When Is Your Partner Controlling You? By A Survivor of Domestic Abuse

“In the beginning,” said Emmy Marie, “there was a tremendous amount of love bombing. He made me feel like he understood me better than anyone, like he loved everything about me on a deep, deep level, and I started spending all my time with him.

“After about three months, the controlling behaviors started to seep in to the relationship. It started out with little degrading comments and then over the three years ended with me feeling utterly worthless.”

Marie, who lives in Portland, Oregon, is now 27 but the relationship she is describing began when she was just 15—and her controlling boyfriend was a fellow high schooler.

Her experience is not uncommon. Four in 10 women and four in 10 men have experienced at least one form of coercive control by an intimate partner, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. The NCADV also explains that “women aged 16 to 24 experience domestic violence at the highest rate of any age group, almost three times the national average.”

The support group Domestic Shelters defines coercive control as “a pattern of domination, intimidation and deliberately impeding the rights of one’s intimate partner.” But it is not always easy to spot.

A controlled and manipulated person might not recognize that they are being abused, so they stay in the relationship. Gretchen Shaw, deputy director of the NCADV, told Newsweek last year that coercive control tactics “are harder to both explain and prove.”

In some countries, including the U.K., coercive control is a criminal offense punishable with jail time. The legal position in the U.S. is more mixed. Domestic Shelters explains that in many states, coercive control laws only cover “civil matters such as child custody and protective orders,” not prosecution of abusers.

Below, Emmy Marie and clinical psychologist Kirren Schnack explain how to recognize coercive control.

What Is Controlling Behavior?

“Ultimately, a person trying to control you is going to be making all your decisions for you,” Schnack told Newsweek.

“This could take the form of making arrangements without asking you, controlling your finances, making changes to the home without asking, to name a few.”

The behavior might be passive or direct—often it is both. An example of passive control is telling you that something you don’t feel comfortable in looks nice on you, “and then the next thing you know you’re only wearing what they tell you to wear, which is direct control,” she added.

There are a range of reasons why someone might seek to control their partner to an extreme level. They could have underlying mental health issues, or feel insecure because they have experienced trauma or abandonment.

But Schnack points out that this “does not entitle them to limit the free will of another person. It does not entitle them to harm another person and it is their responsibility to seek help and tackle the issues they are dealing with.”

It takes two years on average for a victim to leave their abuser. Schnack, who works at a clinic in Oxford, southeast England, said her patients often tell her that “he doesn’t know he’s doing it.”

“Mostly they do,” she said. “Controlling behavior is a conscious behavior. For example, if they call you and you don’t pick up, and they get mad and then call you 20 times, that’s a conscious behavior. They know they are doing it. It requires a conscious thought and an active behavior. You can’t not know.”

Abusers will often say they truly love their victim. Schnack insists they do not. “I hear ‘I only did it because I care’ from a lot of the people I work with. It’s their version of love and truth, but it’s not love if it’s conditional and requires you to bend to their will and submit and give up your autonomy.”

Emmy Marie’s Story

Emmy Marie now works as a trauma-informed coach, using what happened to her to help other survivors have free and fulfilling lives.

When she was in the abusive relationship, she had no autonomy over any aspect of her life. If her boyfriend needed money, her car keys, sex, she felt she had to comply.

“He isolated me from my friends, made me give up hobbies. He was constantly humiliating me, making me feel as though no one would ever love me except for him.”

Marie recalls an evening when she was out with friends and wasn’t looking at her phone. “I missed his calls,” she said. “He got mad at me and acted really jealous, accusing me of cheating, and I felt really guilty.

“My mind was able to rationalize that I hadn’t done anything wrong. I was just hanging out with my friends, but a huge aspect of this is manipulation and you’re made to feel like you’re a bad person for having basic privacy.”

People reading this might think, “That would never happen to me,” but it’s important to understand how insidious such manipulation can be. A victim is broken down to their most vulnerable state, then shown small amounts of affection to keep them from leaving.

“All of the abuse was coupled with little crumbs of love and affection,” said Marie, “small reminders that he was supposedly the person who loved me the best and understood me.

“I truly believed that we had built this foundation based on absolute devotion and loyalty, and we were soulmates. I was made to believe that he was doing this because he loved me.”

It took about two years for her to acknowledge that things weren’t right. “I looked up ‘what is an abusive relationship’ on the internet, and was terrified to realize mine ticked all the boxes. I wasn’t in a state of blissful ignorance, my brain knew something was wrong immediately but I suppressed it. Don’t ignore the signs.”

By the final year of the relationship, when Marie was 17, her mental health had severely deteriorated. She had suicidal feelings and was engaging in self-harm and alcohol abuse to deal with the pain.

“I was in such a state of hopelessness and surrender where I thought there’s no way out, so I just have to find a way to cope. The pain of his behavior was excruciating, but the fact that my perpetrator was someone I believed I was in love with was unbearable.”

If she mentioned breaking up with him, he would threaten to kill himself, or to harm himself, her family, or her. “I couldn’t have that on my conscience, so I resolved to be in it forever.”

Her abuser was in and out of jail for petty theft from their high school at points during the relationship, giving her some respite.

“During one of the times he was on release, he told me to go to my doctor to get him some Xanax so that he could abuse it,” she said. “I did it, and filled out the mental health form they give you, and I answered it truthfully.

“I was living in a constant state of terror and depression and my doctor came back to me and diagnosed me with an anxiety disorder.”

This diagnosis led to Marie being prescribed Zoloft, which is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor and cannot be abused like Xanax.

“I vividly remember him saying to me, ‘After two weeks on that, you’re going to leave me,’ which I adamantly denied”, she said.

“I want to point out that it is not a reasonable thing to expect this drug, or any drug, to work for everybody but, for me, I was at the lowest point I could be and having this medication just regulate my serotonin levels seriously brought me up.

“I was able to look at my life with some objectivity and realized that I loved my friends, my family, I was doing well in school, my life was good. The only thing that was ruining my life and making me want to die was this person.”

When she came to this conclusion, Marie’s boyfriend was in jail and due to serve another six months left. She wrote him a letter saying she was leaving him but, to her surprise, he was released a week later. He subjected her to six months of harassment, stalking and verbal abuse until she left for college.

“Even though I still had to deal with his abuse for that period, it was like a switch had flipped in my head and I was resolved not to go back to that life,” she said.

Marie has since been diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, which involves having a skewed sense of self-worth and finding any form of conflict difficult. “In the years shortly afterwards I was always afraid he would find and harm me in some way. I felt very unsafe in myself, and I had flashbacks and regular nightmares.”

Looking back now, she sees herself and him more clearly. “I was infatuated by him, but now my definition of love is very different and more mature. At 15 I was convinced I was in love with him, but in reality I was manipulated and petrified into staying.”

As for whether he ever loved her, she said it was an easy question to answer. “He loved the control, the power to use me and get things from me, the safety—but he never loved me as a person. You do not treat someone like that if you love them. That is now clear in my mind.

“Abuse is not love.”

Anyone seeking help should call the National Domestic Violence Hotline, a free and confidential hotline available 24/7. It can be reached on 1-800-799-7233 or TTY 1-800-787-3224. The hotline also provides information on local resources. For more information visit thehotline.org.

If you have thoughts of suicide, confidential help is available for free at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Call 1-800-273-8255. The line is available 24 hours a day.