When I was putting together the information about the different forms financial control can take, I had one of those “ouch” moments. It happened when I realised just how many of them I was subjected to. I had listed thirty-eight; out of those thirty-eight, he used twenty-three to financially abuse me. The following are those twenty-three and how he used each one against me.
Avoids or refuses to pay child support – Although that wasn’t an issue, he made it clear he didn’t believe in paying child support if the mother was the one who left the partnership. It is worth mentioning that he constantly complained how much children cost to raise.
Believes they are entitled to your money or assets – During the getting to know one another phase, he found out that I am an only child. As I opened up more, I told him where my parents lived, about the house and about my life at home. He saw for himself the house when I took him to meet my parents. After seeing the house, he assumed that when my parents died, everything would come to me. Personally, I didn’t care what my parents did with their assests; it was theirs to do with as they wished. I remember him saying to the boys that they should marry a rich woman, not that they should marry for love; no marry a rich woman and then they wouldn’t have to work.
To this day, I am still confused as to why someone who was so fixated on how much money I would supposedly inherit from my parents manipulated a situation that resulted in me no longer having a relationship with them? When we returned to the UK, he suggested that the boys and I try to heal the rift between us and my father (my mother having died in 2003). I agreed because I did want to see my dad again, but wouldn’t initiate any form of contact without my husband knowing about it. Over a period of time, I wrote to him, sent him a birthday card and waited to see if he would respond. He didn’t. My husband even made two separate trips to see my dad. The first time he took my eldest son, the second time, my younger son. It was after the second visit that the truth finally dawned. The reason he wanted me to reconcile with my dad was so that I could claim what he perceived as my inheritance. My husband had turned fifty in 2013 and was still bitter he hadn’t retired at forty. He saw my father as his financial ticket to retirement. I suspect my father knew this.
Becomes angry over money issues and then resorts to other kinds of abuse like name calling and physical abuse – He never resorted to physical abuse; when it came to being angry with me, he used the silent treatment and as for name calling, he would belittle me.
Blames you for their financial difficulties – He prevent me from working, yet when finances were tight I was the one he blamed. It was all part of his control.
Borrows money without repaying it – He defaulted on a lot of loans and I spent many sleepless nights worrying about debt collectors. He wasn’t at all concerned. Nor did he have any hesitation about going to his parents for money. I thought the money he had “borrowed” from them would be paid back, but he had other ideas. To this day I have no idea what he said to them to get them to transfer considerable sums of money to us, but given the way I have been treated since he died, I strongly suspect I was blamed as to why he needed to have them send us money.
Criticises every financial decision you make – This does fit in with the above as he was critical of any financial decisions I made, small though they were.
Decides what employment you can or can’t take – He did prevent me from working (see below), but periodically would require me to take on self-employment opportunities that he found suitable. In 2005, he came up with the idea, because I used to be a nanny, I should start a nanny placement agency. Sounds reasonable . . . except you need money to start a business and he was unwilling to help me with the start-up costs, was against me from talking to the bank about small business financing and the location. Now location is important. We were living in a rural part of Southern Oregon (a round trip to the closest town was forty miles). There wasn’t a need for a nanny placement agency not when, should anyone require a nanny, there were established agencies to the north in Portland and to the south in San Francisco. Needless to say the agency wasn’t a success.
Deliberately sabotages your work responsibilities and employment opportunities – The biggest way he sabotaged my employment opportunities was by getting me pregnant shortly after we married.
Doesn’t allow you to spend money on your children or yourself without asking permission – I have written a book about my experiences of being abused. The title is “Do you mind if I buy myself some new underwear?” Yes I did have to ask to buy new underwear, not just for myself, but the boys as well. I also had to ask permission to buy clothing, shoes, toiletries etc. When my elder son left home to go and live with his grandparents so that he could go to the college close to where they lived, he needed some new clothing, a rucksack and other items. My birthday money from my in-laws that year paid for those items.
Drags out divorce proceeding in order to inflict as much financial harm as possible – In those later years, when I could see thing were not right between us, but still held out hope that things would turn out right, I did consider divorcing him. What held me back was that I had no finances. By then he had split me off from my family, but he could turn to his for assistance in paying for legal representation in a potential divorce case. He had the ability to inflict as much financial harm on me as possible.
Has control over the household expenses – Even though due to the jobs he had during our time together, I had to pay the bills that were not automatically paid from the joint account, such as the mortgage or the rent, he required me to show him how much I intended to pay. It was though he didn’t trust me to pay the full amount that was due on the bill.
When it came to groceries, I had a tight budget; he didn’t. I was regularly required to add expensive items to the weekly food shop, such beer, the £1.50 plus bottles, wine that had to cost more than £5, steak, salmon, and stilton. You get the picture. In the USA, as I don’t drive, I relied on my husband to take me grocery shopping. I had my list of items that we required. It was never kept to. Upon our return, I discovered the joys of online shopping and tried to keep within a budget. In both instances each week I was way over with the items that he insisted upon adding, even to the online order. The only time I was within budget when doing the online orders was when he was away on business.
Makes major financial decisions without consulting you – Unfortunately, there are many including the three houses that we bought during our marriage, the two in the UK and the one in the USA. All were close to the top of what we could afford; all were his choice. There were also the houses we ended up renting both here and in the USA. Each and every one of them like the ones we bought were at the top of our price range.
Then there was the truck he bought while we were living in Oregon. I thought we were just going to look at them, but he had other ideas. By the end of the afternoon he was the owner of a small truck. The only good thing about it was it came with a cab that the four of us could fit in. His job in the USA came with a company vehicle; when he was made redundant the vehicle was taken away. He did at least have the truck, but it was a hefty monthly expense.
He also took loans of out his USA pension. When he was made redundant he didn’t have to pay back the loans, but he was left with no pension.
Finally, the remortgaging of the house in Oregon and taking out a business line of credit. He remortgaged the house twice and as my name was on the loan I had to agree to it even though he had arranged the remortgaging. The business line of credit was in his name. Once we were back in the UK, he refused to pay what he owed on it.
Makes it impossible for you to leave as they have full control over the finances – This is so true. When I was finally seeing that my marriage was a bad one, I had no means of escaping it. I did imagine what I could do, but he held all the cards financially. By that time he had cut me off from my parents, prevented me from having my own friends and seeking advice on the internet or making calls was impossible as he was monitoring both.
Prevents access to your own money. This includes having your own bank account or credit cards – One of the biggest mistakes I made in our relationship was giving up my own bank account in favour of a joint account when we moved in together. What I should have done was keep my own account and each month transfer my share of the bills into the joint account. From that moment on, I lost control of my own money and it was only after he died and I was transferring utility bills and the lease on the house into my name, that I spoke to the bank and had his name taken off the joint account. Should I ever be in a serious relationship again, that I end up living with someone again; I will not give up my own bank account and will make sure I have access to my own money.
Prevents you from working – Shortly after I became pregnant with my first son, my husband embarked on a job search near his parents. At the time I had a good job with promotion prospects, but these were dashed when he found a job and we moved. From that moment on, I never worked for an employer again. That was in June 1990.
Prevents you from attending job training or pursing further education so that you can advance your career – One of his ideas for employment for me when we returned to the UK was that I was to become a book keeper. He had heard good book keepers make a decent amount of money. This was all part of his plan to retire as soon as he could. There were two things wrong with this plan. One I am not mathematically inclined, I can do my own basic finances, but when it comes to my annual tax return, I have a professional file it for me. The other problem was that in order for me to become a qualified book keeper I needed to train and take exams. This required both time and money, neither of which he was prepared to give me.
Requires you to account for everything you spend and asks for receipts – I had to tell him what I spent; this included telling what I planned to spend on his birthday. As for receipts, he checked the joint bank account and could see what I spent.
Requires you to hand over your pay or have your salary paid into your joint account – This happened when we decided to move in together. I lost control of my own money.
Threats to cut you off financially if you disagree with them – This was an implied threat, which was how he worked.
Will spend money on themselves but prevents you from doing the same – I could write an entire book about the money he spent on himself. Tools were a weakness of his. I could understand this to a degree when they were needed for work and he could claim them on expenses. The ones I despaired over were the ones he bought for a project he had in mind and then didn’t use them. Or in many cases the he forgot about the project. When I am talking about tools, I am not talking about ones that cost £20+ I am talking about anything upwards of £500.
Computers were again a weakness of his. There wasn’t a new component for one of the many computers that we had that he didn’t immediately want and went out and purchased. That happened both sides of the Atlantic. Today I still have several draws full of computer parts that I have absolutely no idea what they are or what I should do with them. I suspect most of them are obsolete by now.
As for me spending any money on items that I would like to have, for example a new handbag, he would refuse to allow me to do so. His parents sent us money for birthdays and Christmas. Mine went towards household bills or items for the boys. There was a time when we were still in the USA when I did need some new summer clothing. I was allowed to use my birthday money to purchase them, but he had the final say in what I was allowed to buy.
Whenever I approached him about needing to buy anything for myself or the boys I would always say “Do you mind if” followed by what I needed.
Will spend money without your knowledge – This is a gray area as I did have access to our joint bank account, due to the amount of travelling he did. However he did have his own credit cards, so while I knew what was being spent out of the joint account, I had no idea of what was on being spent on his credit cards. There were items that showed up as debits on the joint account and me being concerned about fraud did try and ask him about them. The response was the money in the account was his to do with as he pleased. In other words, it wasn’t my place to question him about what he was spending money on.
Will use money from children’s savings accounts – Yes he did. Both the boys, while were living in Oregon had savings accounts. When the money became tight, as he had access to them, he closed them down and took the money. Not once did he make an attempt to pay the money back.
Won’t work or contribute to the household expenses – He often stated it was his desire to retire when he reached forty. I believe he did mentally when he turned forty in 2003. Although he did become self-employed, he never pushed his business and in the end was turning to the bank of Mum and Dad to keep a roof over our heads.