Earlier this month I wrote about Financial Abuse – what it is, how it manifests, and the financial and psychological toll it can take on the victim.

What I haven’t yet written about is my own experience of Financial Abuse.

A Financial Advisor, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ Professional, Certified Divorce Financial Analysist™ Professional, and Financial Abuse survivor? It’s an unexpected combination to say the least.

The fact that I’m one of the last people you might expect to have lived this kind of experience is exactly why I want to share my story.

Before

I met the man I eventually married when I was just 21 years old. I was naïve, trusting, and ignorant of what a healthy intimate relationship looked like.

I also didn’t know a whole lot about money.

The abuse started around the time we moved in together in late 2004 and presented as coercive control.

While there was a façade of joint decision making, it slowly became clear to me that if we disagreed, his opinion would always prevail over mine.

And if I chose to assert myself, I learned that there would be a painful argument that would end with his opinion prevailing over mine anyway.

I learned not to disagree.

But we didn’t have much money, so there just wasn’t much to disagree about.

During

In 2010, we married, I finished my Master of Business, and I started my career in finances. My salary tripled over night, and I wanted to enjoy my new-found success.

And that’s when I began to chafe at the restrictions placed on my access to money and ability make decisions about that money.

We both worked and in theory should have made decisions together in our best interests.

Spending on things like housing, furniture, vacations, meals out, and other joint expenses should have been decided together. The truth is, he decided, and I found it safer not to fight.

I finally drew the line when I needed new glasses in early 2017.

His preference was that I order them from a website that sold inexpensive frames and lenses.

My preference was to order them from my optometrist (a slightly more expensive option) so I could be sure they fit properly and looked good on me.^[1]

There I was, a highly educated, gainfully employed professional with so little control over the money I earned, that I couldn’t even go out and buy myself the glasses that I need.

If I did what I wanted, I would have to endure up to a week of silent treatment followed by my giving a tearful apology and promising do better next time just to end the fight.

The situation was unsustainable.

A fight over eye wear isn’t what ended my marriage. But it did get my attention and helped me realize how bad things had gotten, how deeply unhappy I was, and that I needed to leave.

After

I knew my marriage had not been a happy one. And I knew that the way we fought wasn’t healthy. But I didn’t understand that I was a victim of abuse.

It wasn’t until I began to engage in intensive therapy to deal with past trauma that I started to understand that much of what happened in my marriage was abusive.

I knew I’d been emotionally battered but I still didn’t have a name for what happened around money until I attended a Continuing Education session on Financial Abuse. During that session I saw myself reflected in the material.

Things they called abuse were things that had happened to me.

The realization was a disturbing one.

The Consequences

I largely avoided the tangible consequences of Financial Abuse because I was always employed outside the home and worked as a personal finance professional.

I did not escape the intangible consequences.

I remember being tired all the time. The fighting was exhausting. Pushing back against the restrictions placed on me took a lot of effort and left me depleted.

In retrospect, I’m angry at what he did to me.

But the worst part was how hopeless it felt.

No matter how hard I worked, or how much I earned, I would never have a seat at the table when it came to money decisions. I faced a future where I would need to beg, plead, and lobby to access money for the things that were important to me and that would bring me joy.

Moving past the abuse has taken some work.

Part of what drives me in my divorce practice is a deep passion for helping victims of this type of abuse to change their situation and move forward as confident, independent people ready to live the life they always deserved.

If you are experiencing – or have experienced – this abuse, I see you, I hear you, I understand you, and I want to guide you to a better place where there is joy and hope for the future.

^{[1] I need corrective lenses to see more than two feet in front of my face and wear lenses from the time I wake up to the time I go back to sleep.}

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