When Money Becomes Control
Financial abuse isn't always about having money taken away. Sometimes it's hidden within promises, dependency, debt, and financial decisions you never really got to make.
When Money Becomes Control
When we hear the words financial abuse, I think many of us picture the obvious.
Someone taking your bank card.
Someone refusing to let you work.
Someone giving you an allowance or demanding receipts for everything you spend.
And yes, financial abuse can look like that; it often does.
But sometimes it looks nothing like that too.
Sometimes you have your own bank account.
Sometimes you work.
Sometimes you're the person paying the bills.
Sometimes you're actually the one who appears to be in control of the money.
And yet, somehow, you're the one becoming less and less financially secure.
Looking back across my three significant relationships, money was used in completely different ways. I didn't recognise all of it as financial abuse at the time because there wasn't one obvious pattern connecting them.
Now I can see there was.
The common denominator wasn't necessarily who earned the money or who physically controlled the bank account.
It was choice, power, and consequence.
Who got to make the decisions?
Who carried the financial risk?
Who absorbed the consequences?
And what happened when I said no — or when the relationship ended?
When You're Managing the Money — But Still Not Financially Safe
In one relationship, I managed most of our household finances.
My husband wasn't particularly good with money, and he occasionally gambled too, which could leave us without. I knew that if I didn't make sure the mortgage and household bills were paid, there was a very real possibility they would never be.
He was the main breadwinner, although I worked too while also raising our children.
My income wasn't really my money. It simply went into the family pot.
At the time, I wouldn't have described that as financial abuse. I saw myself as the responsible one. The organiser. The person making sure everything kept functioning.
And perhaps that's an important distinction.
Managing the money doesn't necessarily mean you hold the financial power.
Sometimes it simply means you've been given responsibility for keeping everything afloat.
The financial control became much clearer when the relationship ended.
Towards the end of our marriage, I was working within his business. I effectively ran much of the administration and accounts.
Something inside me knew I needed some independence, so before leaving, I found myself a part-time job elsewhere.
Thank goodness I did, because when the relationship ended, my employment effectively ended with it.
Salary gone.
Access gone.
Car returned.
Keys returned.
The message was essentially: This is my business now. You're out.
And technically, perhaps he could do that. But something being technically possible doesn't mean it cannot also be used as a means of power. Had I not secured a part-time job, I would have been left with no security.
Then came the legal proceedings.
Money can continue to be used as leverage long after a relationship has ended. Court cases, legal costs, and repeated disputes can become another arena in which someone with greater financial resources has considerably more power than the person trying to rebuild their life.
I had left the relationship, but financially, however, disentangling myself was another matter entirely.
There was another financial consequence that continued long after the relationship itself had ended: child maintenance.
Payments rarely came. When they did, it often felt like a carrot being dangled — the promise that money was coming, that something would be paid, that help was finally on its way. Then it would be withdrawn, delayed, or simply never materialise.
Eventually, I stopped expecting the carrot altogether.
For more than ten years, throughout much of our children's childhood, I received no child maintenance and was left to financially support them myself.
And I think this is another form of financial abuse that can be overlooked after separation. The relationship may have ended, but the financial responsibility of raising children hasn't. When one parent repeatedly withholds that contribution, the other doesn't have the option of simply not paying for food, clothes, school costs, heating, or everything else the children need.
You find the money.
You absorb the shortfall.
You go without if necessary.
And year after year, the financial burden that should have been shared becomes yours alone.
"I'll Pay You Back"
Another relationship looked completely different.
We weren't married. We didn't own property together. There wasn't a shared business or complicated financial structure.
What there was instead was a seemingly endless stream of:
"I've forgotten my wallet."
"I'll transfer it later."
"I'll get the cash out."
"I'll pay you back."
"Work haven't paid me yet."
Each individual occasion sounded plausible.
That's what made it so easy to dismiss.
We would go shopping, and he would choose the food he wanted — often more expensive things than I would ordinarily buy — and somehow, when we reached the till, I would end up paying.
Meals out.
Days out.
Shopping.
Christmas.
Holidays.
There was always a reason.
And there was nearly always a promise that the money would come back.
It rarely did.
At one point, he was effectively living with me while still maintaining his own accommodation, meaning I was absorbing the additional cost of him being in my home while he contributed nothing towards it.
Eventually, I challenged it. I couldn't continue financially supporting another adult while raising my children and managing everything else. He left.
Later, when reconciled and lived together properly, he did contribute towards household expenses. But the pattern didn't disappear.
There were IOUs at birthdays and Christmas.
Requests to borrow money because he'd run out.
Promises of repayment.
And somehow I ended up financing my own Christmas present. It sounds almost funny when I write that now.
But it wasn't at the time.
Because all those little amounts accumulated.
Some expenses went onto an overdraft. Others went onto credit cards. Holidays were booked on the understanding that his share would be repaid.
I trusted the promises.
And eventually I realised it couldn't continue.
By the time the relationship ended, I was carrying thousands of pounds of debt.
I want to make something very clear here because I think it's important when we talk about financial abuse:
This wasn't somebody recklessly spending money without understanding the consequences.
I understood money.
I budgeted.
I worked.
I raised my children.
What I hadn't accounted for was repeatedly making financial decisions based on promises from someone I trusted — promises that weren't kept.
That's very different.
When Money Is Given to You — But Isn't Really Yours
My final relationship was different again.
When we met, I had my own business and was doing well.
Over time, my health became more difficult to manage, and life became more complicated. I had operations, struggled physically at times, and was also helping to care for my mum.
Gradually, my ability to work reduced as I had once done reduced. There was also a subtle sense that my working wasn't particularly encouraged by him.
Being told I could be 'looked after' sounded like care. And slowly, without really noticing it happening, I became increasingly financially dependent.
Then one day I was told that money from his company would start being paid into my account.
It wasn't presented as a conversation to be discussed, it was presented as something that was happening.
It was apparently beneficial for the business and, ultimately, beneficial for us as a family.
So I trusted it. I trusted him,
Money would arrive in my account, and then it would be transferred elsewhere for household or business purposes. Some remained with me for everyday family expenses.
On paper, money was being given to me.
But that's the interesting thing.
Money entering your bank account doesn't automatically mean you have financial autonomy.
If you haven't genuinely participated in the decision, you don't fully understand the implications, you cannot decide what happens to the money, and are carrying financial consequences because of it, that's a very different dynamic.
There were company arrangements, dividends, and shares that I didn't fully understand at the time.
I trusted the person who did. My Husband.
Later, I discovered decisions had been made and changed without my knowledge or meaningful agreement.
There were also financial decisions affecting our family that would simply be announced afterwards.
Money had been borrowed.
Money was being transferred.
Money had been allocated for something.
I wasn't necessarily being asked.
I was being told.
And because it was always framed as being for us, it was incredibly difficult to recognise that something was wrong.
That's What Makes It So Insidious
This is perhaps the part of financial abuse I understand differently now.
It doesn't always look cruel.
Sometimes it looks generous.
"I'll look after you."
"You don't need to work."
"I'll sort the money."
"This makes more sense financially."
"It's better for the family."
"Don't worry about it — I've dealt with it."
Those sentences aren't abusive in themselves.
In a healthy relationship, they could be expressions of love, teamwork, and generosity.
The difference is what sits underneath them.
Can you say no?
Can you ask questions without consequences?
Do you understand what's happening?
Are decisions genuinely shared?
Can you access money independently?
Are you allowed to work if you want to?
Do you have financial security of your own?
Are you being asked before financial decisions are made that affect you?
And if the relationship ended tomorrow, would you discover that the financial security you thought you had wasn't actually yours?
That's where the difference lies.
Financial Abuse Doesn't Have One Face
Across three relationships, my experiences with money looked completely different.
In one, I was the person desperately managing the finances while living with somebody else's financial behaviour — and later experienced money, employment and legal processes becoming part of the separation.
In another, I was repeatedly expected to cover costs on promises of repayment until I was carrying significant debt.
And, in another, money was intertwined with dependence, business arrangements and decisions that increasingly happened around me rather than with me.
None of those looked like the stereotypical image I'd had of financial abuse.
Nobody stood over me demanding receipts for every penny.
Nobody locked my bank card in a drawer.
And that's precisely why I didn't recognise it.
Financial abuse isn't defined simply by who holds the bank card.
It's about whether money is being used to restrict someone's choices, exploit their trust, create dependency, remove autonomy, or leave them carrying consequences they didn't freely choose.
And sometimes it happens so gradually that you don't notice your financial freedom disappearing.
You simply adapt.
You cover it this time.
You believe the promise.
You transfer the money.
You accept the explanation.
You trust that it's being done for the family.
You stop working so much.
You become more dependent.
You tell yourself you'll sort it out later.
Until one day you look at your finances and wonder:
How did I get here?
I know now that financial safety isn't simply having money in the bank.
It's having choice.
It's having knowledge.
It's having a voice.
It's being able to participate equally in decisions that affect your life.
And perhaps most importantly, it's knowing that love should never require you to surrender your financial autonomy in order to prove that you trust someone.
Control doesn't always take your money away.
Sometimes it makes you believe you freely handed the power over.
Love Molly x