Information for Teens and Young Adults

Many people of all ages don’t recognize that they are in an abusive relationship. We have a checklist of abusive behavior for people of all ages on our Signs of Abuse page. Below are some warning signs of teen and young adult dating violence specifically.

Does your partner:

• demand to look at your email or social media accounts, or log into your email or social media accounts without permission?
• demand to check your phone, or look at your phone without your permission;
• put you down, insult you, or call you names?
• get jealous or insecure, or make you change your behavior to make your partner feel better?
• try to make you ‘confess’ to doing things that you haven’t done or make false accusations about your behavior, like accusing you of cheating?
• have outbursts or a “bad temper” that causes you to be frightened or fear for your safety?
• demand that you stop talking to certain friends, classmates, or others?
• insist that you not tell your parents about your relationship or about certain parts of your relationship?
• pressure or force you to have sex or do sexual things you don’t want to do or that make you feel uncomfortable or disrespected?
• physically hurt you in any way?¹

You can also see more examples of dating violence at Loveisrespect’s “What Are the Different Types of Dating Abuse?”

¹ This information was adapted from Loveisrespect’s “Is This Abuse?”