You may be longing for help with domestic abuse, yet your partner is in complete denial. What do you do?

Some people shy away from getting help for domestic violence because they claim that their partner will "never" admit to being abusive. Well, this may be true, but this is certainly not a reason to allow things to remain status-quo.

Your partner's denial is the normal resistance in the initial stage of treatment. Domestic violence therapy is designed to help one overcome that very resistance. Oftentimes people don't even acknowledge their being abusive until well into a domestic abuse treatment program.

Effective abuse therapy is geared toward inspiring the realization that they are in need of this treatment. And a goal of the therapy is that the client will engage in healthy responsibility taking, rather than victim blaming.

Clients often enter domestic abuse therapy with a highly developed sense of denial and resistance to acknowledging their abusive behavior. And over time, accountability takes over.

Here's how the progression occurs...

1) Fear of loss of something that is dear to them...their intimate relationship, their family, their children, their jobs, status in the community, the threat of public humiliation and, for some people, a profound fear of being alone.

2) Realization of victim empathy...transcending their own self-centered narcissism and beginning to understand the damaging effects that their behavior has on their partner as well as on other people in the family.

3) Legal consequences...connecting the legal implications of their domestically abusive behavior sends and sustains a enduring message. They don't want to get locked up. They don't want to lose their job. And they don't want to lose their social standing.

4) Self-inspired realization that they don't want to live like this. They don't want to be driven by insecurity, jealousy and anxiety. The batterer is not happy battering. They may be addicted to it, but at the end of the day, when they are looking at themselves, it does not feel good.

They are emotionally tormented people, who project their own sense of emotional turmoil, insecurity and internal chaos onto others. They long omnipotence, yet deep inside struggle with their impotence.

The denial and the resistance are very normal on the front end and effective therapy is designed to address this. So, you acknowledge that your partner's denial is part of the abuse dynamic, and you expect effective therapy to dismantle it.