Concerned About Someone You Care About?

Recognizing coercive control affecting someone you care about

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This page is for family members, friends, coworkers, and others who are concerned that someone they care about may be experiencing coercive control or abuse in a relationship. It offers guidance for recognizing warning signs, responding supportively, and helping the person explore resources while respecting their choices and safety.

 

Coercive control is more than a single disagreement or a difficult period in a relationship. It is a repeated pattern of behavior used by one person to limit another person’s freedom, independence, safety, or ability to make decisions. Because controlling behavior may be mixed with affection, apologies, or periods of calm, the pattern can be difficult for both the person experiencing it and those who care about them to recognize.

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​Warning signs someone may be experiencing coercive control

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• Using guilt, obligation, threats, intimidation, silence, or withdrawal of love or support to force decisions.

• Controlling money, housing, transportation, medication, identification, benefits, inheritance, legal documents, or access to care.

• Interfering with friendships, employment, education, medical care, faith communities, or other sources of support.

• Demanding access to a phone, location, messages, accounts, passwords, or private information.

• Pressuring someone to take sides, keep secrets, cut off other relationships, or manage another person’s emotions.

• Using children, grandchildren, pets, culture, faith, immigration status, disability, caregiving, or family access as leverage.

• Humiliating, gaslighting, monitoring, punishing boundaries, or retaliating when the person acts independently.

• Creating a persistent sense that someone must stay quiet, comply, or “walk on eggshells” to prevent conflict or harm.

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Why it can be difficult to recognize

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Relationships can involve love, shared history, cultural or faith expectations, caregiving responsibilities, financial ties, and practical dependence. A person using coercive control may also be generous, apologetic, protective, or affectionate at times. These realities can make a harmful pattern difficult for the person experiencing it—and for people who care about them—to recognize. You do not need to diagnose anyone, confront the person using these behaviors, or have proof before taking your concerns seriously.

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Questions that may help you assess your concern

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• Have they become more guarded about what they say, wear, spend, share, or do because of someone’s reaction?

• Are their boundaries respected, or are they punished, threatened, shamed, or ignored for setting them?

• Can they make ordinary decisions without permission, surveillance, or retaliation?

• Has their access to money, housing, transportation, health care, work, education, or relationships become more restricted?

• Are they treated as a capable adult, or does someone routinely speak for them, dismiss them, or use dependency against them?

• Has their world become smaller while another person’s control has increased?

You do not need to observe every example—or have proof—for your concerns to matter.

 

How you can respond supportively

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​You cannot make someone leave the relationship, disclose what is happening, confront the person using these behaviors, or take a particular action. You can help restore choice, safety, and connection.

• Trust the concern that brought you here. Changes in someone’s behavior, access, confidence, or relationships may be important signals.

• Ask how and when it is safe to communicate.

• Listen, believe them, and avoid blaming, interrogating, minimizing, or diagnosing.

• Focus on specific behaviors and their impact rather than labels or assumptions.

• Do not pressure them to “just leave” or take over decisions. Sudden action may increase danger or isolation.

• Offer practical options—transportation, a safe place to talk, help locating an advocate, or accompaniment—without making support conditional.

• Use a safer device or account if you believe their phone, location, messages, or accounts may be monitored.

• Continue respectful contact when it is safe. Isolation often strengthens control.

• Seek qualified local guidance when custody, guardianship, elder care, disability services, housing, immigration, finances, or legal authority may be involved.

 

For advocates and community partners

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Use behavior-based, nonjudgmental language and center the person’s autonomy, safety, identity, and pace. Consider barriers involving disability, age, culture, faith, immigration, caregiving, finances, housing, technology, family access, and prior system involvement. Coordinate referrals with qualified local domestic-violence, elder-abuse, disability-rights, legal-aid, mental-health, or social-service providers as appropriate.

 

Support and next steps

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You do not need proof or a diagnosis to seek guidance about someone you care about. If you or the person you are concerned about is in immediate danger, contact local emergency services; in the United States, call 911.

 

When it is safe, see Build a Safety Plan or Get Help. For confidential support related to relationship abuse in the United States, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-SAFE (7233), text START to 88788, or visit thehotline.org. For technology-safety information, visit the NNEDV Safety Net Project.

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This page provides education, not a diagnosis or legal or medical advice. Laws, definitions, reporting duties, and available services vary by location, age, relationship, and circumstances.