Payback: The parameters of revenge in romantic relationships

Abstract

This investigation explored the provocations that spark intimates’ desires for revenge, the kinds of vengeful responses they enact, and the motives that underlie decisions to retaliate. Eighty-five undergraduates were interviewed about incidents in which they “got even” with a current or former romantic partner. Both provocations and revenge responses predominately involved relationship rules violations, and most revenge responses were mild to moderate in severity and mundane in nature. In addition, most participants attributed their decisions to retaliate to the desire to bring about desired change in their partners (e.g., suffering, correction, or empathy), to redress their own unpleasant feelings, or to rectify injustice. Implications for research on revenge in romantic relationships are discussed.

Reflections on the costs and benefits of exacting revenge in romantic relationships.

“…The present analysis extends previous research on romantic revenge (Boon et al, 2009;Yoshimura, 2002) in important directions by investigating the perceived consequences of revenge as it occurs between intimate partners. Our contribution to the growing knowledge base about revenge in romantic relationships is nevertheless limited in several respects.…”

“…Analyses revealed considerable variety in participants' vengeful actions (see Boon et al, 2009). Most common were retaliatory acts that violated tacit relationship rules, particularly rules regarding exclusivity (e.g., extradyadic sexual contact, flirting), responsiveness (e.g., deliberately failing to return phone calls), and disclosure (e.g., sharing private information with others).…”

The revenge motive in delinquency

“…Only 1.6% had engaged in physical violence as a means of exacting revenge. 1 In a study of revenge in romantic relationships, 3.4% of the avengers had used violence or coercion (Boon et al, 2009). These findings suggest that revenge urges (while fairly prevalent) are not likely to lead to criminal offending.…”

Infidelity and Revenge Fantasies: An Integrative Couple Therapy Approach

“…For example, reactions to infidelity could conceivably range from indifference to extreme reactions including family disruption (Lusterman, 2005), spouse revenge filicide (Rougé-Maillar, Jousset, Gaudin, Bouju, & Penneau, 2005;West, Friedman, & Resnick, 2009), manslaughter (Sherman & Hoffmann, 2007), murder-suicide (Eliason, 2009), suicide or murder (Scheinkman, 2005), and psychological disorders (Cano & O'Leary, 2000). Boon, Deveau, and Alibhai (2009) report that victims tend to overcompensate for their injury and inadvertently promote a cycle of violence and contend, "The potential for escalation of conflict and therefore for harm to self, partner, and relationship may thus be considerable even when the initial provocation or revenge response is mild" (p. 765). The ways in which injured partners respond to betrayal has been addressed by Yoshimura (2007), who identified a set of nine revenge act categories that include active distancing, physical aggressiveness, reputation defamation, new relationship initiation, verbal exchange, resource removal, property damage, uncertainty increase, and other acts that do not fit into the aforementioned categories.…”