Spousal financial abuse can be a slippery slope

When they lived together, Stephanie and her husband maintained separate bank accounts, splitting everything 50/50. In 2001 they married, continuing their financial arrangement. Then came the kids, starting in 2008. “That's when things started to change,” said Stephanie, granted a pseudonym by Salon to discuss her situation due to safety concerns.

The couple realized Stephanie’s paycheck wouldn’t go any further than the cost of daycare, so she quit her job; her husband made close to six figures. According to Stephanie, he asked: “How are you still going to bring income to pay your share of the bills?”

“I should have been more appalled and horrified than I was,” she said. But as a first-time parent she felt she had to “earn” being home with her child, so she scrambled for income while being the primary caretaker for the kids. "While I was at home with our first daughter, I was looking for change. I was digging in the bottom of my purses because I still had to go to the grocery store and buy the groceries.”

Stephanie spent her available time trying to get her Etsy business going but crashed. She said her husband started giving her an allowance, but “I had to remind him to do it. So our relationship started turning very parent-child.” When she asked for a joint account, like other couples she knew, he said no.

It took the support of a therapist and her friends at her kids' preschool to name what was happening to her: financial abuse. 

It can happen anywhere, at any household income level. Some states have laws to protect spouses, but most incidents are handled as civil matters and penalties are few and far between.

One of the key similarities among victims is that when children join the family, it becomes extremely difficult to leave and start over.

Identifying the abuse

Spousal financial abuse is sometimes tricky to identify because it takes many forms and can often be rationalized by both the offending partner and the victim. Almost always, emotional and domestic labor isn’t considered work by the abuser, so, as in Stephanie’s case, it appears she’s not a full partner on paper.

“Financial abuse exists on a continuum,” says Zawn Villines, a feminist writer and the force behind the popular Liberating Motherhood Substack. “The most extreme forms include using money to limit what a person can eat, where they can go and whom they can see. An abuser might not give a partner enough money to meet their basic needs.”

Other signs include:

• Forcing the abused partner to live more frugally.
• Forcing the abused partner to pay for all child's expenses, especially daycare.
• Withholding financial information and access to accounts from a partner. (It is illegal to open an account or credit card with someone’s name on it and disallow them access.)
• Blocking a partner from working.
• Closely monitoring all spending and demanding regular accounting.

“One of the most common forms of financial abuse is using the threat of impoverishment to keep a woman in a relationship. So a man will use the courts to litigate a divorce to death. Or he'll seek 50/50 custody so he can pay less child support, even though he's never been a 50/50 parent,” Villines said.

Kate Anthony, a divorce coach and author of "The D Word," said debt belongs to both partners, no matter who spent the money. “Any marital debt that is incurred while married is considered marital debt,” Anthony said.

Abuse can be different for everyone

Financial abuse is a widespread problem that hits women at every household income level, and the toll is devastating. “Victims of financial abuse collectively lose a total of 8 million days of paid work per year. 59% of people's credit is negatively impacted by their abuser, and 70% of domestic violence victims are forbidden to work by their abusers,” Anthony said. 

Economic abuse also appears in most domestic violence cases, which spiked during the pandemic. But not all financial abuse is accompanied by physical violence, so it can be harder to get help.

Salon spoke with two other women who were granted pseudonyms to discuss their situations.

Janine, a professor, was the breadwinner in her family—voluntarily—as her former husband went to grad school and spent a decade writing a screenplay. One year, she said they survived on just $11,000 in Los Angeles. She said her husband refused to get a job because he “wouldn’t have time to write. He wouldn't talk about money or pay a bill, she said, so all of their finances hinged on her, no matter how much she asked him to participate. 

Patricia made her mark in fashion with a design business. “It ended up being profitable for a while, but the money ended up going right back into the company,” she said. Her success lasted 18 months, which is when the trouble with her husband began —even when she made the front page of a major metropolitan daily newspaper. “Every single week of those one and a half years, he would tell me, ‘Shut it down. This takes up too much of your time. We don't need that money.'” She said he accused her of trying to make money only so she could leave him.

He wore her down and the business closed. But her husband, she said, hounded her about “overspending” and wanted to know where every penny went. One of Patricia’s lowest moments was when she drove her child with special needs to an out-of-state facility and ran out of gas after an auto-pay bill for $300 had drained her bank account. She said her husband refused to help, so she used social media to ask friends to Venmo her gas money. 

As they work out their divorce terms, Patricia is waitressing and staying at the family home, which she can't afford on her own. Because she put less down on it, she fears her husband will likely end up taking the house and she’ll be unable to afford rent, let alone buy another home.

Women are often victims

Though there are exceptions, in a heterosexual marriage the abuser is nearly always a man. Eighty-five percent of domestic violence victims are women, according to Bureau of Justice Statistics.

When children enter the picture, the dynamic can change dramatically. “It takes a long time to wrap your head around the fact that this isn't normal, and it's not okay,” Anthony said. The dissolution of the “happily ever after” fantasy and the realization that the person who says they love you is hurting you can be the toughest part.

“People often wonder why women stay in abusive relationships,” Villines said. “Financial abuse is perhaps the most significant factor, because women are not typically willing to impoverish their children to protect themselves. Instead, women often stay until the abuser begins attacking the children, at which point it can be very difficult to leave.”

Villines said leaving is the beginning of a long, arduous process. “Financially abusive men will do anything to regain control, including using the legal system as a tool of abuse, making false reports to child protective services, filing frivolous lawsuits and escalating to violence. Any form of abuse, including financial abuse, is a significant risk factor for violence, including extreme violence and homicide.”

While there are many ways to prepare to leave an abusive marriage, Anthony suggests first asking for access to any shared accounts and checking to see if there are resources that can be hidden in tax returns. (And if you’ve signed it, the IRS will provide a copy for you.)

But safety is most important. “If you're going to anger them, if you're going to put yourself in any danger, then you should be working with a domestic violence victim’s advocate,” Anthony said.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline can help begin the journey, and after any initial danger is clear, look at FreeFrom.org and AllstateFoundation.org for information specifically for abuse survivors to build or rebuild their financial independence.

If you can afford the time, a long-term strategy for escape makes sense. “My advice to people is not to move too quickly," Anthony said. "Having a clear strategy and guidance along the way is going to be really important.”