The cycle of abuse, or cycle of violence, has 4 distinctive stages which are usually familiar to those living in abusive relationships. While the stages may look different in each relationship, they key characterisation of each stage generally remains the same. As time progresses, some of the stages can get shorter, and eventually disappear altogether.

1. The tensions building stage can feel like walking on eggshells, it can feel as though your partner is finding things to be frustrated or angry about despite your efforts to keep things calm. There is a sense of foreboding knowing that the second stage is coming.

2. The explosion or incident stage is the primary abuse event. While all of the stages have their own role in an abusive relationship and all contain abusive behaviours, stage 2 is the more easily recognised abusive event. It can be a single incident, or a period of abuse.

3. The remorse, or justifying, is characterised by denial and blaming, making excuses and minimising. This can be as much about convincing you as themselves. By not taking responsibility for their own behaviours the perpetrator is able to keep acting the same way.

4. The honeymoon stage is when things are calm. The perpetrator may try to show how helpful and loving they are. This stage can sometimes be just enough to convince you to stay - when things are calm, you see the person you initially fell in love with.
   

The Duluth Power and Control wheel, by Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs, is represented by eight segments outlining some of the most common types of abuse perpetrated by men against women as way to control, or maintain power over, their partner; this is why power and control is at the center of the wheel. The outer rim of the wheel, physical and sexual violence, is, for many, the most common modes of abuse that hold everything else together and allow for the other abuses.

The Duluth model is a representation of a male-abusing-female relationship not as an oversight of female perpetrators, or in the absence of understanding of same sex or transgender relationships, but instead as acknowledgement of the heteronormative spread of abusive relationships and also the societal imbalance of power between the sexes. While females can also be the perpetrators of violence they do not always fit within the same abusive behaviours, and can sometimes be abusive in response to be battered over time.

Same sex and transgender relationships where violence is present face differing, and sometimes more, barriers due to the overall societal oppression experienced by those in our rainbow community.

The choice, by Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs, not to show the model as a gender neutral is in acknowledgment of the power imbalances between the male and female genders. If you are a member of the rainbow community the power and control wheel can be explored with your counsellor for how it does or does not represent your experience.

The Duluth Equality wheel, also by Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs, was created to be used in alongside, in contrast to, the Power and Control wheel.

The Equality wheel was not, as it would first appear, created to be a representation of an equal relationship - although it could certainly be used as a model of one - instead, it shows the change required by a perpetrator to move from an abusive relationship to a non-violent one. As an example, the segment “minimizing, denying and blaming” in the Power and Control wheel is contrasted by “honesty and accountability” in the Equality wheel. This allows the wheels to be used together to explore types of abuse, and pathways out of abuse, with both perpetrators and victims.

Anger can often be used as a ‘face’ emotion to cover up many different emotions, either consciously or subconsciously.

Anger is often an emotion which is projected outwards, which can make it easier to fell, or to sit with, than some other emotions which have internal locus. Feelings such as shame, guilt, helplessness, humiliation, confusion, and many others, can be difficult or uncomfortable for people to ‘sit with’ so they, often unknowingly, channel them in to anger. Taking the time to unpack anger, and to discover the feelings hiding behind it, can help to address the cause, either within yourself, or with your relationship.