I consider myself pretty responsible and knowledgeable when it comes to my finances. I’m also, as discussed in previous articles, thousands of dollars in debt. Is that crushing number something that should cause me shame?
Over the course of our five years together, my abuser did his best to worm his way into any of my resources that he could, including property and finances.
The ways he stole and manipulated my finances away were as innumerable as they were schem-y, so this summary is by no means all-encompassing. His leeching bled me dry as I scrambled to staunch wounds he kept me too dizzy to see.
In my ongoing efforts to validate other survivors and protect victims who may be unknowingly being manipulated, I’ve compiled just a few of the tactics he employed below.
These are things that are, in many cases, embarrassing to admit, but I believe they’re important to share.
Watch the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves
Shortly after we began dating, my abuser moved in with me “temporarily”, in what I was told was an attempt to cut ties with his previous partner.
When we’d gotten together, he made it seem as though his previous relationship had just ended and that they were just waiting out the end of their lease as roommates.
No one falls in love faster than a mediocre man looking for a place to live.
I learned several months into his living with me that he hadn’t, in fact, ended his previous relationship at all. He was still seeing and manipulating her as well, making me out to be the other woman to her while he made her out to be the “crazy ex” to me. I truly hope she’s doing ok.
He lived with me for almost 6 months before he even began contributing to the rent, starting fights anytime I brought it up and saying it was my fault that his previous relationship ended and that we’d lost our jobs.
You read that correctly
When my abuser’s alcoholism and anger issues resulted in him trying to shoot me (story coming eventually, it’s a doozy and I haven’t yet mustered up the emotional capacity), both of us lost our jobs as a result. As you can imagine, this took a huge hit on my finances as well as my mental health.
I was able to find a new job fairly quickly, seeing as I hadn’t assaulted anyone, while he wasn’t able to find another for months.
Unfortunately, thanks to victim-blaming and abandonment by police (aka my coworkers), this incident forced me to remain trapped in a tiny apartment with an abuser who now fully relied on me for financial support.
Su casa es mi cárcel
Once my lease at the apartment ended, we moved into a modest house and agreed to split the payments evenly. Outside of that responsibility, he recklessly blew any remaining money on guns, booze, motorcycles (which he crashed drunk), and gambling.
Funny how he always seemed to have the money for a pack of beer or a handle of whiskey, yet he couldn’t swing groceries.
Whenever we went out (which, thanks to his alcohol abuse, was multiple times per week), it was somehow nearly always my turn to pay.
He’d regularly begin fights during outings, twisting unearned blame around me and squeezing tight. Afraid to add fuel to the fire, I’d feel obligated to silently pay when the check arrived in order to appease him.
Other times he’d black out, becoming so belligerent and incoherent I had little option but to pay so I could herd his drunk ass out the door.
He refused to grocery shop, yet also refused to reimburse me because I’d selfishly buy foods he deemed too expensive or not what he wanted.
In a bizarre power play, he’d start fights about me spending money on anything nice for myself, then later he’d claim to have bought me whatever it was as a gift. It was easier to go along with it and thank him than to risk starting the fight over again. It was one of many ways he tried to twist my own memories.
When we bought our second house, I was the sole contributor to the down payment: $12000 which nearly drained my savings. He managed this by first suggesting we level up and move, spending months house hunting with me until we finally chose one, then claiming that I was the one who wanted to move in the first place.
He went into a rage, saying the whole thing had been a waste of time because he couldn’t afford to contribute. Whether from mental exhaustion, dissociation, or fear of losing the house we’d searched so long for, I gave in and made the full payment.
On top of this sum, I’d now be paying a higher mortgage to live in a home that was over an hour drive from my work and family. My commute was draining, expensive, and left me secluded during my days off.
A house is not a home
Lack of financial resources was a huge reason I felt forced to try to work things out, even when, the same week we moved into that new house, I learned he’d been cheating on me with multiple women.
A week or so after that, as he groveled and I tried to maintain my resolve that we weren’t healthy for each other, I was injured and my car totaled in an icy car wreck, leaving me unable to move easily and living alarmingly close to paycheck-to-paycheck.
Finally, the pandemic hit. The physical, emotional, and sexual abuses I was regularly enduring were ramping up, and I could feel the weight of it all slowly crushing all the air out of me. My chest felt permanently constricted, making it hard to draw a full breath.
I could finally see that this relationship was going to be the death of me if I didn’t do something. As I desperately made plans to disentangle myself from the relationship as safely as I could, he pulled out all of the stops to get me to stay.
Beware the wrath of a narcissist no longer trying to fool you
As I was moving out, he stole a bunch of my sentimental things, things he knew I couldn’t replace, so he could parse them out over time, claiming to have just found them as an excuse to try to meet up with me.
This included refusing to sell the house for months after I’d fled; a move that kept me stuck in a town I couldn’t feel safe in because I didn’t have the money to move. He also knew this would keep me from going completely no contact.
If I hadn’t been so unfathomably lucky to have a loved one who let me stay at an apartment they’d been in the process of selling for way too cheap, I’d have been screwed.
Especially after, in a malicious attempt to punish me for leaving, my ex maxed out a credit card he’d added my name to without my permission. This tanked my credit score by almost 120 points and caused me to have to open a claim with each credit bureau so I wouldn’t be on the hook for the payments he was missing.
This was during a time that I was actively trying to flee the state and change jobs in order to escape him, things that require financial resources and decent credit. It held me in a state of anxious limbo for months.
This man was prepared to intentionally leave me in financial ruin because I didn’t want to be murdered by him. Because I dared to defy his control. It gave big “If I can’t have you no one can”, only affirming my resolve to get the hell out.
I still get harassed by calls from debt collectors looking for him, as well as other members of his family.
Turning the ship: Breaking out of debt post-abuse
I think a big reason we don’t hear a lot of these accounts from abuse victims is because we are busy. Busy trying to stay afloat, trying to stay alive, trying to grapple with the debilitating symptoms of trauma while hiding them from a world that doesn’t want to look at us.
Financial abuse has also left me with a lot of shame and embarrassment when it comes to my financial health. My abuser robbed me financially just as he robbed me of my right to my own body, my physical and mental health.
Looking at some of the specific ways my ex manipulated my money leaves me with, at least, a glimmer of pride that my debt is as low as it is; pride at myself for finally beginning to take a turn toward breaking even. While I know I’m still far from that day, it gives me hope that maybe the rest of what I’ve lost will eventually break even, too.
Other survivors out there: You aren’t alone
When survivors of intimate partner violence talk about having to rebuild our lives, we aren’t just talking about our mental health. Financial abuse is a way to keep victims trapped in toxic and often violent situations, and it is happening to someone you know as we speak.
If you’re a survivor with a story of financial abuse, I invite you to share your experiences below. Let’s bring awareness to this impossible barrier victims face when trying to escape abuse and learn to call out these manipulative behaviors.
Find 24/7 help and resources on staying safe while escaping abuse by visiting thehotline.org.