By MIN Ambassador 04.06.2025

Coercive Control Redefines Normal

What is domestic abuse?

When those without experience of it hear the words 'domestic abuse’, they often default to thinking about physical abuse. In actuality, domestic abuse covers physical and sexual abuse, violent and threatening behaviour, economic abuse, psychological and emotional abuse, and also controlling or coercive behaviour. In our experience at Mums In Need, cases of domestic abuse often include a spread of different types of abuse. More often than not, coercive control plays a part in it.

What is coercive control?

The term 'coercive control’ has become more frequently used, but it is complex and can be difficult to understand. So much so that victims are often unaware that they have suffered coercive control. Part of the reason is the ‘drip-drip’ effect, where controlling behaviours become more apparent over a long period of time. There are also an enormous number of ways in which controlling behaviours are shown. However, they often involve isolating the victim from friends and family, monitoring them and controlling how they act, who they see, where they go or what they wear, and making threats, whether physical, emotional or around disclosing information about the victim.

One of the most insidious aspects of coercive control is that the victim can often impose restrictions on their behaviour themselves. Over time, they ‘learn’ how to behave as they do their best to ‘manage’ the perpetrator. They may decide it’s easier to not wear certain clothes or see certain people as they know that will impact on how the perpetrator treats them. Comments about friends or family, repeated over time, may lead them to doubt certain people and lead to them self-isolating from them.

Love and abuse

Some people think that they would never ‘fall’ for an abuser. They fail to appreciate that patterns of abuse are created over time, and that they are not always obvious as abusive behaviours. Often, perpetrators disguise their controlling desires as love and care for the victim. They may make comments about friends or family that they say are intended to protect the victim from being hurt or embarrassed. They may take control of a victim’s finances over time because it’s something they are skilled at. They may want to know where the victim is because they want to ‘protect’ them. Blurring the lines between love and controlling behaviours is crucial in creating the environment for coercive control.

Is it normal?

What is abuse and what is normal relationship behaviour or conflict can be difficult to identify. This is something we see within the family courts. A suggestion of whether or not an outfit looks good could be normal, or it could be part of a pattern of abuse. Wanting to know where their partner is could be genuine concern for their safety, or it could be controlling behaviour.

Coercive control is manipulation. Over time, it leads victims to change their behaviours in order to keep the perpetrator happy. Unfortunately, we know that this will never be the case. To keep the victim under their control, the perpetrator will constantly change the boundaries and also gaslight the victim into believing things are all in their head. Victims will start to display behaviours that seem completely normal to them, but which they wouldn’t have seen that way before.

Examples could be a victim who becomes over vigilant in sharing where they are and who they’re with. They may not go to events that they previously would have. They may even take part in risky behaviours that they would not ordinarily, from taking drugs to shoplifting to sexual acts.

Victims become alert to the threat of the perpetrator's reaction. Violence is not the only threat that they may become aware of. Perpetrators sometimes ‘stonewall’ victims, taking away emotional support or giving them the silent treatment. They may take it out on children or pets in the house. They may even turn to drink or self-harm. Whatever the behaviour, it is made clear to the victim that it is their fault.

Reclaiming normal

Of course, what’s normal to one person is not normal to another. At Mums In Need, we find many women who have been victims of coercive control feel that they have lost a sense of who they are. After leaving the relationship they are keen to reclaim this. Sadly, this is often made more difficult by perpetrators of post-separation abuse who continue their abusive and controlling behaviours after the relationship has ended.

Victims have often spent the period of abuse focused on the perpetrator’s needs rather than their own. Their own behaviour has been shaped by how the perpetrator acts, and by trying to predict (and therefore manage) it. Building confidence in their own decisions and instincts, and recognising the importance of putting yourself first, is important for those who have suffered coercive control. Supporting women in finding ways to do so is just a part of what we do at Mums In Need, helping them to be the ones to choose what their normal will be.