Content note: This post discusses coercive control and domestic abuse. If you or someone you know needs support, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233, text START to 88788, or visit thehotline.org. Help is free, confidential, and available 24/7.
I recently read a post that said, “The pattern I lived… isn’t unique to me. It’s the design. Smallness is the point.”
This, along with all too many stories in the news lately, hit me hard. Too often, I sort through the patterns and behaviors that I brushed off for many years, only now, in hindsight, marking them as notable, and I think, was it really that bad?
The answer is YES. If my friend, my sister, or God forbid, my daughter were in a relationship with a dynamic like that, I would lose sleep over it. The problem is that this particular dynamic is lesser known and more likely to be written off than the more easily identified forms of abuse. It is subtle, gradual, and highly strategic. But make no mistake — coercive control IS abuse.
It often enters the chat disguised as concern, overprotection, or intense love, and the victim may feel flattered or even overwhelmed by the amount of attention, often starting very early in the relationship. The term “love bombing” is commonly used to describe excessive and over-the-top gestures, intended to manipulate emotions and gain trust. There may also be a push for constant contact — texts, phone calls, check-ins to test loyalty, invalidate boundaries, and keep tabs on the victim. This is done under the guise of “I miss you so much” or “I just want to make sure you’re safe,” and it is tricky to read between the lines.
Abuse thrives in isolation, including coercive control. I was never “not allowed” to meet my friends for dinner, but the tension when I got home quickly made me decide it wasn’t worth the fallout. It was “my” decision, and he never explicitly told me I couldn’t go, and that’s exactly the design. His jealousy over the relationships I had with my closest friends was more easily justified as him being territorial and protective of my time and effort, and the subtlety made it easy to explain away. We both even withdrew from our families, believing the focus on the family we were building together was most important. I was convinced that it was a sign of a healthy marriage to completely rely on my husband, and that I shouldn’t need my friends or my family — it was the two of us against the world. A trusted confidante is a lifeline to a victim of abuse, a potential avenue to awareness and freedom, and an abuser will do what it takes to limit that opportunity.
One of the hallmarks, and maybe the most destabilizing, characteristics of coercive control involves stripping independence and autonomy, often including financial control. The less a victim relies on herself, the easier she is to manipulate. He encouraged me to quit my job to stay home and raise our kids while he provided for us. I treasured the opportunity for a front-row seat to my babies’ childhoods, and I don’t regret it, but the motivation behind his “support” is much clearer to me now. The mortgage, the checking account, the credit card, the entire financial framework of our life belonged to him, and I was completely dependent. Coercive control often flourishes under the image of traditional gender roles, establishing dominance and control but still looking mostly societally acceptable. He monitored what I spent at the grocery store each week, noticed any time I treated myself to a stop at Starbucks, and I wore the same bra for three years because a new one was “too expensive” and not a necessity. At the time, I thought he was doing his best to protect our finances and set us up for success. Looking back, I can clearly see how I was slowly being stripped of my ability to function financially on my own. I also stopped pursuing my own hobbies. I loved reading a book before bed or baking treats to share with neighbors and friends, but I was subtly coaxed into believing I was being selfish for using that time to fill my own cup when I had a husband who needed my attention and effort. Again, it felt like something I realized and acted on on my own, so I didn’t even notice as pieces of my identity disappeared.
Coercive control does not leave physical marks. Instead, its harm is invisible, completely destroying and dismantling a victim from the inside out. It made me doubt my own sense of reality, my experiences, and my ability to trust myself. I was fully convinced that I was the problem as my self-worth was slowly but surely extinguished, until I didn’t even recognize myself.
Through my healing, I have found that far too many women share an experience similar to mine. Like me, most of them didn’t realize what was happening in real time, only identifying it after the relationship ended. Another common experience is that the abuse doesn’t end when the relationship ends — more often, the abuse escalates as the abuser loses access and control. It is crucial to understand how coercive control affects victims in real ways, even without visible bruises. Too often, we stand by and wait for a red flag big enough to justify concern or intervention, but by then it may be too late. We need to recognize what coercive control looks like so that it doesn’t take a dramatic event to convince us that what is happening is serious.
Let’s use this month of awareness to honor victims who weren’t fortunate enough to make it to the other side and speak for themselves, and offer hope and healing to those rebuilding after trauma.
