Coercive Control – Would She Even Know? Would you?

Coercive behaviour has historically been encompassed in family violence legislation in Australia, but state governments are moving towards criminalising it as a stand-alone offence. Coercive control is largely perpetrated by men against female partners. Will legislative change help women to recognise and safely leave coercive relationships? And is it likely to change men’s behaviour? In today’s post, a woman bravely shares her experience of abuse and coercive control to highlight challenges on both fronts. Names and details have been changed and the author asked to remain anonymous.

Content warning: the article contains distressing descriptions of coercive control.  

With State Governments moving to criminalise coercive control[1] [2] and the societal discussion about what coercive control looks like, I’m writing to offer my experience and to pose the question: given the nature of this behavior, would the victim know? And if victims don’t recognise their experience as coercive control, can legislative change help them?

After breaking up with my partner of 8 years, I was stuck and unable to move on from my relationship with Damien (*). It took months of grief, confusion, heartbreak and being stuck to realise I needed help. After I ended the relationship, I noticed physical changes.  I started sleeping better, stopped clenching my jaw, stopped sweating all the time, and even my posture improved. So why was I stuck? With the help of psychologists, counsellors, friends and family, I came to see the coercive control and emotional abuse I’d been experiencing.

Coercive control is insidious. For me, it was a long slow process of eroding me, of eliminating my needs and emotions, and of undermining my reality, forcing me to shrink myself to protect his ego. Patterns emerged where I became responsible for regulating his emotions, and where he used his victim mentality to justify aggression. I was the one comforting, pandering, apologising and fighting for the relationship while he shut down, stop talking to me and threw tantrums to punish me. I was to conform to his rules, while he did what he wanted.

Over time, a pattern developed where every two weeks, something would happen for Damien to shut down and shut me out for days at a time. This could be anything; real or imagined, serious or trivial. He’d tell me what a horrible person I was. He would threaten that the relationship was over. He’d claim I was too blunt, too honest and too direct. I could turn up at his house to find my belongings packed into a crate or told to turn around and go home. The only predictable thing was that I would be kept on edge and off balance.

What started as seemingly sweet and well-intended sentiments became rules that I had to follow. We didn’t live together so there was a convention of good morning messages. I woke up first which meant I was to text good morning first. Damien’s rationale was that if we woke up together, we’d say good morning, so this should be replicated with a text. Sweet right? Except when I didn’t text immediately or if I did anything else first. If Damien could see I was on social media before texting, he’d be angry and would shut me out. He became increasingly controlling of my time and interactions.

I lived with a KPI of texting every two hours. If I didn’t, it was a sign that the relationship was over, that I didn’t care, and that I didn’t prioritise him appropriately. If I was going to be occupied for a few hours, I needed to provide advance notice of this.

Damien had a week about custody schedule for his children from a previous relationship which meant we had the opportunity to be together every second weekend. Damien insisted that if I wanted to make plans on this weekend, I should check with him first. We needed to allocate this time together. Damien was not a planner, so the reality of this meant I was waiting on him to confirm his preferences before I could lock in anything else. Again, the rationale was sweet, it was so we could maximise our time together. However, Damien didn’t need to do this. He could make plans as he wished. I once pointed out that he didn’t conform to the rule imposed on me and he balked ‘So what, I need to clear my plans with you first?’ He was shocked that I could ask such a thing. Overtime, he became increasingly controlling of my time and relationships and contact with others.

On a weekend away, we were out to lunch and I carefully told Damien that I had been invited to join a Board. I was excited but Damien was livid. How could I think of doing something like this? Damien stormed out of the restaurant, I paid and rushed to the car, he started driving before I had even shut my door. When we got back to the hotel he stormed around the room, stormed out of the room disappearing up the road, and then threatened to go home leaving me at the hotel 4 hours from home without a way to get back.

Another time he asked about the salary of my new job. When I told him he couldn’t believe I’d be so insensitive. Somehow, I was supposed to be more sensitive in answering a question he’d asked. In hindsight, I can see that both reactions were to do with his insecurity, not something I had done wrong.

It was always Damien’s way. The slightest thing could be taken by him as rejection, and, as Damien’s Mum once explained ‘Damien’s ego is very fragile’, Damien couldn’t handle rejection. I couldn’t be honest, direct, say anything he might perceive as negative or he’d claim I was attacking him.

Damien had double standards about past relationships too. My past was judged, shamed and belittled. I’d slept with more people than him and this was a huge issue. It wasn’t even that my past was anything other than very normal and very average. But Damien insisted we never bring up our pasts, that we throw out all messages, photos and mementos of past relationships. I complied. Damien did not. He could bring up and shame me about my past whenever he was angry. He’d also kept a tacky memento from an ex-girlfriend displayed in pride of place in his house. And Damien lied about this, then lied to cover up his lie, then made different lies. Eventually, when I called him out on this, he didn’t apologise or even acknowledge his lies. Instead, he turned it around to be about my jealousy and insecurity. I was in the wrong for following his rules and expecting him to do the same. I can now see the rule and his issue with this was actually about his sexual inexperience, not something I had done wrong.

For my 40th birthday, Damien gave me 40 messages of why he loved me. However, he could only come up with 36, ‘because, you know, it’s really hard,’ he said. Message received - there are only 36 reasons to love me including two which highlighted the aspects of my body I’m most insecure about.

My life imploded a few years ago and I ended up with depression. Damien’s response – ‘This is good, now you’ll understand what I’ve been going through’. I put in the work and got through the depression. Then he was angry that I’d overcome depression and he was still experiencing his own mental health struggles.

During this time I was struggling. I’d been through child protection and courts, and had my children with me full-time as a result. Friends and family were offering to help, suggesting things they could do, and asking what they could do to help. But not Damien - he had a neat line ‘I wish there was something I could do to help’. A statement that sounded nice but made it clear there was nothing he could or would do to help. It was also up to me to help Damien. He kept telling me how hard it was on him that I had my children full-time. We’d gone from five child-free nights per fortnight to three. To appease him and give him back ‘his time’, time with me I spent over $60,000 on au pairs to minimise the impact on Damien and to allow us to continue to have time together without our children. But it wasn’t enough, he kept reminding me of how hard this was on him.

Damien made me question my own perception of reality and question myself. One night we went to a friend’s house for a dinner party and I thought we’d had a great night. On the way home he yelled, told me how embarrassing I was, how he couldn’t take me anywhere, how I’d embarrassed myself and needed to apologise to the hosts. Shocked, I messaged the hosts to apologise as I certainly didn’t remember it that way. They both replied laughing that I had nothing to apologise for and that we’d all had a great night. After, one of them checked I was ok, as they’d noticed I always apologised after catching up. Interestingly, years later when I mentioned the dinner party, Damien conceded that he’d ‘been a real jerk’ that night but there was no apology or acknowledgment of the impact of his behavior on me.

Which brings me to one of the worst aspects of coercive control. No rejection. You cannot say no. Sexual servitude develops. If Damien initiated sex, I couldn’t say no as it would lead to another emotional outburst. Damien would use sex to connect but would frequently tell me after that he ‘didn’t want us to use sex to connect’. I couldn’t reject his advances but somehow was in the wrong for going along with him too. One evening I arrived at Damien’s house after another couple of days of stonewalling. As soon as I walked through the door he started kissing me. I tried to stop, to which he said ‘What, do you want me to stop kissing you?’. The tone and message were clear, reject this and there will be consequences. He moved us to the bedroom and his body didn’t work. It was clear to me we needed to rebuild the emotional connection before sex. I gently suggested alternatives and intimated that I didn’t want to have sex at that time. However, Damien was determined, and it was my responsibility to spend 45 minutes coaxing his body to work and to get him to an outcome. If you don’t explicitly say no, because you can’t say no, is it still rape? If they’ve created a power imbalance and set up a pattern of no rejection, it certainly feels like that. Rape isn’t always loud and violent.

Damien twisted each issue so I was a bad person. Damien used his framing of himself as the victim to justify his outbursts, aggression and anger. Often Damien’s blowups were over things that weren’t even real, things I hadn’t said or that had become inflated in his rage. Regardless, I found myself apologising for things I didn’t do. I spent years in a position where the responsibility of making us work was solely mine, and where he could do and say whatever he wanted without any responsibility for apology or repair.

Men like Damien delude themselves that they are the ‘nice guys’. I wonder if the worst kind of man are these ones who think they are the nice guys. These men lack the self-awareness and empathy to see the impact of their behavior on other people, and who are so delusional and self-assured that they actually think the way they behave is acceptable.

When there is a power imbalance, either real or created, we put a lot of pressure on the victim, the one with the lower power to leave or to fight back. In reality it is up to the one with the greater power to recognise their behaviour, seek support to change and improve the way they are treating people. It is up to all of us to recognise our power, and to make sure it is used for good, for justice and to help make the world a better place.

Legislation will help ensure there are legal pathways and consequences for coercive control. But a societal shift is needed too. We need better social and community supports for women experiencing coercive control. And as men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators, it is important that other men to actively challenge their friend’s behavior. Simply ignoring it only contributes to the problem. As Australian Army Lieutenant General David Morrison put it "The standard you walk past is the standard you accept".

*Name changed

[1][1][1] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/dec/03/victoria-labor-allan-coercive-control-backflip-jess-wilson

[2] https://www.act.gov.au/law-and-justice/coercive-control

Content moderator: Sue Olney