What is Coercive Control and Behaviour?
The law allows you to apply for a family law injunction order if you have experienced coercive control and behaviour. In this blog, our family law solicitors look at what is meant by coercive control and behaviour.
If you need family law advice, contact Evolve Family Law.
What is coercive control and behaviour?
Coercive behaviour is:
- Any act designed to force or coerce you into doing something against your will,
- An act that is intended to harm or intimidate you.
Acts can include physical threats as well as other forms of humiliation or words said by your partner that make you feel as if you are no longer in control of your life or actions.
The law on coercive behaviour
The law says coercive and controlling behaviour is an act designed to make you feel subordinate or dependent on your partner. This could involve:
- Isolation from friends and family.
- Preventing independent acts or thoughts.
- Regulation of behaviour.
Examples of coercive control and behaviour
Here are some examples of real-life coercive behaviour:
- Controlling what you eat and weigh (you may be told that this is for ‘your own good’, but it is still coercive and controlling behaviour).
- Stopping you from having a shower or bath at times other than stipulated.
- Preventing you from leaving the family home on your own or stopping you from seeing your friends and family.
- Restricting your access to money so you only get an allowance to buy food and must account for any money spent by you.
- Telling you that you can’t pick up the baby or play with the children other than at times allowed.
- Telling you that you can’t go online or monitoring your computer and telephone usage.
- Dictating what clothes you should wear (either too modest or too flamboyant for your taste) or saying what make-up you can wear (if any).
Coercive control can occur remotely. Some of the most intimidating coercive behaviour can be carried out by bombarding someone with text messages and phone calls, or remote spying activities.
Coercive control and who it affects
Coercion and control does not just affect women in heterosexual relationships. Women can also coerce and control their male partners or husbands. Coercion and control also occur in same sex relationships.
If something amounts to coercive and controlling behaviour, then it doesn’t matter if you are married, in a civil partnership or cohabiting and living together. It is the act or behaviour that is important rather than the legal status of your family relationship.
If a partner is controlling, their behaviour may also affect the children. For example, they may not give the children appropriate freedoms for their age, or the children may be emotionally affected by witnessing the coercive control exercised by one parent over the other.
Recognising Coercive Behaviour
Coercive and controlling behaviour can be insidious and hard for you or your friends and family to spot. That is because the coercion can be subtle or the degree of control can grow slowly over time, so you don’t recognise it for what it is. For example, getting you to agree that it is too much hassle to see your mother every week, to eventually telling you who you can and can’t see.
When you are in a relationship, or you are a close friend or family member, it can be hard to spot or recognise coercive behaviour, often because it is dressed up as ‘only wanting to do what is best’ or because it is said you are so stupid or mentally unwell that your partner or husband or wife knows what is best for you.
What one person would describe as coercive and controlling behaviour may be the normal experience of a husband, wife or partner who is so used to such controlling behaviour that they have become immune to it and adapted their life and thought processes around their partner’s behaviour so as not to upset them or to fit in.
It is often only when you see your husband, wife, or partner starting to exercise the same coercive behaviour on your child, and you see the impact of that behaviour on your child’s demeanour and personality, that you realise that you have got to do something. In other families, it takes a close friend or family member to point out that what your partner sees as loving behaviour is stifling you and is coercive behaviour.
In the past, you could only get a judge to make a family law injunction order if there had been domestic violence involving a trip to the hospital or doctor. Those days are long gone, with family judges realising that any form of domestic violence, from serious sexual assault to a slap or a push or coercion, is unacceptable.
What can I do about coercive behaviour in my relationship?
If you are being subjected to coercion and control in your relationship, you can:
- Try to get your partner to see their behaviour for what it is and to change. This may involve counselling to get to the root cause of the coercive behaviour. In some family situations, the nature of the coercive control is such that it is not safe or healthy for you to stay in the relationship. Counselling and trying to stay together may not be a realistic option, as you need to leave the family home and separate permanently.
- Separate and start divorce proceedings. You can initiate no-fault divorce proceedings without needing to mention the behaviour in the divorce application. It is still important to tell your divorce solicitor about the behaviour. They can talk to you about your injunction options.
- Separate and start injunction proceedings. The family court makes an injunction order. The court can either make a non-molestation or an occupation order to protect you and your children
- Make a complaint to the police. The Serious Crime Act 2015 created a new criminal offence of controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or familial relationship. If your partner is found guilty, then in a serious case of coercive behaviour, they could be sent to prison for up to five years.
What is a non-molestation order?
A non-molestation injunction order is a family court order that stops the person who is behaving in a coercive or controlling manner towards you or your child from continuing to do so.
What is an occupation order?
An occupation injunction order is a family court order that prevents the person behaving in a coercive or controlling manner towards you or your child from continuing to live at the family home or from re-entering it, or restricts your partner or spouse from certain rooms in the family home.
Breaching an injunction order
If your partner or spouse breaches a family court injunction order, it constitutes contempt of court and a criminal offence.
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Talking to your divorce and family law solicitor about coercive behaviour
If you take the step of deciding to speak to a divorce solicitor about your marriage or relationship, it is essential to tell them about the coercive control. Many people are too embarrassed to talk about their partner or spouse’s behaviour, or they decide that their partner’s behaviour isn’t relevant because they don’t want to apply for an injunction order.
Even if you don’t want your divorce solicitor to act on the coercive behaviour information and apply for an injunction, it is still important to tell them about it so that they understand why you may have concerns about your children having contact and why you want a child arrangements order or why you may want a financial settlement that includes a clean break financial court order.
How Evolve Family Law can help you
The family law solicitors at Evolve Family Law will support you during your relationship breakdown and help you find the best long-term family solutions for you and your family. Our family lawyers are approachable and friendly, providing expert divorce, children and financial settlement advice, with experience in advising on separations or divorces where a partner has been abusive or is narcissistic and controlling.
Contact Evolve Family Law Today for Expert Family Law Advice.
