Guides

What coercive control looks like as evidence

Coercive control is hard to show because no single message looks like much. The evidence is the pattern.

What it is

Coercive control is a pattern over time. It can include threats, intimidation, isolation, control of money, constant monitoring, involving the children, and repeated messages that wear you down. It is not one argument or one bad day.

Names for the pieces

The Power and Control Wheel from the Duluth Model names tactics including “Using Intimidation”, “Using Emotional Abuse”, “Using Isolation”, “Minimizing, Denying and Blaming”, “Using Children”, “Using Economic Abuse” and “Using Coercion and Threats”.¹ Sorting your records under names like these makes the pattern easier to see.

How to show a pattern

• Date everything. A pattern is about time. An item without a date can’t sit in it.
• Keep one timeline. Texts, photos, bank records and notes in one line, in the order they happened.
• Count, don’t describe. “31 messages between 9 PM and 1 AM” says more than “he texted constantly”.
• Put different kinds of record side by side. A message, a photo and a bank statement from the same day are worth looking at together. That is “consistent with”, not proof on its own.
• Save it all. NNEDV’s point about threatening messages applies here: “saving it could show patterns.”²

The law is different in each state

Whether and how a state’s law names coercive control is different from state to state, and this page does not say what yours does. The Hotline suggests that “Speaking with a legal advocate in your state might better prepare you for your unique situation.”³