Relationships15 min read

When repair is the wrong advice: recognising abuse and coercive control

Coercive control signs men miss, what section 76 covers in England and Wales, why couples counselling is not the answer, and who to ring.

By Azemuldin Hussain 7 September 2026 15 min read

This article has not been reviewed by a clinician. It is written from published sources, cited below, and is education rather than medical advice.

A chain of links with the middle one open in dawn gold, drawn flat.

Most of what we publish about marriage assumes something specific: two people who are tired, badly practised at talking, and carrying resentments neither of them chose. That marriage is usually not dead. It is worth the work.

This article is the boundary of that assumption. If your marriage is not just hard but unsafe, none of the repair advice on this site applies to you, and following it could make things worse. So before you read anything else we publish about patience, communication or staying, read this.

It is written for two men. The first has been reading repair advice for weeks and something in it will not sit right. The second has read the same advice and recognised himself on the wrong side of it. Every number you might need is in the section called Where to get help, near the end. If you want them now, skip straight there.

What coercive control actually is

Coercive control is not a bad argument. It is a pattern, repeated over time, that narrows what one person in the relationship is allowed to be.

In daily life it looks like rules that only apply to one person. Where the money is, and who has to ask for it. Who is allowed to see their family, and how often, and with what consequences afterwards. What she can wear, or what he is allowed to spend on himself. Who checks the phone. Who has to account for two hours on a Saturday. Who apologises to end an argument, every time, regardless of what happened.

It also looks like the atmosphere in a house. Long silences used as punishment. Threats that are never quite threats. Being told, repeatedly and confidently, that your memory of an event is wrong. Being made to feel that your family, your friends and your colleagues are all a problem, until one day you notice you do not really have any.

Crown Prosecution Service guidance gives monitoring through spyware and GPS tracking devices as examples of the pattern. Home Office statutory guidance adds controlling access to medication and healthcare, financial control, threats to report someone to the authorities, and cutting someone off from their support network.

What the law says in England and Wales

Controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship is a criminal offence in England and Wales under section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015. The maximum sentence is five years’ imprisonment.

The prosecution has to show four things: that the behaviour was repeated or continuous, that the two people were personally connected, that it had a serious effect on the victim, and that the accused knew or ought to have known it would. Serious effect means either that the victim feared violence on at least two occasions, or that the serious alarm or distress had a substantial adverse effect on the victim’s usual day to day activities.

Since 5 April 2023, when section 68 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 came into force, the offence no longer requires the two people to live together. It reaches partners, former partners, co-parents and relatives, in-laws included, whether or not they share an address. That change applies to behaviour on or after that date and not to anything before it.

Scotland has its own offence under the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018, in force since April 2019. Northern Ireland has its own under the Domestic Abuse and Civil Proceedings Act (Northern Ireland) 2021, in operation since February 2022. Both carry a maximum of 14 years on indictment.

We are describing the law, not advising you on your case. If you want to know how any of this applies to you, that is a conversation with a solicitor or a specialist helpline, not with an article.

A hard marriage and a dangerous one are different problems

The honest test is not how bad the arguments get. Bad marriages produce terrible arguments. The test is what happens to freedom and fear over time.

In a hard marriage, both people lose their temper and both people can name what they did wrong afterwards. Both still see their friends. Both still have their own money, their own opinions and their own version of events. The relationship is painful, but neither person is smaller than they were five years ago.

In a dangerous one, the pattern runs one way. One person is managing the other’s mood as a full time job. One person has quietly stopped mentioning certain topics, certain people, certain plans. One person checks the temperature of the room before speaking. The pain is not shared, it is administered.

What it looks like when you are the one being controlled

Male victims exist in large numbers and are badly served. Office for National Statistics figures for the year ending March 2025 estimated that 2.2 million women aged 16 and over in England and Wales, 9.1 per cent, and 1.5 million men, 6.5 per cent, had experienced domestic abuse in the previous year. Those estimates come from a redeveloped survey measure and cannot be compared with years before March 2024.

When men describe it, the physical element is often not the headline. It is more often financial: no access to the account, wages that go somewhere else, being made to justify every purchase. It is threats built around the children, that he will never see them, that a call will be made about him. It is being told that nobody will believe him, which he half believes already. It is being screamed at and then told he is the frightening one because of his size.

A SafeLives survey of more than 200 male survivors, carried out in the summer of 2019, found that 58 per cent had not received help or support, most commonly because support was not available for male victims, and that 26 per cent had told nobody at all.

If any of that is your house, you are not misreading it and you are not the first.

Why so few men use the word abuse

Most men who are being controlled do not call it abuse. They call it a difficult marriage, or her temper, or a rough patch that has lasted nine years.

Coercive control is specifically the thing that does not happen in an incident. It happens in a pattern, which is precisely why the law had to be written to catch it. You do not need a name for it, or a case, or a witness, to ring a helpline and describe what your week is like.

What it looks like when you are the one doing it

Some men reading this will have recognised themselves on the other side. That recognition is uncomfortable and it is worth something, but only if you do something with it other than argue with it.

You will know it by the same one way pattern, seen from the other end. You are the one who decides, and it is framed as being decisive. You are the one who goes quiet for two days, and it is framed as needing space. You know where her phone is and you have looked. You have said things about her family that made it easier for her to stop seeing them. She checks your face before she speaks, and part of you has noticed and has not minded, because the house is calmer that way.

We are not writing you off. Men change this, and the services that work with them are not there to humiliate you. But we are also not going to soften it: this is not a communication problem, and your wife cannot fix it by being more patient.

If that is you, the next step is not a conversation with her. It is a conversation with the Respect Phoneline on 0808 802 4040, Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm, which exists for people who are worried about their own behaviour.

Why couples counselling is the wrong room

This is the part that people get wrong with the best intentions. When a marriage is in trouble, the obvious move is to get both people in front of a therapist. Where there is coercive control, that move can raise the risk.

Couples work rests on two people who can both speak honestly in the room and go home to the same safety they arrived with. That assumption fails when one person controls the other. What she says in the session becomes the material for what happens on Tuesday. He learns exactly which subjects hurt. The therapist’s language, about needs and patterns and shared responsibility, gets carried home and used.

It also does something quieter and worse. Joint therapy frames the problem as belonging to the relationship, which invites the controlled person to accept half of it. SafeLives advises professionals never to refer automatically to mediation or couples counselling, because these can be dangerous where there is an imbalance of power, and says it is crucial to establish first whether coercive control is present.

Mediation and family arbitration carry the same problem

The same logic applies to family mediation. In England and Wales, mediators must screen for domestic abuse and coercive control before assessing whether mediation is suitable. Under rule 3.8 of the Family Procedure Rules 2010, evidence of domestic abuse of the kind specified in Practice Direction 3A exempts an applicant from attending a mediation information and assessment meeting.

That screening exists because a negotiation between two people, one of whom is afraid of the other, is not a negotiation. If someone suggests mediation or family arbitration to you and abuse is part of the picture, ring a specialist service first and then tell a family solicitor. Do not raise it with your spouse.

Leaving is the most dangerous part, and that changes the order of things

This is the fact that most changes what you should do next. Ending a controlling relationship is not the moment the danger stops. It is often the moment it peaks.

The clearest UK evidence concerns women killed by men. The Femicide Census ten year report, published in November 2020, covered 1,425 women killed by men between 2009 and 2018, of whom 888 were killed by a current or former partner. At least 43 per cent of those 888 had separated or had taken steps to separate. Of the women who had separated, 89 per cent were killed within the first year and 38 per cent within the first month.

None of that is an argument for staying. It is an argument for the order of operations. Talk to a specialist service before you announce anything, before you move out, before you tell family, and before you make any legal move. They do safety planning for a living and it is free.

Where to get help

Nothing here needs a case, a diary or proof. You can ring and say you are not sure.

If you are a man being abused: the Men’s Advice Line, run by Respect, on 0808 801 0327, Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm. Or the ManKind Initiative on 0808 800 1170, weekdays 10am to 4pm, excluding bank holidays. Neither is a 24 hour service, and there is no 24 hour helpline specifically for men. Out of hours it is 999 in an emergency, or Samaritans on 116 123, free and 24 hours, for support.
If you are worried about your own behaviour: the Respect Phoneline on 0808 802 4040, Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm.
If you are a gay, bisexual or trans man: Galop’s national LGBT+ helpline on 0800 999 5428, Monday and Tuesday 9.15am to 8pm, Wednesday to Friday 9.15am to 4.30pm, closed between 1pm and 2pm each day and closed at weekends.
In Wales: Live Fear Free on 0808 80 10 800, 24 hours.
For your wife, sister or daughter: the National Domestic Abuse Helpline, run by Refuge, on 0808 2000 247, free and 24 hours. Refuge says the line is open to any woman who is afraid of her partner and that its advisers are women. Refuge’s own page for men sends men to the Men’s Advice Line instead.

In an emergency, call 999. From a mobile, if you cannot speak, listen for the automated message and press 55. Pressing 55 tells the BT operator that this is a genuine emergency and transfers your call to the police. It does not reveal your location, and the police will not always send officers to a silent call, so give whatever information you can in any way you can. From a landline there is no 55 prompt, because accidental landline calls are rare. If you call 999 from a landline and cannot speak but there is background noise, the operator may pass the call to the police, and landlines give location data automatically.

If you share a device, or someone can see your browsing, all of these organisations have advice on covering your tracks before you go any further.

What we are not asking you to do

We are not asking you to gather evidence, keep a log, install anything, check anything or test her. Spyware and GPS tracking appear on the Crown Prosecution Service’s own list of examples of coercive control. If a step would still make sense as a way of handling an opponent, it is not a step towards safety.

We are not asking you to confront anyone, and we are not asking you to stay. This site takes the view that commitment is a real thing and that most tired marriages are worth the effort, but a marriage that is dangerous is a different category, and staying is not a virtue in itself. Whether you go or stay is yours.

If your family or your community will frame this as a religious question, that is a real pressure and we are not going to pretend otherwise. We do not issue rulings, and no one at a helpline is asking you to. Speak to a scholar or imam you actually trust, and speak to a specialist service about your safety. Those are two different conversations and you are allowed to have both.

Common questions

What are the signs of coercive control in a marriage?

Look for a one way pattern rather than a bad row. Rules that apply to one person, money controlled by one person, contact with family and friends shrinking, phone or location checked, silences used as punishment, and being repeatedly told your memory is wrong. The clearest sign is that one of you has become smaller and more careful over time while the other has not.

Is coercive control a crime in the UK?

It is a crime, but the law differs by nation. In England and Wales it is an offence under section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015. Scotland has its own offence under the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018, and Northern Ireland under the Domestic Abuse and Civil Proceedings Act (Northern Ireland) 2021. Ask a solicitor or a specialist helpline how the law where you live applies to you.

Can a man be a victim of coercive control?

Yes. Office for National Statistics figures for the year ending March 2025 estimated that 1.5 million men aged 16 and over in England and Wales, 6.5 per cent, experienced domestic abuse in the previous year, alongside 2.2 million women, 9.1 per cent. The offence in section 76 is not written by gender. Men often describe financial control, threats involving the children and constant belittling.

Should we try couples counselling if there is coercive control?

No. Couples counselling assumes both people can speak freely in the room and go home equally safe, and that assumption fails where one partner controls the other. What is said in the session can be punished afterwards. SafeLives advises professionals never to refer automatically to couples counselling or mediation where there is an imbalance of power. Ring a specialist service and let a trained assessor decide what is appropriate.

What is the punishment for coercive control in England and Wales?

The offence under section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 can be tried in the magistrates’ court or the Crown Court, and carries a maximum of five years’ imprisonment, a fine, or both, on indictment. Scotland and Northern Ireland both set a maximum of 14 years for their equivalent offences. We cannot tell you what any court would do in a particular case.

How do I know if my marriage is abusive or just unhappy?

You may not be able to tell from inside it, and that is normal rather than a failure. Unhappy marriages hurt both people and both can still speak freely. Abusive ones run one way, and fear does the organising. If you are unsure, describe a normal week to the Men’s Advice Line on 0808 801 0327, Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm.