10 Ways to Spot Deceptive Coercive Control

Key Takeaways:

1. Coercive Control Involves Total Domination: Abusers use tactics like isolation, financial control, and monitoring to dominate every aspect of their partner’s life. Survivors may feel silenced, powerless, and unable to act independently.
2. Psychological Manipulation is a Core Element: Strategies like love-bombing, gaslighting, and degrading comments create confusion and erode the survivor’s self-esteem, making them question their reality and rely on the abuser for validation.
3. Escalation to Physical Abuse is Common: Coercive control often leads to physical violence, including severe threats like strangulation. Recognizing these warning signs early is critical for a survivor's safety and well-being.

You may be looking for signs that the relationship you’re in isn’t a healthy one. Something feels off, but you’re doubting your gut feelings. All you know is that you don’t feel fully safe or relaxed with this person. However, you can’t possibly be a victim of abuse. You’re too smart for that. You’d spot it. 

It’s OK—many survivors have felt the same thing. Being a survivor of abuse should not be shameful. Abusers can target anyone, and likewise, can gaslight almost anyone into believing that the survivor is the crazy one, not them. 

One tactic abusers utilize is called coercive control. It’s characterized by pervasive and ongoing oppression and micromanagement by the abuser. Physical, mental, emotional and financial abuse are woven into a pattern of control and isolation. The abuser is dominant and insists on being the primary decision-maker in the relationship. Those decisions carry over to what his partner is doing as well—where she’s going, who she’s seeing, what she’s wearing, even down to what she’s eating. 

At first, it may just seem like your partner is a take-charge kind of person. There’s no need for you to make decisions anymore—he’ll figure out everything. But after a while, you may begin to feel like your voice is silenced. Your opinions don’t matter, your desires aren’t important and your compliance is mandatory to keep the peace. 

This is coercive control. 

10 Signs of Coercive Control 

1. Isolation.

The abuser may try to prevent their partner from having relationships other than with him. The abuser may say things like, “Your friends aren’t good for you,” or “Your family doesn’t like me—they don’t understand us.” He may use phrases like, “It’s us against the world” to create a self-imposed isolation from any other influence. Isolation may also look like moving to a place far from anyone the survivor knows, encouraging her to quit her job or forbidding her from joining a church, clubs or any other social groups. 

2. Love-bombing. 

This is over-the-top romance. Think of extravagant gifts and dates, near-constant communication and talk of the future immediately. The abuser may use words and phrases like, “soulmates” and “meant for each other” to imply a strong bond after knowing each other just a short amount of time. Love-bombing can be a type of brainwashing, convincing the survivor that there is a much stronger bond than she feels between them. 

3. Gaslighting. 

The word stems from a 1930s play, Gas Light, in which a man tries to drive his wife crazy by slowly dimming the gas-burning lights in the home while denying that the home is getting darker. Spoiler alert: She feels crazy! Abusers use gaslighting techniques to deny a survivor’s reality, making her doubt her perception of things and her memories of what’s gone on. In the process, she feels uncertain that she’s even been abused at all or starts to believe that maybe the problem lies with her. 

4. Controlling every aspect of the survivor’s life. 

What may start out as a seemingly helpful partner can turn into someone who a survivor finds they need to ask permission from in order to do anything. This could mean the abuser is telling his partner what she should wear, what she is going to order at a restaurant, what she spends her money on, who she can see, even when she wants to have sex. All of it is dictated by the abuser making the survivor feel like she is no longer able to trust her instincts without first checking with her partner. 

5. Stalking. 

The abuser may monitor not only his partner’s whereabouts but also her computer and phone activity. This could be overt—he comes right out and admits he’s checking everything she does—or it could involve spyware installed without the survivor’s knowledge on all of her technology. She may discover a tracker put in her car or her purse. The abuser will start to show up wherever the survivor is “just to check on her” and she may start to feel unsafe leaving the house. Just FYI, stalking is illegal in all 50 states, whether or not the stalker is one’s partner or a stranger. 

6. Financial control. 

Also called financial abuse, this often involves the abuser making all of the decisions around money in the relationship, and not necessarily smart decisions either. It could look like an abuser spending a survivor’s money, demanding she turn over her paycheck, paying her an allowance, requiring to see receipts for any purchase the survivor makes, ruining a survivor’s credit to create dependence on the abuser, forcing a survivor to work or, on the flip side, forbidding a survivor to work. 

7. The silent treatment. 

Reverting back to the tactics of a toddler, an abuser may weaponize their silence to punish, confuse or torture their partner and/or children in the home. This could come out of nowhere or be a reaction to the survivor not following a “rule” set by the abuser. They may not acknowledge their partner’s existence for hours, days or even weeks on end, making a survivor often feel isolated, confused, ashamed and sometimes desperate to reconnect with the abuser. 

8. Unspoken threats. 

This could be simply a look that sends chills down a survivor’s spine, knowing that a punishment of some kind is coming from the abuser. Leaving a gun or other weapon out in the open can be another type of unspoken threat, a clear message for the survivor to stay in line. It could also look like installing security cameras so the survivor knows she’s always being monitored. Or maybe it’s leaving a computer browser window open to a story about a husband who killed his wife. The message is clear—the survivor shouldn’t feel safe. 

9. Degrading comments. 

These put-downs aim to destroy a survivor’s self-esteem. The abuser could gaslight the survivor at the same time—“I’m just trying to help you be a better wife,” he might say as he picks apart how his partner dressed for the day or criticizes the meal she prepared. But the comments can also be more obvious, calling his partner names, making her feel dumb, embarrassing her in front of others or knowing her insecurities and making sure to point them out. Every so often, he may say something akin to a compliment. As a result, the survivor may begin to rely on the abuser to build her confidence back up. His opinion may start to be the only one that matters. 

10. Physical violence. 

Coercive control may start out with nonphysical types of abuse, but most abusers will eventually escalate to physical violence. By that time, the control, isolation and gaslighting may be so strong that the survivor has a hard time seeing this violence for the glaring warning that it is. The abuser could shove her against the wall during an argument, push her roughly when she tries to respond to him or even wrap his hands around her neck to cut off her air flow. Abusers who strangle are the most dangerous kind, say experts. They are demonstrating that they can kill their partner if they choose to. Physical abuse can also extend to—and often does—children and pets in the home. Physical abuse can also include sexual violence, rape, sexual coercion and other types of sexual assault. 

Recognizing the signs of coercive control as soon as possible could save you years of torture, or may even save your life. Consider reaching out to a trained domestic violence advocate at a program near you to find validation, resources and support. 

If you’re in a relationship with an abusive partner and believe the abuser is escalating, you may want to answer the questions in this danger assessment to more clearly understand what the future may hold.