partner violence. Participants highlighted four types of intimate partner violence namely, verbal, physical, psychological, and economic violence. Gaslighting was one unique form of psychological violence that emerged in the study. Most participants developed fear for marriage, divorce, modelling violent behaviour, resisting the support of third parties to choose safer ways of navigating challenges within their own intimate relationships. The study showed that based on these experiences, participants devised strategies that will be a hindrance to the rise of violence in their own intimate relationships. The contribution of this thesis to knowledge is that it has revealed the gendered experiences of Parental Intimate Partner Violence and the negative implication of participants intimate relationships.