Signs my relationship could be harmful

Coercive control is when someone uses a pattern of abusive behaviour over time that hurt, humiliate, isolate, frighten, or threaten another person to control or dominate them.

Coercive control is almost always an underpinning dynamic of domestic and family violence.

The difference between coercive control and other types of unhealthy behaviour is that this is used to control you. It is common to experience coercive control and other types of domestic and family violence at the same time.

Technology based abuse is when someone uses technology like mobile phones or computers to control someone else.

This could include setting up your phone using their profile, so they have access to everything on your device without your permission or because they pressured you into it against your will.

Stalking and monitoring involves someone keeping track of what you do when you don’t want them to.

This could include following you in car on or foot or asking other people to tell them where you go and what you do.

Systems abuse is when someone manipulates legal systems and other systems to control, threaten and harass you.

This could include making multiple applications and complaints in multiple systems like the courts or Centrelink to purposely interrupt or prolong the process.

Social isolation is when someone limits or restricts who you see or how often you can see other people so they can control you.

It could start in subtle ways including them constantly criticizing your friends and family to turn you against them over time, so you become dependent on them alone.

Financial abuse is when someone controls how you earn, spend, or save money so that they have power over you.

It could start by them telling you to leave money matters to them and over time they erode your confidence until they have you convinced that it’s in your best interest that they control all your money to fund their own lifestyle.

Emotional abuse involves someone doing things to lower your self-esteem and confidence.

This could include constantly criticising you, threatening to commit suicide or self-harm, or convincing you that you are ‘crazy’ or a liar, so you start questioning your own judgement.

Verbal abuse is when someone uses words to intimidate and scare you.

This could involve yelling, swearing, and shouting.

Physical abuse is when someone hurts you or threatens to hurt you.

This could include choking you, so you struggle to breath you or holding their hands around your throat and threatening to strangle you.

It could also involve slapping, punching, kicking, or damaging property like punching holes in the walls.

Animal abuse is when someone hurts or threatens to hurt your pets to control or intimidate you.

This could involve uses threats of hurting your pets to make you do something you don’t want to do or feeding your pet something toxic.

Sexual abuse can include forcing or coercing you to have sex or engage in sexual acts, unwanted exposure to pornography, deliberately causing pain during sex or using sexually degrading insults or humiliation during sex.

Reproductive control is often a subset of sexual abuse and can include not letting you use contraception or forcing you to use contraception that you do not want to, tampering with your contraception without your knowledge, pressuring you to have a termination you don’t want, or not allowing you to access a termination of pregnancy or pressuring you to start a family or have more children when you are not ready.

Cultural, religious and spiritual abuse can include forcing you to participate in religious activities, stopping you from taking part in your religious or cultural practices or misusing spiritual or religious beliefs and practices to justify abuse and violence.

Identity-based abuse is often specifically targeted at people from the LGBTIQ+ communities and can include, threatening to reveal your sexual orientation—outing you—to others, threatening to reveal your HIV status to others, reinforcing your feelings of confusion, shame or guilt about your sexuality to coerce you, using your concern that support services may be homophobic or transphobic to discourage you from seeking help, isolating you from your family, community, or LGBTIQ+ spaces, or threatening to isolate you if the relationship ends.