The Professional Woman as a Victim of Coercive Control

Coercive control is a term that is becoming more widely recognised, as a part of society’s vernacular. The tragic deaths in Queensland of Hannah Clarke and her three beautiful children at the hands of Rowan Baxter, a coercive controller, and the introduction of laws across many states to penalise those who use coercive control, has contributed to this. However the ability to recognise coercive control within a woman’s own relationship is where the issue remains problematic. Research highlights that up to 51% of victims don’t realise they are in a coercively controlling relationship. This occurs for many reasons; her partner’s behaviour is confusing, it can present as pseudo-caring, the behaviour may be somewhat familiar depending on the type of household she grew up in and women have been conditioned from a young age to take the blame for relationship difficulties and carry the responsibility for fixing them. The perpetrator knows this and lays the blame for all of his behaviour at her feet, taking zero accountability.

Contrary to popular opinion, perpetrators demonstrate a preference for strong women. It is a challenge. It is an opportunity to break someone down.

In my experience, coercive control can show up differently to what we expect, for professional women. As a Psychologist working with this cohort, these women are so high functioning, they don’t realise that they are a victim of coercive control and take the relationship difficulties in their stride. They have freedom to work, they travel, they spend time with family, but they are often unhappy and don’t know why. They reach out for support for anxiety, depression, burnout or relationship issues, wanting to fix themselves or fix the relationship. When they discover they are a victim of coercive control it is often responded to with shock and disbelief. They come back next week, next fortnight, next month and tell me how things have gotten better, he hasn’t been as bad, until we unpack one or two ‘minor incidents’ over the last week, only for her to realise it really was bad. When you’ve been living under the covert control of a partner for so long, the behaviour that appears normal to you, can appear quite concerning to the Psychologist you are working with.

Financial abuse often presents differently in these relationships. It isn’t about him handing you a minuscule housekeeping allowance which is what we may expect with coercive control. You in fact probably earn more money than him but he decides how the money gets spent, even though you may have access to it. He gambles it, drinks it away or spends it on toys for himself, framing it as things for ‘the family’ knowing full well that the fishing boat he bought isn’t really for family trips.

He may decide that he won’t work, or he’ll work part-time or he’ll just pick up contract work when it suits him, leaving you knowing that the responsibility for paying the bills, lies with you. If you mention that you are considering dropping down to a 9-day fortnight as you are feeling burnt-out, all hell breaks loose. He calls you lazy, tells you that you don’t care about putting food on the table for the family and how dare you put pressure on him like this. He may tell you that he gave up his career to look after the children for you when you know the truth, he lost his job due to his own actions and didn’t want to go back to work.

 He may insist your salary goes to his account or a joint account as you are ‘useless with money’ so he ‘has to manage it’ and you don’t even know what he does with it as you have learnt it isn’t safe to ask. If he does work, he may keep all the money that he earns and all the money that you earn has to go to the mortgage, the bills and the groceries, with there never being any left over. He may spend ‘his’ money on yearly trips away with the boys and there is never enough money left for you to buy anything more than the basics. The children often go without.

You may have access to the money but you don’t use any of it as the consequences for doing so are too painful. Punishment may involve the silent treatment, being berated for ‘wasting money and being careless’, the kids being told that ‘Your Mum just throws money away and doesn’t care about our future’ or being kept awake all night with recriminations about each time you have ‘wasted money’. You have to function at work tomorrow and can’t survive another night without any sleep.

 You learn that if you break ‘the unwritten rules’ around the spending of money that he created, there will be retaliation, there will be a cost either for you or for your children. You learn to stay quiet, follow the rules, go without or just find another way.