Controlling or coercive behaviour is designed to make you feel inferior, dependent or trapped, by keeping you apart from friends, help and support. It can include taking advantage of your money and things you have, controlling what you do and taking away your independence. There may also be assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse to harm, punish, or frighten you. This type of abuse can often go hand in hand with other types of abuse.
It is a criminal offence in England and Wales for someone to subject you to coercive control. If you experience this kind of abuse, report it to the police.
Identify coercive control
Below are some examples of this type of abuse. Does your partner, or former partner, do any of the following?
Threaten, intimidate or harm you
- Make you scared to do or say things, in case it upsets them
- Stand over you and invade your personal space
- Threaten to damage your property or household goods
- Threaten to take your children away or manipulate professionals to increase the risk of them being taken into care
- Harm or threaten to harm or kill you, your child, friends and family, or pets
- Use physical violence
- Threaten you with sexual assault or abuse
- Threaten to put you into care, particularly if you are disabled or elderly
Isolate you from other people
- Persuade you that friends and family don't care about you
- Not allow you to contact friends and family
- Separate you from professionals who may be trying to support you. (This includes medical care, social care, or specialist support)
- Prevent you from learning English, or making friends outside of your cultural or ethnic background
- Not allow you to partake in any activity outside the home that does not include him or her
- Constantly check up on you or require you to report on your whereabouts
- Stop you from reading, watching TV or going online
Take away your freedom, independence or self confidence
- Repeatedly put you down, tell you that you are worthless, or call you names
- Deprive you of your basic needs, such as sleep, food and clothing
- Prevent you from working
- Take control over aspects of your daily life such as monitoring your daily activities, time, and movements, what you wear or when you eat and sleep
- Control your money and how you can spend it
- Stop you from using birth control methods, or force you to get an abortion
Show extreme jealousy
- Accuse you of cheating and lying
- Not allow you to spend time around anyone who they think could become a romantic partner
- Stalk or follow you
- Ask other people to spy on you
- Call you or text you an excessive number of times, whenever you aren't with them
- Control how you are using social media or a phone. This can include using spyware and monitoring your online communication tools
- Read your emails, texts or letters
Make you do things
- Enforce rules that humiliate, degrade, and dehumanise you
- Force you to take part in criminal activity or child abuse
- Use drugs or alcohol to control you
Shame you socially or try to get you into trouble
- Threaten to give out information about your sex life or to post inappropriate photos of you on social media
- Threaten to ‘out' you, if you are LGBTQ+
- Tell lies to family members and the local community as an attempt to shame or undermine you
- Threaten to publish information about you or to make false allegations about you to the police or the authorities
- Use your immigration status to threaten you
Get support
- Call 01225 331243 for Southside Independent Domestic Violence Service (IDVA), who offer confidential advice, information, and support (9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday)
- To find out more about your rights as a woman when it comes to coercive control or any sort of abuse, visit the Rights of women website.
- View the Home Office Easy Read Guidance on Controlling and Coercive Behaviour, for a summary for people with a learning disability or additional needs.
Related forms of abuse
Coercive control often happens in combination with other forms of domestic abuse. Find out more by visiting our separate pages on: