When Money Becomes a Weapon - Recognising Financial Control
You hesitate before buying groceries, even though it's your own money. You feel a spike of anxiety when you need new shoes. You find yourself mentally rehearsing how you'll explain a purchase you shouldn't have to justify. You've stopped dreaming about the future because dreaming requires resources you're not allowed to access.
Or maybe you work, you earn money, you technically have access to accounts—but somehow you still feel broke. Controlled. Like your financial life belongs to someone else, and you're just living in it on borrowed time.
Do you ever wonder if you're “allowed" to spend your own money? Do you feel guilty for wanting things? Do you calculate not just the cost of a purchase, but the emotional cost of the reaction it might trigger?
If any of this sounds familiar, you might be experiencing financial abuse, a form of control that's often invisible to outsiders but devastating to those living through it. It's not about being "bad with money." It's about someone systematically using money to trap, manipulate, and dominate you.
And here's what makes it especially insidious: it doesn't look like abuse from the outside. It looks like someone “handling the finances," or “being practical", or “protecting the family." It hides behind spreadsheets and joint accounts and reasonable-sounding explanations.
But your body knows the difference between partnership and prison.
If You're Here Because...
You might be reading this because:
You feel anxious or guilty about spending your own money
You need permission or have to justify purchases, even small ones
Your partner controls all the finances and you don't have access to information
You've been pressured into taking on debt you didn't want or understand
You're prevented from working, studying, or building your own financial independence
Money is withheld as punishment or control
You feel trapped in the relationship because you have no financial means to leave
You left the relationship, but financial abuse continues through withheld support or sabotage
You wonder if what you're experiencing “counts" as abuse since there's no physical violence
You need to know you're not imagining this and it's not your fault
If any of this resonates, keep reading. Financial abuse is real, recognised, and you deserve both validation and practical support.
What Financial Abuse Actually Is
Financial abuse happens when someone uses money: access to it, control over it, manipulation around it, in order to dominate, restrict, or punish you. It's about power, not budgets. It's about control, not financial literacy.
It might start gradually: they suggest combining finances “to make things easier." They offer to “handle the bills" because they're “better with numbers." They express concern about your spending and suggest you run purchases by them first, “just to make sure we're on the same page."
These early moves can feel like partnership or even care. But over time, what looked like teamwork becomes surveillance. What felt like support becomes restriction. What seemed like collaboration becomes domination.
Before you fully realise what's happened, you've lost access to your own money, your own financial information, your own economic independence. You're asking permission to buy necessities. You're justifying expenses to someone who scrutinises every dollar you spend while their own spending goes unquestioned. You're trapped not by love, but by a lack of resources to leave.
Financial abuse is domestic violence. Even without a single bruise, even without a raised voice, it is abuse.
The Many Faces of Financial Control
Financial abuse doesn't follow a single script. It adapts to circumstances, relationships, and whatever vulnerabilities exist. But certain patterns emerge again and again.
When Work Becomes Impossible
They might sabotage your employment in ways that seem almost accidental at first. They pick fights right before important shifts, making you late or too distressed to focus. They “forget" to watch the kids when you have work, forcing you to call in or quit. They show up at your workplace, causing scenes, making complaints to your supervisor, or harassing your colleagues until keeping you employed becomes more trouble than you're worth.
Some are more direct: demanding you quit your job, claiming the family needs you at home, insisting your income “isn't worth it" after childcare costs. They might prevent you from going to job interviews, hide your car keys on days you're supposed to work, or create crisis after crisis that makes maintaining employment impossible.
For students, the sabotage targets education: they hide textbooks, pick fights before exams, refuse to support you during crucial study periods, or mock your aspirations until you start believing you're wasting time and money on something you'll never finish anyway.
The goal is the same: make you financially dependent. Cut off your access to independent income. Ensure that leaving becomes economically impossible.
If your attempts to work or study are consistently undermined, that's not a coincidence. That's strategy.
When Your Money Isn't Really Yours
Even if you work, even if you earn your own income, financial abusers find ways to maintain control. They insist your paycheck goes into a joint account they monitor or manage. They demand to see receipts for everything you buy. They question your purchases, making you defend spending on basics like food, clothing, or personal items.
You might have a bank card, but using it triggers interrogation. You might technically have access to accounts, but checking them leads to accusations of not trusting them, being controlling, or causing unnecessary conflict. So you stop checking. You stop spending. You make yourself smaller and smaller financially until you're living on allowances from your own money.
Some abusers are more subtle: they don't forbid you from working or accessing money, they just make it so emotionally costly that you choose not to. The guilt, the conflict, the exhaustion of justifying every financial decision, it becomes easier to just not need anything, not want anything, not be anything that costs money.
When spending your own money consistently triggers fear or requires justification, the money isn't really yours.
When Debt Becomes Chains
Financial abusers often use debt as a long-term control mechanism. They pressure you to take out loans, credit cards, or financing agreements—sometimes in your name only. They might frame it as necessary for the family, an emergency, an investment that will pay off. But once the debt exists, they use it as leverage.
You're reminded constantly that you owe this money, that you created this problem, that leaving would mean dealing with this financial mess alone. Some abusers deliberately ruin your credit by running up debt in your name, missing payments, or maxing out cards without your knowledge. Destroying your creditworthiness makes it harder to rent an apartment, get a car loan, or establish an independent financial footing.
Others keep financial commitments deliberately opaque. You don't know what's owed, to whom, or when. Bills arrive that surprise you. Accounts you didn't know existed show up in collections. This chaos keeps you dependent on them to navigate it, and too overwhelmed to plan an exit.
Debt used as a weapon isn't just about money. It's about making escape feel impossible.
When Basic Needs Become Bargaining Chips
In its most overt forms, financial abuse means withholding money for necessities: food, medication, clothing, hygiene products, and healthcare. You might have to beg for grocery money. Requests for essential items are met with sighs, lectures, or outright refusal. You're made to feel like a burden for needing things humans need.
Some abusers dole out money in small, unpredictable amounts, keeping you always short, always asking, always at their mercy. Others withhold specific things as punishment: you had an argument, so now there's no money for your prescription. You didn't do something they wanted, so the car “needs repairs" and you can't have the money you needed for something else.
Children's needs sometimes become leverage, too. Money for school supplies, activities, or necessities is withheld or threatened to be withheld, forcing you to comply with demands to avoid your children suffering.
When access to basics is contingent on behaviour, obedience, or mood, that's not partnership. That's captivity.
When Financial Privacy Doesn't Exist
They monitor every transaction. They demand passwords to your accounts, your email, your apps. They check your bank statements, question your purchases, and create an atmosphere of constant surveillance around money.
Some install tracking software or apps that alert them to spending. Others simply maintain such an environment of interrogation that you self-monitor, editing your behaviour before they even have to ask. The threat of questioning, of disapproval, of conflict becomes enough to control your choices.
You can't make a purchase without considering their reaction. You can't save money without them knowing. You can't have any financial autonomy because every dollar is subject to their oversight and approval.
Being monitored like a child when you're an adult isn't “transparency." It's control.
Financial control often hides in ordinary moments.
The Shame and Confusion Financial Abuse Creates
One of the hardest aspects of financial abuse is that it's difficult to name, even to yourself. It doesn't fit the cultural narrative of what abuse looks like. There are no bruises, no police reports, no dramatic incidents to point to.
You might feel ashamed for "letting" this happen, for not being "stronger" or more financially savvy. You might blame yourself for the situation, believing that if you just managed better, needed less, caused less conflict, things would improve.
And because financial abuse often comes wrapped in seemingly reasonable explanations, “I'm better with money," “You're not good at budgeting," “Someone has to manage things responsibly", you might internalise those messages. Maybe you are bad with money. Maybe you do need oversight. Maybe your discomfort is about your own inadequacy, not their control.
But here's the truth: if you feel trapped by money in your relationship, that's data. If financial decisions trigger anxiety or require permission, that's information. If you're not allowed to work, learn, save, or spend independently, that's abuse, not partnership.
The confusion you feel isn't confusion. It's what happens when abuse disguises itself as care.
Financial Abuse vs. Economic Abuse. Understanding the Difference
While the terms are often used interchangeably, there's a meaningful distinction that can help you recognise the full scope of what you're experiencing.
Financial abuse targets money directly: controlling your access to cash, bank accounts, credit cards; monitoring or restricting your spending; forcing debt in your name; withholding money for necessities; or demanding financial transparency from you while hiding their own financial information.
Economic abuse is broader, encompassing control over your overall economic stability and independence: preventing you from working or getting education; sabotaging your employment or career; controlling access to basic resources like transportation, housing, healthcare, or food; limiting your economic options in ways that create dependency beyond just money.
In practice, these often overlap. Someone preventing you from working (economic abuse) is also ensuring you have no independent income (financial abuse). Someone controlling all household money (financial abuse) is also controlling your access to transportation and basic resources (economic abuse).
Understanding this distinction matters because it helps you see the full system of control, not just isolated incidents. It's not just that they won't let you have money for groceries, it's that they're systematically dismantling your ability to exist independently, economically or financially.
The goal of both is the same: to make you so dependent that leaving feels impossible.
| Aspect | Financial Abuse | Economic Abuse |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Direct manipulation or control of money and financial resources. | Broader control over economic stability, including resources and opportunities. |
| Control Over Bank Accounts | Taking control of bank accounts, credit cards, or cash. | May restrict or monitor access to accounts but focuses more on access to resources overall. |
| Access to Cash/Spending | Limiting or monitoring your spending, making you ask permission. | May restrict access to essentials like food, transport, housing, and healthcare. |
| Debt and Credit Impact | Running up debt in your name, ruining your credit score. | May cause financial instability that affects credit indirectly by limiting your economic options. |
| Employment & Education | Less directly involved. | Preventing or sabotaging your ability to work, study, or pursue career goals. |
| Control Over Basic Needs | Usually does not include basic needs control. | Restricts access to food, transportation, healthcare, or housing to increase dependency. |
| Legal & Financial Commitments | Forcing loans, credit cards, insurance policies in your name. | May block or manipulate access to legal financial rights, like child support or shared assets. |
| Post-Separation Abuse | Using joint accounts or debts to continue control financially. | May sabotage employment or housing to maintain economic control. |
| Psychological Impact | Creates dependency through financial restrictions and debt. | Creates broader dependency by limiting overall economic independence and access to resources. |
| Examples |
- Taking your money without consent - Forcing you to hand over account details - Running up debt in your name - Controlling all spending decisions |
- Preventing you from working or studying - Controlling access to transportation or housing - Withholding basic needs like food or healthcare - Sabotaging your career or education opportunities |
| Goal of Abuse | To control your money directly, making you financially dependent. | To limit your overall economic autonomy and ability to live independently. |
When Financial Abuse Continues After You Leave
For many survivors, the cruellest discovery is that financial abuse doesn't end when the relationship does. It adapts. Your ex might refuse to pay court-ordered child support, forcing you to pursue legal enforcement while struggling financially. They might hide assets during property settlement, drag out proceedings to drain your resources, or manipulate income reporting to avoid financial obligations.
Some continue to access joint accounts or credit if those weren't properly separated. Others sabotage your employment post-separation the same way they did during the relationship: harassment, showing up at your workplace, spreading lies to colleagues or supervisors.
If you share children, they might withhold money meant for child-related expenses, forcing you to cover costs alone and then use that as "proof" they shouldn't have to pay support. They might use financial matters as an excuse for contact, drawing you into negotiations or conflicts when the real goal is continued control.
Post-separation financial abuse also includes deliberately damaging your credit, running up debt in your name if they still have access to information, or using legal proceedings as financial warfare, filing motions not to resolve issues but to force you to spend money on lawyers and court fees.
Freedom from the relationship doesn't automatically mean freedom from their financial control. But it can be reclaimed, step by step.
Reclaiming Your Financial Independence
Breaking free from financial abuse, whether you're still in the relationship or have left, requires strategy, support, and often a lot of patience with yourself. This isn't about achieving financial perfection; it's about rebuilding autonomy, safety, and the ability to make choices about your own life.
Start Where You Are
If you're still in the relationship and beginning to recognise the control, start small and safely. You don't need to confront the abuse directly to begin planning. Learn what you can about your financial situation: what accounts exist, what's owed, and what assets there are. If it's safe to do so, gather copies of important documents: IDs, account statements, tax returns, property deeds.
If it's not safe to keep physical copies, take photos and email them to an account they don't know about. Store information in places they can't access: a trusted friend's house, a safety deposit box in your name only, cloud storage with a password they don't have.
Some survivors start saving small amounts of cash from grocery money or other purchases, building an emergency fund in a place the abuser doesn't know about. This isn't dishonest—it's survival planning. If you're being financially controlled, you have the right to create options for yourself.
Get Information and Support
Contact domestic violence services that offer financial counselling. Organisations like 1800RESPECT can connect you with resources. Some offer free financial counselling specifically for domestic violence survivors, helping you understand your legal rights around property, debt, and support payments.
Legal aid services can advise you on your rights regarding shared finances, property division, and spousal or child support. Many offer free or low-cost consultations. Understanding what you're legally entitled to can be empowering when you've been told for years that you deserve nothing.
If you're planning to leave or have recently left, create a safety plan that includes financial considerations. Where will you stay? How will you access money? What accounts need to be separated? Who can help you navigate the practical steps?
Protect Your Information
If you're leaving or have left, take immediate steps to protect your financial information. Change passwords on all accounts. Remove them from joint accounts if possible, or close them and open new ones in your name only. Alert your bank that you're leaving an abusive relationship and ask about fraud protection services.
Check your credit report for accounts or debts you don't recognise. Freeze your credit if you're concerned about new accounts being opened fraudulently. If you share a phone plan or other services where they might have access to your information, switch to individual accounts.
Document everything related to financial abuse: texts demanding money, evidence of withheld support, and records of debt they created. This documentation can be crucial in legal proceedings and helps combat gaslighting when they claim things didn't happen the way you remember.
Rebuild on Your Own Terms
Financial independence after financial abuse is rebuilt gradually. It might start with small steps: opening an account in your name only, getting a credit card they don't have access to, saving even tiny amounts when you can.
If your employment or education was sabotaged, you might need to start over: updating a resume, explaining employment gaps in ways that protect your privacy, returning to school if that path was interrupted. Some survivors find support through job training programs or organisations that specifically help domestic violence survivors re-enter the workforce.
Your credit might be damaged. Your savings might be nonexistent. You might be starting from zero or even below zero if there's debt to deal with. That's not failure—that's the reality of what financial abuse does. Rebuilding takes time, and every small step forward is an achievement.
Financial recovery isn't about returning to where you were before. It's about building something new that's truly yours.
You Deserve Economic Freedom
Financial abuse isolates, traps, and makes you doubt your own worth. It teaches you to believe you're incapable, undeserving, or too incompetent to manage on your own. These are lies designed to keep you controlled.
The truth is: you deserve access to resources. You deserve to make financial decisions about your own life. You deserve to work, learn, save, and spend without fear or permission. You deserve economic security and the freedom that comes with it.
If you're still in a financially abusive relationship, please know that planning your exit is possible, and there are people who can help you do it safely. If you've left but the financial abuse continues, there are legal avenues and support services designed specifically for this situation.
You're not imagining the control. You're not overreacting to "normal" financial management. And you're not alone in navigating this.
You Don't Have to Figure This Out Alone
I specialise in working with survivors of financial and economic abuse, helping them process the trauma, rebuild confidence, and develop strategies for reclaiming their autonomy. This work requires understanding the specific shame and fear that financial abuse creates, and the practical realities of rebuilding from a place of economic vulnerability.
You may also email me at kat@safespacecounsellingservices.com.au or call me on 0452 285 526
Resources and Support
Crisis Support:
1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) – 24/7 national counselling and domestic violence support, including financial counselling referrals
Legal Support:
Visit National Legal Aid to find your state's Legal Aid Commission for advice on property division, debt, and support obligations
Financial Counselling:
National Debt Helpline: 1800 007 007 (free financial counselling for people in financial difficulty)
Financial counselling services through domestic violence organisations in your state
Practical Steps:
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know if I'm experiencing financial abuse or just normal relationship financial management?
Ask yourself: Do you feel afraid, anxious, or controlled around money? Do you need permission to spend your own money? Are you prevented from working or learning? Is financial information kept from you while you're expected to be transparent? If the answer to any of these is yes, it's likely abuse, not a normal partnership.
Can financial abuse happen if I have access to bank accounts?
Yes. Access doesn't mean freedom if every transaction is monitored, questioned, or used against you. If you technically can access money but don't because of fear of consequences, that's still financial control.
What if they're “just better with money" than I am?
Being skilled at budgeting or money management isn't the same as controlling someone financially. In healthy relationships, both partners have access to information, input into decisions, and freedom to spend reasonably. If you're being excluded, monitored, or restricted, it's not about competence; it's about control.
Is it financial abuse if they're the only one working?
No, single-income households aren't inherently abusive. But if the working partner uses their income as leverage, withholds money for necessities, prevents the other from working, or maintains all control over finances without transparency or partnership, that becomes abuse regardless of who earns the money.
Can financial abuse continue after I leave?
Unfortunately, yes. Post-separation financial abuse includes withholding court-ordered support, hiding assets, sabotaging employment, or using legal proceedings as financial warfare. Legal support and documentation are crucial for addressing this.
How can I leave if I have no money?
Contact domestic violence services that can help with safety planning, emergency accommodation, financial assistance, and legal support. Leaving without money is possible with the right support system and resources. You don't have to have it all figured out before reaching out.
What's the first step to take?
If you're still in the relationship: gather information safely, document what you can, and reach out to domestic violence services for support in planning. If you've left: separate finances as much as possible, document ongoing abuse, and get legal advice about your rights to shared assets and support payments.
