Table 3.
Factors that hinder the prevention of and coping with violence.
| Categories | Subcategories | Testimonial | Participant |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fear | …Those who see me think that since I practice karate, I can defend myself from everything…. In my relationship, I had to put a stop to it because otherwise, I could be mistreated…some people don’t act right away because they don’t know how to do it, they don’t know how to handle it, and others don’t act out of fear…. There are things that are very scary. | PF12-D1 | |
| Threats | They say “I’m going to die if you leave me, if you leave me, I’ll kill myself,” and the other person feels compassion for them and stays. | P2M-D3 | |
| It escalates so much that there are times when they use threats…saying things like, for example, “you’re never leaving my side” and “if you leave, I’ll hurt you and your whole family.” | P7M-D1 | ||
| Lack of knowledge and resources to take action | It’s happened to me…and when you see that the person is crossing a line. The truth is that in that situation…. I don’t know how to act…. | P4F-D5 | |
| It makes me ashamed because it was the first time, and I would have liked to have had information to know how to handle it, to know how to react. | PF12-D1 | ||
| Not identifying being in a violent relationship | I think the first step is to know how to identify when you’re being subjected to violence. It’s important to realize that you’re being attacked so you can stop it…. It’s the first step, it’s the way to stop normalizing that situation. | P13M-D1 | |
| I think it’s hard when someone has a boyfriend/girlfriend for the first time and has a violent experience…. The first love is always something unique, beautiful, it fills you, and because it’s something new, you want to stay in love with someone…. But sometimes, some people don’t realize it and accept violent relationships…they get used to it…they think it’s normal, and they can continue looking for the same kind of people…. They don’t have another perspective because they don’t have any other experiences. | P1F-D1 | ||
| Shame and concealment of violence | I think many people are embarrassed to talk about these things…but it’s important to stop it, and when it first happens, you have to have the strength to say, no more. You have to understand that if you’re attacked once, that person will always do it. If you don’t stop it in the beginning, you condemn yourself. | P12F-D1 | |
| Because in most cases of violence in relationships, in my opinion, they don’t want anyone to know. Then they don’t go to a place where they can help. | P2M-D5 | ||
| Immaturity/Lack of Experience | We’re not going to be completely mature like adults…because there’s always something we don’t know, and we can act in the wrong way. | P8M-D5 | |
| It’s also related to experience, because if you’re too young to know what it’s like to have a relationship, I don’t think you should get involved if you’re not ready yet, because you’re still really immature. | P3F-D7 | ||
| Lack of communicational resources | Let’s say, for example, if you’re a person who gets really angry, fix that. | P7M-D3 | |
| Lack of trust and communication with family | Parents have a lot of influence on making good decisions, but in my case, I don’t have a close relationship with my dad or my mom. So, in my case, I have to fix things myself, and sometimes I have to trust other people. I don’t see this as a good option, though, because although they’re close to me, they’re not the same as parents. There’s a conflict, within yourself…will the decision be ok? | P9F-D5 | |
| In families right now, there’s like a taboo of being on the phone; I get home, my dad tells me I’m beautiful, but he’s on the phone, and we also arrive and are on the phone, and we get more information from social media than our parents. So, I think our parents should talk to us and give us advice. | P5F-D8 | ||
| Stay silent | I think there are many people who accept being treated like this in a relationship, they don’t tell anyone, and so they suffer. Not only are they sad, but they can also have psychological damage. They stay quiet and don’t say anything about how they feel. | P1M-D5 | |
| Patriarchal culture | Normalization of violence | It’s also important to ignore what people say; for example, suppose that a person is attacked, beaten, and psychologically abused in a marriage, and the relatives tell them: “You have to endure, in my time, we did that, so you also have to take it, you have to understand that the man is superior, stronger, and sometimes reacts badly because he’s impulsive.” You have to overcome that questioning and move forward with the choice not to accept it. | P6M-D1 |
| I think it’s hard when someone has a boyfriend/girlfriend for the first time and has a violent experience. The first love is always something unique, beautiful, it fills you, and because it’s something new, you want to stay in love with someone…. But sometimes, some people don’t realize it and accept violent relationships…they get used to it…they think it’s normal, and they can continue looking for the same kind of people…. They don’t have another perspective because they don’t have any other experiences. | P1M-D1 | ||
| Myths of romantic love | It’s the same when you’ve been with someone for a long time, you feel that need to be with that person more because of what you feel about the relationship, because of the time you have together and the story you have, these are the things that matter. | P7M-D1 | |
| Keep going because if you love each other, it’s for something, it’s because you decided to be together. | P9M-D2 | ||
| If you say she belongs to me, she belongs to me, it’s like a little messed up. It depends on the reason, and it depends on the moment. | P2M-D3 | ||
| Paternalism and the love–abuse link | They adopt behaviors believing that it’s for the good of the relationship or for the good of the people…people who are manipulated believe it…they believe that the words they say to you or the times they mistreat you don’t matter because you believe that they do everything for your own good. | P8M-D2 | |
| So, even though there’s violence, almost always the relationship continues, the verbal abuse doesn’t matter because love is stronger. | P1M-D3 | ||
| Tendency to blame the victim | I also agree with the idea that someone who allows themselves to be mistreated or manipulated is also pretty guilty…because if you want it to stop, you have the right to say, “No, I don’t want to be mistreated” or something like that…you have the obligation to speak up and say “that’s enough.” | P11F-D1 | |
| You keep that mentality…it’s like a wound. At night, you think about “What did I do wrong to be treated like this?” Or crying every night…it’s like feeling guilty that the other person treats you badly. | P4F-D5 | ||
| Justification of violence | Sometimes the woman is to blame, too. Like, because, like, in my case, my mom talks to men and things like that. I mean, it’s different with my dad, so…. I mean, my dad was hitting my mom. That confirmed it. […] He didn’t want to stop fighting at all because he told me, “You, go to your room, don’t get involved.” Anyway, I didn’t. I can’t do anything. | P4M-D6 | |
| Repetition and teachings of sexist patterns at home | I think that people are going reflect what happened at home…they’re going to act based on what they see in their family…it depends on how they were treated by their fathers, and that’s why some men are so violent, because they think that the way they were treated by their parents, maybe they are that way, and they don’t know how to be any other way, so they just copy that behavior…. | P3M-D5 | |
| When you see your parents start fighting, insulting each other, or if they start hitting each other…. You think that’s normal, and so sometimes people behave like that in a relationship…because you think it’s normal. | P5M-D2 |
Triangulation between the researchers based on the participants’ experiences as narrated in the focus groups.