EP49- Female Financial Independence Series: What is the relationship of domestic violence to financial control

In today’s episode, I am with Rie Peason who is married with three children,  lives in north east England and is now a retired police officer of 27 years service. Her hobbies include Loo Roll Origami (yes really!) and reviewing public toilets on her private Facebook group for fun. 

During her time as a police officer, Rie was involved in many domestic abuse incidents. She began her role as a Domestic Violence officer against oil looking at offending behaviors. Other than that related to domestic violence offenses, it is found that about 70% of the abusers were already involved in other crimes. This involved working on a multi force project to assess the information from previous domestic murders and develop a Risk Assessment Tool to be rolled out across all forces in the UK.

Financial abuse is massive within abusive relationships. Based on a survey, numbers show that money is the biggest problem in relationships because couples argue about money more than anything else. It is greatly influenced by the balance of power within a relationship. 

There is  a massive disparity between what women get and what men get when you are in a marriage with children. This is because women will work reduced hours, flexible working arrangements as opposed to men. It is a classic indication of the imbalance in a relationship, and what I call, career suicide. People talk to their partner more about their holiday plans than they ever do about their commitment to each other and the issues of their relationship, their future together. It is more common if you’re in a marriage-with-children-kind of couple that conversations are around who pays more, who earns more, who pays the bills, who puts money in the household, whose job is the most important, these are the kinds of conversations that happen. 

Overtime, domestic issues have stayed the same. Some think that domestic violence is equated to physical violence so they’d cover it up with domestic abuse instead. But, whatever you call it both mean the same at some point. This is the reason why a Risk Assessment tool is created to be able to use the resources that you have effectively which means there’s a need to focus the majority of resources on people who were what we recall, high risk victims, high risk families.

Also, one resource you can have is the book called Be Kind. No Excuses this is about recognizing and red flag behaviors at the very start of a relationship. One of the common red flag behaviors is somebody who’s going to be abusive to you in a relationship will try and get you to have a baby really quickly. This will assure financial commitment and connection forever. It’s a bad financial connection, you can’t walk away from it.

Financially dependent women who want to solely extricate themselves from a relationship can speak to solicitors. They can speak to women’s aid to get some kind of financial support and they will advise you what steps to take.

Ultimately, TRUST YOUR GUT. If you feel you are in danger, you probably are. Get some advice, speak to somebody who you trust and figure out a plan, be sensible about it. Bear in mind that people choose to abuse at any given circumstance. They keep absolute control of themselves every time until they decide that they are going to beat the living daylights out of their partner. So be aware of the red flags and call for help as soon as you can. 

If you would like to connect further with Rie you can do so  via her Instagram, Linkedin or visit her website here.

To listen to the full podcast and more on these discussion points you can listen here.