Controlling behaviours

The difference between an unhealthy relationship and abuse is based on the use of power and control to harm someone else. Find out more about eight behaviours a parent might use to exert power and control in a relationship.

• Emotional abuse

  A person is using emotional abuse when they use insults, name-calling and belittling to make their partner feel bad about themselves. 

  • Insults and putting their partner down
  • Name-calling
  • Gaslighting - making their partner feel like they've done something wrong or have made a mistake
  • Playing mind games
  • Humiliating them
  • Making their partner feel guilty.

  Read more about emotional abuse

• Using social status

  A person may use their social status in the family, or community as a way to disempower their partner.

  Social status means how people are viewed based on their position in society. 

  Using social status negatively in a relationship could mean influencing someone to do things, like wearing certain clothes, or controlling them by restricting how much money they have access to. 

  Examples include:

  • Treating their partner like a servant
  • Making all the decisions in the relationship
  • Setting rules about roles in the home.

• Intimidation

  Intimidation means making someone afraid by using body language, actions and gestures. It acts as a reminder that they are capable of violence without it being physical. 

  Actions could include:

  • Body language like threatening looks, actions and gestures
  • Smashing and destroying property
  • Displaying weapons
  • Abusing pets.

• Minimising, denying or blaming

  Using the tactics of minimising someone's experiences, blaming the other person, or denying their actions, an abuser can control the relationship. Examples of this type of behaviour include:

  • Joking about abuse and not taking it seriously
  • Gaslighting by saying the abuse didn't happen
  • Shifting the responsibility of abusive behaviour by saying that the victim deserved it, or did something wrong.

  Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse that leads someone to question their thoughts, memories and the events happening around them. 

  Read more about gaslighting

• Threats

  Using threatening behaviour to get their way can be overt, which means it's obvious, or it could be hidden.

  Examples of threats include:

  • Threatening to leave or to commit suicide if the victim doesn't do what they say
  • Threatening to report someone to the police or to make a victim drop charges if there is already a case against them
  • Making someone do illegal things at the threat of violence
  • Making someone do something they don't want to do because of the threat of violence.

• Sexual coercion

  Sexual coercion means using sex, relationships or family to get your way. This could look like:

  • Manipulating someone or making threats to get sex
  • Getting someone pregnant, or becoming pregnant to have power over the other partner
  • Threatening a partner with taking their children away
  • Getting someone drunk, or drugged to have sex.

• Isolation or exclusion

  By isolating or excluding someone from their friends and family, a parent may try to control their partner's life by making them feel alone and dependent on them. Examples of how this can be spotted include:

  • Controlling who they see
  • Limiting what they do
  • Monitoring what they read
  • Keeping tabs on their phone and limiting who they talk to
  • Using jealousy to justify abuse.

  Read more about feeling lonely

• Peer pressure

  Peer pressure means using someone's friendship group as a threat. For example:

  • Threatening to expose weaknesses, secrets or start rumours about their partner
  • Telling malicious lies about their partner to their friends..

  Read more about peer pressure