7 Subtle Signs of Financial Abuse

Financial abuse occurs in just about every domestic abuse case (99% of them to be exact). It is one of the most effective forms of control utilized by an abusive partner as it can easily immobilize their victim and make their partner become dependent on them. Equally and oppositely, it can also be a successful method the abuser uses to deplete the resources of their partner while selfishly feeding their own financial needs.

What Is Financial Abuse?

Financial abuse is the control of finances to limit the victim’s monetary freedom or the manipulation of the victim’s financial resources for the abuser’s own self serving gains. These tactics are exercised quite easily be the abuser to gain power over their victim by making it difficult for them to leave the relationship. This happens by increasing the victim’s financial dependency on the abuser or by increasing the victim’s sense of “investment” they have made in the abuser financially. When someone feels they have made an investment in their partner, whether it be time, energy, emotion, or money, it becomes more difficult for that person to walk away from the relationship even if it becomes a destructive situation. It can also be done by limiting financial access of the victim making it near impossible for them to leave the relationship due to lack of financial resources. Financial abuse is an exercise of pure dominance, intimidation and control, and can quickly turn threatening.

Now, of course, every couple and marriage should develop their own system for handling expenses and income in the long term. Whether that be keeping finances completely separate, maintaining a joint account for joint expenses, or sharing all income between both partners, it should be talked about and remain transparent on both sides. However, the signs of financial abuse listed here are some red flags during the dating and early relationship phase to look out for, before the financial system that you both agree on has been established. These signs can be huge indicators that more or deeper forms of abuse may be on the horizon or already at play, so it’s important to address these when they happen and set healthy boundaries around them to protect yourself moving forward.

7 Subtle Signs of Financial Abuse

1. Phasing Out Their Financial Contributions

In the beginning, did your partner find no issue with taking you out on romantic dates that seemed expensive? And possibly gave you several expensive gifts early on? Although any woman being courted by a masculine man that knows what he wants and displays this type of behavior would absolutely be starry eyed during this kind of treatment, it may be a red flag. Keep an eye on how his behavior evolves over time. A drop off of effort in arena could be a signal for multiple forms of abuse.

After a few months into the relationship, is he still taking you to the same expensive restaurants he did at first but instead is looking at you to pay instead? Is he pulling away from some household expenses that he was covering at first? Is he now starting to expect you to chip in with areas that are outside of your scope, like his business expenses? Don’t get me wrong, financial reciprocity is a beautiful thing and is a key ingredient to finding balance in the relationship. However, there is a difference between finding balance with your partner because that is in your character as a contributing counterpart and feeling pressured to cover expenses that were not discussed that place undue strain on your resources.

These are all extremely subtle and sneaky forms of financial abuse that can grow into a more demanding situation if it goes unaddressed. It can also be a very clear indication of love bombing (when a partner ramps up the seriousness, attention and affection they show to their partner early on in the relationship to win them over, and once they’ve won their partner, it typically leads to their subsequent and steady decrease of interest and effort in the relationship over time. It’s a blatant, very effective and common manipulation tactic utilized by several types of abusers). It’s also important to know that love bombing is consistent with stage 1 of a relationship with a narcissist (those stages being 1. Love Bombing, 2. Devaluation, 3. Discard, and 4. Hoovering).

Although picking up the tab more often is a completely normal and natural thing to do as a relationship progresses, there are times when it may start feeling uncomfortable if it becomes an expectation. This tendency alone may not be enough to determine without a doubt that your partner is abusing you financially, but it certainly is a behavior to watch out for as it often indicates that bigger forms of abuse are at play, such as future faking, manipulation and general inconsiderateness. Overall, the precedence being established here is that financial expectations and contributions can change from day to day based on how the abuser feels in the moment, which makes spending as a couple unpredictable and can place undue stress on both your finances and the relationship.

You’re in a Serious Relationship with a Narcissist. Now What?

2. More Items on the Receipt Than Expected

Did you hand your credit card to your partner to pick up an item or two at the store and they ended up including a few extra unexpected items? This can be an indication of disregard for boundaries, lack of impulse management and financial recklessness which are all very slippery slopes if they go under the radar in the long term. If you’re like me, typically being the submissive in the relationship, sometimes it feels against our nature to speak out on such an insignificant issue, especially if the added items were small and inexpensive. It may feel petty or nitpicky to point these things out in the moment. But, if (and when) the issue progresses into your abuser pulling a few hundred dollars from your account or ordering expensive items online with your card without asking first, you’ll wish you mentioned something or cut it off when the offense was more minor.

3. Hiding Big Purchases

Your partner may not be going through financial trouble at all even if they display the previous behaviors. Perhaps they made a big purchase for themselves, a family member or for someone else outside of the relationship that they didn’t feel the need to divulge to you. This is absolutely an indicator of financial abuse as this is a lack of financial transparency and dismissal of your feelings. Financial secrets (or secrets of any kind for that matter) are tiny seeds that get planted in the dark and grow in to bigger and bigger problems if not discussed. Not only is this act lying by omission, it also misleads the victim to not see the full picture when it comes to how finances are being handled in the relationship. These are important things to consider when picking your partner for marriage and building a life together.

4. Turning the Tables

Consistent with love bombing, sometimes an abuser may paint a financial picture for you in the beginning to win you during the courting process. By no means have I ever been a woman that depends solely on a man financially, but I think we can all agree that the financial climate of your potential relationship with a partner is certainly a factor to consider during the courtship and dating phase. Essentially, based on the financial freedoms you and your partner enjoy together in the beginning should give you a fairly good idea of what you can imagine when picturing and building a life together.

For example, the abuser may convince the victim to move in with them by saying something like, “I don’t want you to stress about paying rent, I want to take on that responsibility and I want to take care of that for you so that you don’t have to worry.” Initially this may feel like such a loving gesture because what a load off! Under this pretense, the victim may believe that the financial responsibility of paying rent has been openly discussed and their partner has claimed this portion of the household expenditures moving forward. However, the abuse may arise months later, when the abuser may ask the victim to start paying rent unexpectedly stating things like, “Well, I paid rent for all those months, you can’t even cover a few months? What about all the money I spent on you in the beginning of our relationship, why can’t you take care of it for now? What I need is a partner that would be ok with doing this for me and for us.” This is turning the tables by abruptly rejecting the financial role they took on in the beginning and placing the burden on you to “do the right thing” for them in the relationship financially.

This can be a bewildering experience for an unsuspecting victim, as, again, if you’re anything like me, the desire to do right by your significant other and doing what you believe is right for yourself may be conflicting paths and becomes a difficult decision to make. It can also be a method of keeping you trapped in the relationship because as the abuser depletes your personal finances, it becomes more difficult for you to leave when the situation gets worse.

Just know that when a financial responsibility has been established as a couple, it is understandably unsettling to have the tables turned on you in this way especially if you are not used to providing this type of expense for the entirety of the relationship. The fact is, most relationships wouldn’t survive such an abrupt financial shift such as this and the outcome has nothing to do with whether or not you are a good partner. At the very least in this scenario, conversations need to be had and healthy boundaries need to be drawn so that resentment can be nipped in the bud and financial responsibilities between both parties remain clear. At the most, this type of financial abuse can suck you dry financially if conducted successfully by the abuser, as it most definitely will not stop there. It may turn into a more dangerous situation if seemingly innocent requests turn into hard expectations later on once you are already trapped.

5. Borrows Money to Not Pay Back

Does your partner have the tendency to live beyond their means? If so, it may be a common occurrence for them to lean on others when they hit a financial wall. Pay attention to how they treat family members and loved ones financially and vice versa. Do they expect financial help in big ways from their loved ones and then skip out on getting them gifts on their birthdays and holidays? Or do they tend to contribute very little when it comes to group events? This is consistent with the borrowing-to-not-pay-back habit which indicates the qualities of selfishness, entitlement, and manipulation schemes of an abuser. It may seem harmless at first and they may try to disguise their behavior as aloofness or forgetfulness, but these types of unreciprocating acts are completely conscious and calculated. It indicates a lack of generosity, lack of affection and lack of appreciation toward loved ones while expecting more and better treatment in return.

6. Lack of Financial Transparency

Although discussions around finances especially early on can be profusely awkward, you should have a pretty good idea of your partner’s income within the first few months of dating them. Beyond that time, if dating with long term intentions with marriage and life goals in mind, things like credit score, exact income and the amount of debt your partner may be bringing into the relationship is important to discuss these things before getting too invested emotionally and financially. These are important factors in considering a marriage and household with someone, so all those pieces of information are fair game for discussion before getting serious. If your partner is avoiding the subject, financial abuse tactics may already be in motion.

If it feels like pulling teeth when the topic of finances comes up, or your partner’s income seems very inconsistent, or if they give vague and indirect answers, consider it a big red flag when it comes to financial transparency. Trust your gut, if something doesn’t seem right, it’s not! Financial abusers keep their victims in the dark when it comes to their money management to maintain their fiscal power in the relationship. In order to successfully do so, they need to either, A. keep you in a position of believing their financial situation is better than it actually is out of fear of losing you if you were to find out the truth or, B. conceal their exact income if it is actually more than you’d expect so that they can continue making purchases in the dark and keep their financial contributions in your relationship low. Either scenario is misleading and are manipulation tactics that will grow into much bigger issues down the road.

7. Stair Stepping Favors

Similar to the not-paying-back and the more-items-on-the-receipt strategies as mentioned, stair stepping is a blatant example of money-related manipulation. It is executed by the abuser by asking for small favors at first and gradually asking for more and more as time goes on. This tactic can be used in other ways as well that are not financial, like asking you to take on more and more of their daily tasks because they are getting busy with work. It may begin as something as small as, “Hey, if you’re stopping by the store could you grab one thing for me?” Then escalates to, “I planned on getting a haircut today but I spent all my money on rent, could you cover it for me this time?” and later graduates to bigger asks such as, “I’m planning to take out a few potential clients to lunch today, would you mind forwarding me a few hundred dollars just in case?”

These asks are last minute, small or sound beneficial enough to your partner’s immediate needs, and at first they seem like harmless, innocent requests. However, the method in which they are asked doesn’t give you much time to think about why you shouldn’t cover those costs as they continue to increase. The strategy utilized here by a master manipulator is the stair stepping method, and their reasoning behind it is: “Well, you said yes before so why wouldn’t you say yes again? You’ve done it before so why would you stop? You know I would do it for you so that’s why I think you should do it for me.” One way a victim can respond to these growing requests and expectations can be something like, “I’m so sorry, I’m not able to cover that expense for you this time but I’m here to support you in other ways. Maybe we can have a conversation about our daily expenses so that we can find ways to alleviate our financial burdens together? It’s important to me that we are on the same page about this topic.“

If this type of favor asking happens continually and ends up working effectively to receive fulfillment from its victim, the asks will grow and grow until it no longer feels like a favor — it becomes a demand. And once a financial abuse victim has spent a great deal of money on the abuser, they may feel like they have invested so much time, effort and money into the abuser that it prevents the victim from walking away easily when they discover the relationship has been abusive.

8. Manipulation of Assets

Beware of the manipulation of assets as these moves executed by abusers can have catastrophic long term effects. For example an abuser may avoid placing your name on shared properties and assets so that you have very little to your name when things go south. They may even place an asset in a a family member’s name during your marriage so that if and when the marriage fails, you have no entitlement to the property whatsoever even if you made payments toward it.

Alternatively, they may convince you to put an asset and loan in your name while they get the most use out of the particular purchase, then can very well stiff you with the bill once things go wrong. The worst trap you should never fall for is allowing your name to be on the loan or mortgage while they place their name on the title or deed of the asset. Legally, you are required to make payments while they have all ownership rights of the asset. A hard rule of thumb to follow is not to involve yourself in business or acquirement of assets with a partner until you’re married. Period! The law will not protect you when things go sour if you’re not married and the benefits of going into business with you should be a one that comes in exchange for the full commitment of marriage with your partner.

The Bottom Line

The short- and long-term effects of financial abuse are extremely destructive. In the short-term, the disruption to your personal finances can cause you to be derailed from your personal financial goals along with the regular spending habits that you have developed for yourself. In the long term, it can make you stay in an unsafe relationship longer than necessary for financial reasons. It can also make you question the integrity of your partner, their reliability and whether or not they truly love you if they are able to disregard your feelings and needs around the finances in the relationship.

Without healthy boundaries around income and spending between both parties, victims are often torn between their desire to make their partner happy and their need to maintain independence and security within their own finances. Benjamin Franklin famously said, “Beware of little expenses – a small leak will sink a great ship.”

Although, each individual has their own beliefs and norms when it comes to spending, lifestyle and finances in relationships, these subtle signs of financial abuse should help you identify some qualities in your partner that may be undesirable in the type of life you want to build together. Personal philosophies around money and spending are important, and if you and your partner don’t agree on those philosophies, it will manifest in many ways that may seem small at first but can grow out of control over time.

If you find yourself becoming a victim of financial abuse, the key is detecting it early on and creating dialogue around the topic with your partner. If your boundaries are repeatedly being violated in any way, including financial, it is safe to say that the relationship is no longer safe for you. Remember that financial abuse is typically only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to abuse in relationships and usually indicates that other forms of abuse are already at play or may be emerging very soon.

Share this with anyone you feel might be experiencing financial abuse and may not even be aware of it…