As your navigator through the stormy seas of post-separation abuse, I'm here to shine a light on the often unseen tactics abusers wield to keep their grip on power. Together, we'll uncover how subtle acts of intimidation and control can persist long after a relationship's end. By recognising these often covert strategies, you'll arm yourself with the knowledge needed to begin safeguarding yourself and shielding your children.
I'm a specialist Separation & Divorce Coach based in Melbourne, Australia.
I support women in the southern hemisphere who are navigating ongoing control and other forms of abuse after separation.
As your navigator through the stormy seas of post-separation abuse, I'm here to shine a light on the often unseen tactics abusers wield to keep their grip on power. Together, we'll uncover how subtle acts of intimidation and control can persist long after a relationship's end. By recognising these often covert strategies, you'll arm yourself with the knowledge needed to begin safeguarding yourself and shielding your children.
I'm a specialist Separation & Divorce Coach based in Melbourne, Australia.
I support women in the southern hemisphere who are navigating ongoing control and other forms of abuse after separation.
13 YARN on 13 92 76 (24/7 crisis support phone line for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples)
Speaker 1:
Hi, thanks for joining me on another episode of the Post-Separation Abuse Podcast. This is part two of the series, looking at what is post-separation abuse and unpacking the different ways in which post-separation abuse can occur. You thought you knew, but you didn't have a clue. Baby. You thought you knew, but you didn't have a clue baby. You thought you knew, but you didn't have a clue baby. Hey, I'm Danielle Black and I'm the coach you need if you're dealing with post-separation abuse. I help you make sense of ongoing abusive behaviour after separation and help you take back your power and control. Let's go. You thought you knew, but you didn't have a clue. Help you take back your power and control. Let's go. You thought you knew, but you didn't have a clue.
Speaker 1:
In today's episode, we're going to be talking about harassment, intimidation, stalking and threats. This form of post-separation abuse can include using certain looks and body language to induce fear and maintain power and control. That can be either very overt, so very obvious, or covert. This behavior can include destroying or withholding belongings that are important to you or perhaps also your children. This can include threats to harm themselves, to harm you or to harm the children, or intimations subtle ways in which this can be worded. For example, the controlling abuser can phrase things in a way that is not a direct threat but that is still threatening. For example, you don't comply with a demand and they might respond with something like well, what happens next will be your fault, or you're pushing me too far, or I'm not responsible for what happens next Things like that. That's not an overt, obvious threat to hurt you, but it's still a threat. It's still very frightening, as much as there will be a narrative from them, if they're ever questioned about it, in which they will be able to maintain that they're the victim, that they weren't being threatening, that you've taken it the wrong way, that you're exaggerating those sorts of things. Abusers can be very, very skilled at not doing anything that is considered illegal. There might be threats to take the children or to pursue sole care or sole custody in order to coerce compliance from you. They can abuse animals or make threats towards animals.
Speaker 1:
The abuser can make their presence known in person, nearby. So either deliberately turning up where you are, near your home, your children's school, your workplace, actually deliberately going to those places and being, you know, more than happy to be seen by you, so they're not concerned about you seeing them. They actually want you to see them. They want you to know that they're there. They can do that, but they can also do those things in a very covert way. So drive past a location where you are, for example, and they may pretend not to see you, but you may see them, or you may recognize their car, and obviously that's still very unsettling. If you were to mention that to them, there's the plausible deniability that they didn't know that you were there, that they didn't know you were going to be in that location. Again, twisting it that, oh she's so dramatic she's. She reads into everything I'm worried about her mental health, when really their behavior is very deliberate.
Speaker 1:
They do like keeping track of where their target of blame is, and that's you. You're the target of blame, you are the target of the unrelenting focus. They want to know where you are because they like to be the puppet master, they like to be in control. They don't like thinking that there's anything about you that they don't know or that they don't have access to. They can be making their presence known via phone or via email, bombarding you with text messages and phone calls until you respond, or until you answer the phone, they can insist on you calling them back. For example, even the most minor issue to them will be framed as being an emergency, and they can be extremely insulted if you are not responding to them immediately. This is where setting healthy boundaries is so very important. The more you give in to the demands, the more you pick up the phone when they're calling, the more you text them back immediately, the more they're going to expect that to happen.
Speaker 1:
Setting boundaries with these people can be incredibly challenging. It can be very scary and this is something that I help clients with, if it's something that they need support with in a very structured, supportive, step-by-step way to get to a place where there are firm boundaries, because this is no way to live. It is no way to live always picking up the phone or responding immediately when you get a text message from this person or an email from this person. It is far better to keep all communication in writing, to just not answer the phone at all, unless they have the children in their care at that particular point in time. There is likely absolutely nothing that they need to speak to you on the phone about, unless maybe it's a changeover that's about to occur and perhaps they're running late, something of that kind. And even then, if the conversation gets off track and it becomes really clear that it's nothing to do with the children, nothing to do with changeover, this is where you need to end the call.
Speaker 1:
And again, that can be challenging, but it's something that has to happen because these people are not going to change, they're not going to change their behavior. They think they have a right to you, a right to control you, and particularly if this person has traits consistent with one or more personality disorders, that's not changing, that's not just going to go away unless you take steps to change what you're doing with this dynamic. They can pretend that the reason that they're wanting to communicate with you is about the kids. If you're not forthcoming, they can accuse you of not being a good co-parent or say things like do you really think this is in the best interests of the children? They will often take the moral high ground, even though you know, and I know, that what they're trying to do is gain and maintain control. They can be clever at justifying their behavior. They can be really good at staying within the boundaries of the law and any intervention order or protection order that you might have. They can be monitoring your movements and your have. They can be monitoring your movements and your interactions. They can be cyber stalking.
Speaker 1:
We've just touched on bombarding with emails and messages. Very important that you change things like passwords, that you don't share the same Apple ID account. That you make sure that you're not logged into any of your accounts on any shared device. That if there's iPads that the kids have that are going between houses, that your Apple ID is not used on those devices or any other ID if we're talking about an Android device. Changing passwords is a good idea on a fairly regular basis and being really careful with anything that you're doing on social media.
Speaker 1:
My advice often is just to get off social media completely, but if it is something that you want to persist with, you need to make sure that all of your social media accounts are private. You need to cull who it is that has access to what it is that you're posting. If you are not 100% certain of who this person is in real life and that you can 100% trust that person with whatever it is you're posting, you need to delete that person from being able to see your stuff or ensure that you're not posting anything remotely personal, to not post photographs of the children, to not post updates of court proceedings of what it is that you're dealing with from your ex all of those sorts of things. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that what they do on social media is private. It's not Circling back to the first thing that I mentioned in this harassment, intimidation, stalking and threats, component of post-separation abuse, using certain looks and body language to induce fear and maintain power and control.
Speaker 1:
It's really important that if you're going to be participating in some kind of mediation or dispute resolution with your former partner, that you find out whether or not the mediator can provide what's referred to as shuttle mediation. So that's where you are in a private room, your former partner is in a private room and the mediator is going between the two of you. That can be extremely important. A lot of women think that if there hasn't been physical violence, then there's no grounds to insist upon shuttle mediation, but if there's no physical safety concern, that face-to-face mediation should be okay. And this is something that I really disagree with, because intimidation does not just have to be somebody physically standing over you or physically hurting you. It can be a look, it can be a glare, it can be the tone of voice.
Speaker 1:
If you've experienced family violence, if you have experienced coercive control, being in the same room as that person is not a safe place for you. You are not going to be well placed to mediate, to negotiate, to compromise in a way that ensures that you have equal footing with your former partner. You don't. You don't have equal footing in that situation. Your nervous system would be activated. That would be a very traumatic experience for you, insisting on a situation whereby you don't need to be face to face, you don't need to be looking at them and they don't need to be looking at you, along with provisions for arriving at different times, leaving at different times, things of that kind.
Speaker 1:
I know sometimes people can be thinking that they're overreacting, that they're making a big deal out of nothing when they go down that pathway for something like mediation. You're not overreacting. You've been traumatized by a controlling person, by an abusive person, and putting those things in place is not an overreaction. Putting those things in place is very necessary. It's very appropriate to ensure your safety, not just your physical safety, but your emotional safety, mental safety, psychological safety. All of those things are just as important as physical safety.
Speaker 1:
Regarding your physical location, if your former partner is not having significant time with the children, it's not necessary for them to know where you're living. If you have moved and you haven't yet told them where you live, this is something that they will say that they have a right to, that. They have a right to know where their children are living, and that's not the case when there has been family violence, changeovers for picking up children, dropping off children. Those things don't need to occur at your home. In fact, it's often far better for that to occur at a neutral public location. That might be the car park of a local McDonald's or other fast food restaurant or supermarket service station something of that kind that is central, that is public, potentially also where there's CCTV cameras. That's a much safer location than your private home. Even if you haven't moved and are keeping your home location a secret, having changeovers in a public place is often the best way to go to ensure that your former partner does not have the opportunity to be engaging in intimidating tactics or at least, if they do, you're in public. There's going to be witnesses. That's often enough to stop these people from doing and saying things that they might do or say if they were at your home or if you were dropping off or picking up children at their home, whether your former partner knows your home address or not.
Speaker 1:
What I strongly recommend you look into is getting cameras for your property. There are some great brands on the market. There are wireless video doorbells that you can get that come with an app that record everything that's going on, or a motion activated. They can send notifications to your phone, so even if you're not at home, you can be alerted, which is handy. Whether it's the postman bringing you something or whether it's your ex making a nuisance of themselves, there's a record of it. There's a video of it. You can also get wireless external cameras for your home. I have some of those on my home. They're external, they're solar powered and there are also ones that come with floodlights. There are some that are just recording 24 7. There are some that are motion activated.
Speaker 1:
But either way, whether it's your ex driving past your house, walking past your house, turning up at your door, they can deny it as much as they like, but if you've got that camera footage, then obviously you've got the proof. You've got that camera footage, then obviously you've got the proof. You've got the proof that's needed, and this is really important. If you are concerned about your ex-partner turning up at your house, just simply the fact that you've got those cameras there can be a deterrent because, as I mentioned, these people can be very skillful at not doing anything that crosses a serious line or that would be considered illegal Anything that would get them into trouble with the police or some other authority. This is particularly true of abusers who do not have a mental illness or a personality disorder.
Speaker 1:
Non-disordered abusers are very, very, very clever at keeping their control and abuse behind closed doors. This can make it very, very difficult to prove and again, this is where having cameras is so important. If you don't have cameras and they turn up at your doorstep, it's essentially your word against theirs. If you've got cameras, you've proof, and I have clients who have taken my advice and installed those cameras and have been able to use that footage to assist them in legal proceedings. Now, I haven't gone down all of the various ways that abusers can use, things like harassment, intimidation, stalking or threats. I've touched on this topic briefly, but hopefully it's expanded a little bit on the information that you've got about this in a way that's useful for you. Please join me later on this week as we delve into part three of unpacking post-separation abuse. Thank you so much for joining me. I'll talk to you soon.