Controlling behaviour is how an abusive person gains and maintains power over someone else. Controlling behaviour usually starts slowly and isn’t always obvious. The abuser may try to justify their actions by saying they are just concerned for the victim or care about them too much. Controlling behaviour tends to become more overt and aggressive over time.

Examples of controlling behaviour include:

• Insists on knowing where you are and who you are with all the time, or won’t let you go out without them. If you do, they become angry or sullen.
• Won’t let you see certain people, like extended family or friends, or discourages you from seeing them. This is called ‘isolating’.
• Calls you excessively to see where you are or makes you prove where you are.
• Goes through your text messages or social media to see who you’ve been talking to and what you’ve said.
• Tells you what you can or can’t wear.
• Stalks you or tracks you using any kind of technology.

Psychological abuse is when someone makes you or other people question your sanity or recollection of reality through manipulation and lying. Psychological abuse and emotional abuse often occur in tandem, and emotional abuse can have psychological impacts (like causing depression and anxiety) but psychological abuse is slightly different to emotional abuse.

Examples of psychological abuse include:

• Makes you doubt your own recollections or tells you things didn’t happen when they did (this is sometimes called gaslighting).
• Tells you that you are crazy or have mental health concerns.
• Says you are imagining or over-exaggerating their abusive behaviour.
• Tells you or other people – including friends, police, doctors, counsellors or legal professionals – that you are the one being abusive towards them when you are not or you are just defending yourself in response to their abuse or manipulating behaviour (this is sometimes called victim playing).
• Telling other people – including friends, police, doctors, counsellors or legal professionals – that you are unstable, have mental health problems or substance abuse problems when you don’t.

Financial or economic abuse is when one person uses money or finances to exert power and control someone else, limiting autonomy and creating dependency.

Financial abuse can include:

• Denying someone access to money, including their own.
• Stopping someone from earning their own money.
• Demanding that the family live on inadequate resources, or not contributing to household expenses.
• Incurring debts in someone’s name.
• Making significant financial decisions without consultation.
• Selling someone’s possessions.
• Stealing money or property.
• Dowry-related abuse.

Sexual abuse is any actual or threatened sexual contact without consent, such as unwanted touching, rape, exposure of genitals or making someone view pornography against their will.

Sexual abuse can include:

• Rape, including being forced to perform unwanted sexual acts, or to have sex with others.
• Pressuring someone to agree to sex.
• Unwanted touching of sexual or private parts.
• Disclosing intimate knowledge, including threatening to share private photographs or information about sexual orientation to generate fear.
• Expecting someone to have sex as a form of reconciliation after using violence against them.
• Having sex with someone without consent, or who is unable to give consent due to age, ability or intoxication.

Visa abuse is when someone in a family-like relationship exploits the fact that another person is without permanent residency or citizenship as a way to exert power and control over them.

Examples of visa abuse:

• Hiding your passport or visa documentation so that you cannot access or use it.
• Making false claims about your visa status, for example saying that your visa status is tied to staying in a relationship.
• Making threats over access to shared children because of your visa status, for example refusing to sign documents relating to paternity.
• Hiding information, or providing misinformation about your visa.
• Being brought to Australia based on incorrect visa information, for example arriving on a tourist visa then being forced into unregulated work by the perpetrator.
• Trafficking.

Technology-facilitated abuse is a form of controlling behaviour that involves the use of use digital tools to monitor, stalk, control, or harass another person.

Find out how to browse this site safely through our Safe Browsing Tips.

Read tips from esafety about staying safe online while living with an abusive partner.

Examples of technology-facilitated abuse:

• Sending abusive texts, emails, or messages via social media.
• Making continuous controlling or threatening phone calls.
• Making someone prove where they are by sending photos of their location.
• Checking a person’s text messages, social media activity or internet activity.
• Forbidding someone from having a phone or limiting who they can contact via phone or internet.
• Spying on, monitoring or stalking someone through any type of surveillance device (such as a tracking system or spyware).
• Sharing intimate photos of someone without their consent (sometimes called revenge porn).