The Investment Model of Relationships Many times, survivors of IPV are unable to escape the relationship or the social context in which the abuse is occurring. There are many reasons for this, and people in such situations require support and assistance. The investment model of relationships provides one way of conceptualizing how and why some individuals remain in abusive relationships. Developed by Caryl E. Rusbult (1983), this model describes the balancing of benefits in a given relationship—which include social status, housing, financial stability, and relationships with children and other family members—with the possibilities that would be available if the relationship ends (Ma et al., 2023) . According to this model, these benefits can be characterized as elements that satisfy a need and tend to support commitment. Contributing to these perceived benefits are the alternatives available to the victim without the relationship and what the individual sees as their investment(s) in the relationship. As the alternatives decrease in value and the investments increase in value, an individual may be more likely to sustain a relationship – regardless of that relationship’s other components, up to and including IPV (Campbell & Moore, 2020) . In fact, the relationship may be mediating some of the social determinants of health for the individual, such as access to housing, education, social support, immigration status, and more, increasing both its value and the risks incurred by leaving. Viewing IPV through the dual lenses of the investment model framework and the social determinants of health can help clinicians understand aspects of abuse that they often find perplexing. The first is why an individual chooses to remain in an abusive situation even at significant risk to his or her own health and safety. One of the strategies to establish power and control, as noted in the Power and Control Wheel (see Figure 1), involves using or threatening children or other family members. If an individual believes that he or she is protecting others by remaining in an abusive relationship, the alternative (i.e., injury or death to others) is unacceptable. Many providers also struggle to understand why those affected by IPV are unwilling to report or provide evidence of the crimes to law enforcement. In the context of the investment model, the potential exposure of status as a victimized person, in combination with the loss of other social supports, may outweigh hiding the abuse and/or remaining in the relationship. An affected individual may fear shame or retaliation from the community and family or even from authorities. In addition to creating a potentially isolating and upsetting alternative, such a situation may feel as essentially unsafe as remaining in the relationship and therefore lacking in value. Children All too often, children are present in households where IPV occurs. Studies indicate that as many as 24.6% of children in the United States have witnessed IPV in their household at some point in their lives (Forke et al., 2019; Showalter et al., 2020) . Children who are exposed to IPV also experience negative consequences. Many of these children are physically abused themselves, and many are injured during assaults occurring between caregiving partners (Showalter et al., 2020) . In addition, when individuals are exposed to violence in childhood, their risk of adverse outcomes— Teens/Young Adults Two critical milestones in human development are reached during adolescence: the shift from family to peers as the primary social group and the initiation of dating behaviors (Busching & Krahé, 2020) . Relationships take on special
Social pressure to maintain a relationship from a peer or religious group – can also inform decisions to remain in or return to an abusive relationship (Burton & Guidry, 2021) . As these are also often sources of social support, the social determinants of health must thus be considered. Similarly, when the abusive partner controls access to financial or housing resources, the individual may fear that leaving creates greater risks to his or her health and safety, such as being homeless or indigent. In this case, the relationship may satisfy basic needs despite being abusive. The considerations of investment and the social determinants of health can easily be considered at and translated to various points in the life span. For example, although an adult woman may fear becoming homeless or endangering her family, an adolescent may be equally as concerned about becoming socially isolated or having a parent discover the abuse (Bundock et al., 2020) . Developmental considerations for different age groups are reviewed in subsequent sections. As mentioned previously, the effects of IPV are not confined or singular events but reach across the life span of an individual. Worse, they may carry over to the lives of the individual’s children and grandchildren through generational types of retraumatization (Messinger et al., 2019) . The consequences of IPV can be manifested in many ways, including poor physical health, poor mental health, poor job performance, poor social skills, and behavioral problems in children and other family members. In all cases, victim and child safety is the foremost concern for the clinician. Little information guides the clinician in how to support a family’s decision to stay together and prevent further violence when there is a history of IPV. Families that have come to the attention of authorities or have been involved with mental health treatment may have a better chance of safely remaining together. A victim’s decision to leave the relationship or to stay depends on many factors, including finances, judgment concerning what is best for the children, experiences about what is safer for the individual or the family, family or cultural influences, and religious beliefs. Some victims are very clear in their decision to leave the relationship; others may leave and then decide to return. Some do not want to leave their partners but just wish that the violence would end (Guidry et al., 2020; Guidry et al., 2021) . Social support such as the improvement of employment and economic stability can decrease stress on families, thus decreasing the likelihood of IPV (see Appendices B to D for personalized safety plans in English and Spanish). Clinicians should be prepared to do safety planning with adult victims of IPV—discussed in greater detail later in the course. including anxiety, depression, poor school performance, physical health problems, posttraumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, poor conflict resolution skills, and subsequent violence perpetration and revictimization—is significantly greater even years later (Showalter et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2022) . It is important that the clinician be open to hearing a range of perspectives from parents about their decision to separate or remain together after experiencing IPV (Ragavan & Murray, 2023) .
importance, as their existence and influence may help adolescents evaluate their social standing as well as inform their developing self-concept, or the act of social self- location or sociolocation (Burton, 2023) . The investment
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