APA Citation
Adams, A., Sullivan, C., Bybee, D., & Greeson, M. (2008). Development of the Scale of Economic Abuse. *Violence Against Women*, 14(5), 563-588. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801208315529
Summary
This landmark study created the first scientifically validated tool for measuring economic abuse in intimate relationships. The researchers interviewed over 100 domestic violence survivors to understand how abusers use money and financial control as weapons. They discovered that economic abuse operates through two main mechanisms: economic control (preventing victims from having money, blocking employment, controlling all financial decisions) and economic exploitation (actively stealing money, ruining credit, creating debt in the victim's name, forcing victims to pay for everything). The research proved that economic abuse is its own distinct form of abuse, not just a side effect of physical violence, and that it plays a central role in trapping victims in abusive relationships. The Scale of Economic Abuse developed from this research is now used worldwide by domestic violence organisations, courts, and researchers to identify and document financial abuse.
Why This Matters for Survivors
For survivors of narcissistic abuse, this research validates a form of control that is often invisible to outsiders and even to victims themselves. Economic abuse explains why 'just leaving' feels impossible: when someone controls your money, has destroyed your credit, prevented your career, or threatened your livelihood, escape requires resources you have been systematically denied. Adams and colleagues proved that financial control is not incidental to abuse but central to it. Their Scale of Economic Abuse gives language to what you may have experienced: the constant monitoring of spending, the denial of access to bank accounts, the sabotage of job opportunities, the theft of your money for their purposes. This research shows that your financial dependence was manufactured, not a personal failing.
What This Research Found
Adrienne Adams and her colleagues’ 2008 study represents a watershed moment in domestic violence research: the first rigorous, empirical development of a tool to measure economic abuse. While advocates and survivors had long recognised that abusers use money as a weapon, the academic and legal fields lacked a scientifically validated way to assess this form of control. The Scale of Economic Abuse (SEA) filled this critical gap, transforming how researchers, practitioners, and courts understand financial tactics in abusive relationships.
Economic abuse is a distinct form of intimate partner violence. Through extensive interviews with 103 survivors of domestic violence, the researchers demonstrated that economic abuse is conceptually separate from both physical violence and psychological abuse. While these forms of abuse often co-occur, economic abuse involves specific behaviours targeting the victim’s financial resources and autonomy. This distinction matters enormously for intervention: addressing physical violence without addressing economic control leaves victims trapped by poverty rather than fists.
Two dimensions of economic abuse: control and exploitation. Factor analysis revealed that economic abuse operates through two distinct mechanisms. Economic control involves behaviours that prevent victims from acquiring, using, and maintaining resources. This includes interfering with employment or education, controlling access to money, making unilateral financial decisions, and monitoring or restricting spending. Economic exploitation involves behaviours that actively generate costs to the victim. This includes stealing money or property, using credit cards without permission, refusing to contribute to shared expenses while expecting the victim to pay, running up debt in the victim’s name, and forcing the victim to work while taking their earnings.
Economic abuse correlates strongly with other forms of abuse but is not reducible to them. The study found significant correlations between economic abuse, physical abuse, and psychological abuse. However, statistical analysis confirmed that economic abuse captures something distinct. Some victims experienced severe economic control with little physical violence; others experienced physical violence with minimal economic abuse. Treating economic tactics as merely a subset of psychological abuse misses the specific, measurable nature of financial coercion.
The Scale of Economic Abuse provides reliable measurement. The resulting 28-item scale demonstrated strong psychometric properties, including high internal consistency and construct validity. The scale distinguishes between economic control (12 items) and economic exploitation (16 items), allowing researchers and practitioners to assess both dimensions. This validation means the SEA can be used confidently in research, advocacy, legal proceedings, and clinical assessment.
How This Research Is Used in the Book
Adams’ research on economic abuse appears in Narcissus and the Child to illuminate the practical mechanisms that trap victims in narcissistic relationships. In Chapter 16: The Gaslit Self, the study contextualises why leaving an abusive narcissist proves extraordinarily difficult:
“Many narcissists establish financial control early. The victim may be unable to work, lack access to money, have no credit in their own name, or face destitution if they leave. Economic abuse keeps victims trapped as effectively as locked doors.”
This passage draws directly on Adams’ insight that economic abuse is strategically deployed to prevent escape. The narcissist does not control money accidentally or through personality quirks; financial domination serves the specific function of making departure impossible. When outsiders ask “why doesn’t she just leave?” they reveal ignorance of how systematically coercive control manufactures dependence.
In Chapter 21: Breaking the Spell, Adams’ research provides statistical grounding for the economic barriers survivors face:
“The average victim suffers an income loss of 37% after leaving an abusive relationship, with many facing devastating poverty that can last decades.”
This figure demolishes the fantasy that leaving an abuser leads immediately to freedom and recovery. Economic abuse creates lasting damage: ruined credit, gaps in employment history, depleted savings, debt incurred through exploitation. Survivors do not simply walk away from economic abuse; they carry its consequences for years or decades. Telling someone to “just leave” without addressing economic realities reveals the same callous ignorance that enabled the abuse in the first place.
Why This Matters for Survivors
If you have experienced narcissistic abuse, Adams’ research validates what you may have lived through and helps explain why escape felt or feels impossible.
Your financial dependence was manufactured. Narcissists do not accidentally end up controlling all the money. Economic abuse is strategic: they prevented your career advancement, controlled your access to accounts, made you account for every penny, or stole your earnings for their purposes. If you feel trapped by money, you are experiencing the intended outcome of deliberate tactics. You are not bad with money, irresponsible, or incapable. Someone systematically prevented you from having financial autonomy precisely so you could not leave.
Economic abuse is real abuse. Many survivors minimise their experience because it “wasn’t violent” or because financial control seems like it should be negotiable between adults. Adams’ research proves that economic abuse is a distinct, measurable form of intimate partner violence with its own devastating effects. Courts and advocates increasingly recognise this. You do not need bruises to be a victim of abuse; systematic financial control is abuse.
The “why don’t you just leave” question misses the point. Every survivor has been asked this question, often by people who genuinely think they are being helpful. Adams’ research explains why this question is so painful: it places responsibility on the victim while ignoring the carefully constructed trap. Leaving requires money for deposits, first month’s rent, legal fees, childcare, transportation, and basic necessities. When someone has prevented you from earning, stolen what you did earn, and destroyed your credit, where exactly is this money supposed to come from? The question should be: “Why did he trap you financially?”
Economic recovery is its own journey. Even after physical safety is achieved, economic abuse leaves lasting damage. You may face ruined credit, employment gaps difficult to explain, debt you did not incur, legal battles you cannot afford, and the need to rebuild everything from nothing. This is not a failure of resilience; it is the intended consequence of exploitation. Recovery from economic abuse requires specific interventions: financial advocacy, credit repair, job training, legal assistance, and time. Do not expect yourself to bounce back quickly from deliberate, sustained economic destruction.
Documentation matters. Adams’ Scale of Economic Abuse provides language for what you experienced and a framework courts increasingly recognise. Documenting economic abuse, from controlled accounts to sabotaged employment to stolen money, creates evidence that can support legal proceedings, protective orders, and divorce settlements. The research gives weight to claims that might otherwise be dismissed as mere “financial disagreements.”
Clinical Implications
For psychiatrists, psychologists, and trauma-informed healthcare providers, Adams’ research has direct implications for assessment and treatment of intimate partner violence survivors.
Screen specifically for economic abuse. Standard domestic violence screening focuses heavily on physical violence and may miss the economic control that traps victims. Asking specifically about financial access, employment interference, and resource exploitation reveals patterns that physical violence questions miss. The Scale of Economic Abuse provides validated language for this assessment. Victims may not recognise their experience as abuse until specific behaviours are named.
Understand economic abuse as entrapment, not personality. Clinicians trained to see learned helplessness or passivity as individual pathology may miss how economic abuse manufactures that helplessness. When someone has been prevented from working, denied access to money, and threatened with destitution, their apparent inability to act reflects rational assessment of impossible circumstances, not personality deficits or learned passivity. Validate the trap rather than pathologising the victim’s response to it.
Address practical economic needs alongside trauma. Trauma therapy has limited utility for someone currently trapped in economic abuse. Safety planning must include financial dimensions: hidden emergency funds, separate accounts the abuser does not know about, documentation of financial abuse, and connections to economic advocacy services. Treating complex PTSD while the client returns to economic entrapment may even increase danger by increasing her clarity about abuse without providing means of escape.
Recognise post-separation economic abuse. Victims often assume that leaving will end the abuse. Economic exploitation frequently intensifies after separation through hidden assets, refused support payments, endless legal battles, and financial manipulation of children. The narcissist may launch smear campaigns affecting the victim’s employment or use hoovering tactics that combine financial promises with attempts to restore control. Clinicians should assess for ongoing economic abuse and understand that the client’s financial stress may reflect continued victimisation, not personal financial mismanagement.
Collaborate with financial advocates. Mental health treatment alone cannot address economic abuse. Effective intervention requires collaboration with domestic violence organisations offering financial advocacy, legal aid for divorce and custody, housing programmes, and job training services. Know your local resources and be prepared to coordinate care across systems.
Understanding Economic Control
The first dimension Adams identified involves behaviours that prevent victims from acquiring, using, and maintaining economic resources. Economic control operates through multiple tactics:
Employment interference. Abusers prevent victims from working or advancing in careers through sabotage (hiding car keys, destroying work clothes, calling employers with false concerns), causing scenes that get victims fired, refusing childcare, demanding victims quit jobs, and creating crises on workdays. This form of isolation ensures the victim has no independent income or workplace relationships that might support escape. Even when victims work, abusers may demand they work fewer hours or take lower-paying jobs that do not threaten the power dynamic.
Educational interference. Preventing education blocks long-term earning potential. Abusers may forbid school attendance, create crises during exams, refuse to support childcare needed for classes, or belittle educational aspirations as impractical or selfish.
Financial decision monopoly. One partner makes all significant financial decisions unilaterally: where to live, what to buy, how much to spend, what accounts to have, how to file taxes. The victim’s input is neither sought nor accepted. This concentrates all financial power while denying the victim any practice making economic decisions.
Controlled access to money. The abuser may provide an “allowance” while requiring accounting of every penny. They control all bank accounts, credit cards, and cash. The victim must ask permission for any spending and may be denied purchases the abuser considers unnecessary. This creates dependence on the abuser’s goodwill for basic necessities.
Information control. Victims may be kept ignorant of the couple’s actual financial situation: income, debts, assets, accounts. This form of gaslighting extends to finances: when victims question discrepancies, they are told they are mistaken, paranoid, or bad with numbers. This prevents them from planning escape and leaves them vulnerable during divorce when hidden assets emerge.
Understanding Economic Exploitation
The second dimension involves behaviours that actively generate economic costs to victims:
Theft of money and property. Abusers steal wages, savings, inheritance, or gifts. They may forge signatures to access accounts, cash cheques meant for the victim, or sell the victim’s property without permission.
Credit exploitation. Abusers open accounts in the victim’s name, run up debt the victim is responsible for, or refuse to pay joint debts while destroying the victim’s credit. Victims may discover after separation that they owe tens of thousands in debt they never agreed to.
Forced financial support. While controlling all money, the abuser may refuse to contribute to shared expenses, expecting the victim to cover household costs, children’s needs, and even the abuser’s personal expenses. The abuser may refuse to work while demanding the victim provide.
Property destruction. Destroying the victim’s possessions creates costs and removes resources that might fund escape. Breaking phones prevents communication; destroying vehicles prevents transportation; damaging work clothes prevents employment.
Generating costs through abuse. Medical bills from violence, legal costs from abuser-created crises, lost income from recovery time, and destroyed credit all represent costs generated by the abuser but borne by the victim.
The Entrapment Mechanism
Economic abuse creates entrapment through a predictable mechanism. Early in relationships, abusers often encourage financial merging or dependence that seems romantic: “You don’t need to work; I’ll provide for you.” “Let’s combine everything; we’re a team.” “Don’t worry about money; I’ll handle it.” This mirrors the love-bombing phase of narcissistic relationships, where generosity and care disguise the groundwork being laid for control. Over time, this merging becomes control as the victim loses independent access to resources.
The victim may not recognise economic abuse as it develops because each step seems small or is framed as caring. By the time the pattern becomes clear, the victim has no money, no credit history, no recent employment, and no way to leave. The abuser can now make explicit threats: “Leave and you’ll have nothing.” “I’ll take everything in the divorce.” “Good luck supporting yourself after I tell everyone what you’re really like.” These threats often come during the devaluation phase when the mask slips and the abuser openly expresses contempt.
This trap operates independently of physical violence. Someone can be economically imprisoned without ever being hit. They can also be both physically abused and economically trapped, with the economic control making escape from physical danger impossible. Adams’ research shows that we cannot understand domestic violence without understanding the economic dimensions that bind victims to abusers.
Narcissism and Economic Abuse
While Adams’ research examined domestic violence broadly, the findings are particularly relevant to narcissistic abuse. Narcissists are highly prone to economic abuse because of their core psychological features:
Entitlement. Narcissists believe they deserve resources regardless of who earned them. Your money is their money; their money is their money. This entitled stance, rooted in grandiose narcissism, makes economic exploitation feel justified: they are simply taking what they deserve.
Need for control. Narcissistic supply depends on having power over others. Economic control ensures the victim cannot leave, cannot develop competing relationships, and remains dependent on the narcissist’s goodwill. Money becomes a tool for managing narcissistic supply.
Lack of empathy. Narcissists do not feel the impact of their economic abuse on victims. They do not register that denying money causes suffering, that sabotaged employment creates desperation, or that financial threats generate terror. The victim’s experience simply does not enter their calculus.
Image maintenance. Narcissists often spend lavishly on themselves while restricting others’ spending because their image matters more than the family’s wellbeing. Expensive cars, clothes, and hobbies for them; an accounting of every grocery receipt for you.
Punishment through finances. Money becomes a reward and punishment system. Compliance brings resources; independence brings deprivation. This intermittent reinforcement creates the same trauma bonding seen with emotional and physical abuse.
Broader Implications
Adams’ research extends beyond individual relationships to illuminate systemic issues in how society responds to domestic violence.
Legal Recognition
The Scale of Economic Abuse has supported legal recognition of economic abuse as a form of domestic violence. Jurisdictions increasingly include financial control in domestic violence definitions and allow economic abuse evidence in protective orders and divorce proceedings. This represents a significant shift from frameworks that required physical injury to prove abuse.
Policy Development
Research demonstrating the centrality of economic abuse has informed policy: economic advocacy services in domestic violence organisations, financial literacy programmes for survivors, asset-building programmes, and recognition that housing and employment support are essential domestic violence interventions, not peripheral services.
Workplace Implications
Economic abuse often extends into workplaces through abusers who call, show up, make threats, or create crises that affect victims’ employment. Employer awareness of economic abuse dynamics supports victim-sensitive policies: recognising that attendance problems may reflect abuse rather than irresponsibility, providing safety planning, and understanding that economic abuse makes employment both more essential and more difficult.
Research Advancement
The SEA enabled research that was previously impossible. Studies using the scale have documented the prevalence of economic abuse (over 90% of domestic violence victims experience some form), its relationship to other forms of abuse, its long-term consequences, and the effectiveness of economic advocacy interventions. This research base supports evidence-based intervention and policy.
Limitations and Considerations
Adams’ research, while groundbreaking, has limitations that inform its application.
Sample characteristics. The study drew on women who had accessed domestic violence services and were no longer in abusive relationships. This may not fully represent victims still in relationships, those who never seek services, or men experiencing economic abuse. Subsequent research has worked to expand sample diversity.
Focus on heterosexual relationships. The original research primarily addressed women abused by male partners. Economic abuse occurs across all relationship configurations, though specific dynamics may differ. The scale has since been adapted for broader application.
Cultural context. Economic norms vary across cultures, affecting what constitutes abuse versus acceptable financial arrangements. The scale was developed and validated in American contexts; adaptation for other cultural settings requires attention to local norms and expectations.
Evolution of tactics. Economic abuse tactics evolve with financial technology: cryptocurrency hiding assets, apps tracking spending in real-time, gig economy enabling surveillance of work. Assessment tools must evolve alongside abuser tactics.
Historical Context
Adams’ 2008 study built on decades of groundwork while transforming the field’s empirical foundation. Early domestic violence research, emerging from the battered women’s movement of the 1970s, focused primarily on physical violence because that was what had to be proved to justify intervention and escape. Economic aspects were noted but not systematically measured.
By the 1990s, qualitative research had documented the importance of financial control in abusive relationships. Survivors consistently reported that economic tactics kept them trapped. Evan Stark’s 2007 book Coercive Control provided theoretical framework for understanding abuse as a pattern of entrapment rather than discrete violent incidents, with economic control as a central element.
Adams and colleagues provided the empirical tool the field needed: a validated measure that could document economic abuse reliably across research, advocacy, and legal contexts. The Scale of Economic Abuse transformed theoretical understanding into practical assessment capability. It has since been translated into multiple languages and used in dozens of countries, becoming a standard instrument in domestic violence research and practice.
The study also reflected Michigan State University’s emergence as a centre for violence against women research, with Cris Sullivan’s programme providing institutional support for the kind of sustained, survivor-centred research that produces validated measures rather than quick publications.
Further Reading
- Adams, A.E. (2011). Measuring the effects of domestic violence on women’s financial well-being. CFS Research Brief, 2011-5.6. Center for Financial Security.
- Postmus, J.L., Plummer, S.B., McMahon, S., Murshid, N.S., & Kim, M.S. (2012). Understanding economic abuse in the lives of survivors. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 27(3), 411-430.
- Sanders, C.K. (2015). Economic abuse in the lives of women abused by an intimate partner: A qualitative study. Violence Against Women, 21(1), 3-29.
- Stark, E. (2007). Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life. Oxford University Press.
- Stylianou, A.M., Postmus, J.L., & McMahon, S. (2013). Measuring abusive behaviors: Is economic abuse a unique form of abuse? Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 28(16), 3186-3204.
- Voth Schrag, R.J. (2015). Economic abuse and later material hardship: Is depression a mediator? Affilia, 30(3), 341-351.
Abstract
This groundbreaking research developed and validated the Scale of Economic Abuse (SEA), the first psychometrically sound measure specifically designed to assess economic abuse in intimate partner relationships. Through interviews with 103 survivors of domestic violence and factor analysis, the researchers identified two distinct dimensions of economic abuse: economic control (preventing access to resources) and economic exploitation (generating economic costs to victims). The study demonstrated that economic abuse is a distinct form of intimate partner violence that occurs alongside but is conceptually separate from physical and psychological abuse. The SEA provides researchers and practitioners with a reliable tool to identify and measure economic abuse, supporting intervention efforts and policy development addressing the financial entrapment of domestic violence victims.
About the Author
Adrienne E. Adams, PhD is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Michigan State University, where she directs the Violence Against Women Research Program. Her research focuses on understanding the nature and consequences of intimate partner violence, with particular emphasis on economic abuse and its role in preventing women from achieving safety and independence.
Adams received her PhD in Ecological-Community Psychology from Michigan State University and has published extensively on domestic violence, economic abuse, housing instability, and survivor-defined practice. Her work has been funded by the National Institute of Justice and other major agencies. She has collaborated with domestic violence organisations to translate research findings into practical tools for advocates, policymakers, and survivors.
Her development of the Scale of Economic Abuse represented a paradigm shift in how the field understands domestic violence, moving beyond physical injury to recognise the strategic financial tactics that trap victims. This measure has been translated into multiple languages and is used globally in research, clinical, and legal settings.
Cris M. Sullivan, PhD is a University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University and has spent over 30 years researching violence against women. Her work on advocacy interventions and community responses to domestic violence has influenced policy and practice worldwide.
Historical Context
Published in 2008, this research emerged at a critical moment in the evolution of domestic violence scholarship. While the battered women's movement had successfully brought physical violence into public consciousness and legal frameworks, economic abuse remained largely invisible. Evan Stark's influential work on coercive control (2007) had just been published, arguing that domestic abuse should be understood as a pattern of entrapment rather than discrete violent incidents. Adams and colleagues' research provided empirical support for this framework by demonstrating that economic tactics are a distinct and measurable dimension of abuse. The study built on earlier qualitative research suggesting that financial control was central to domestic violence, but provided the first validated measurement tool. The Scale of Economic Abuse has since become standard in research and practice, helping establish economic abuse as a recognised form of intimate partner violence in both academic and legal contexts.
Frequently Asked Questions
Economic abuse is a deliberate pattern of control where one partner uses money and financial resources to dominate, exploit, and trap the other. It is fundamentally different from normal financial disagreements because it is about power and control, not budgeting preferences. Economic abuse includes preventing your partner from working, controlling all money while giving an 'allowance,' demanding receipts for every purchase, hiding assets, stealing money or property, destroying your credit, running up debt in your name, and threatening destitution if you leave. Normal couples may argue about spending priorities; economic abuse involves one person systematically denying the other access to resources and autonomy.
Economic abuse specifically targets the victim's ability to become financially independent. Abusers sabotage employment by causing scenes at workplaces, hiding car keys, destroying work clothes, refusing childcare, or threatening violence if the victim works. They may have prevented the victim from building job skills or maintaining a career over years. When victims do work, abusers often take their paycheques or force them to account for every pound. Victims may have ruined credit (in their name, without their consent), no rental history, no savings (all money was controlled), and dependents who need care. The abuser has engineered a situation where leaving means poverty, homelessness, or losing children to a custody battle the victim cannot afford to fight.
No, and this is one of the most important findings of Adams' research. Economic abuse can occur with or without physical violence, and it is a distinct form of abuse, not merely a feature of physical battering. Some victims experience severe economic control without ever being hit, while others experience both. Importantly, economic abuse can be just as effective at trapping victims as physical violence. Many survivors report that the financial entrapment was harder to escape than the physical abuse because it left them with no resources, no credit, and no way to support themselves or their children independently. Courts and advocates increasingly recognise that economic abuse alone can constitute domestic violence.
Narcissists are particularly prone to economic abuse because they feel entitled to resources and view partners as extensions of themselves who exist to serve their needs. Common narcissistic economic abuse tactics include: keeping all money 'for the family' while spending freely on themselves; giving an allowance while criticising every purchase; preventing work that might increase independence or outside validation; using money as a reward/punishment system; hiding assets and lying about finances; making major purchases without consultation; ruining credit then blaming the victim; using money to control who the victim sees and what they do; threatening destitution during discard; and weaponising finances in divorce. The narcissist treats shared resources as theirs alone because, in their mind, what is yours is theirs.
Adams and colleagues identified two distinct dimensions: Economic Control and Economic Exploitation. Economic Control involves behaviours that prevent the victim from acquiring resources, such as interfering with employment, forbidding work, controlling access to money, demanding account of every penny spent, and making all financial decisions unilaterally. Economic Exploitation involves actively generating costs to the victim, such as stealing their money, using their credit cards without permission, refusing to contribute to shared expenses, running up debt in their name, destroying their property, and refusing to work while living off the victim's income. Both dimensions trap victims, but exploitation actively damages their financial standing while control prevents them from building resources.
Documentation is crucial because economic abuse leaves evidence if you know where to look. Save bank statements, credit card bills, and financial records showing control or exploitation. Document denied access to accounts with screenshots of locked accounts or changed passwords. Keep records of employment sabotage like texts demanding you miss work or evidence of scenes at your workplace. Save communications about money showing control or threats. Document destroyed credit with credit reports showing accounts opened in your name. Note every instance of stolen money or withheld funds with dates and amounts. If you cannot safely store physical documents, consider photographing them and storing images in a secure location the abuser cannot access. Domestic violence advocates can help you document safely and explain what courts find most useful.
Resources have expanded significantly since this research raised awareness of economic abuse. Many domestic violence organisations now offer financial advocacy, helping survivors open independent bank accounts, repair credit, and develop economic stability plans. Some provide emergency funds, transitional housing, and job training. Specialist programmes like the Allstate Foundation's Moving Ahead curriculum teach financial literacy to survivors. Legal aid organisations can help address debt incurred through abuse or protect assets during divorce. Some jurisdictions now allow economic abuse evidence in protective order petitions and divorce proceedings. The Scale of Economic Abuse itself is sometimes used in court to document patterns of financial control. Contact local domestic violence organisations to learn what economic resources exist in your area.
Absolutely, and this is a critical but often overlooked aspect of post-separation abuse. Narcissists and abusers frequently weaponise finances after separation through tactics such as: hiding assets during divorce proceedings; refusing to pay child support or alimony; dragging out legal proceedings to exhaust the victim's resources; making false accusations requiring expensive legal defence; destroying shared property or business interests; refusing to refinance joint debts; damaging the victim's professional reputation; using custody battles as financial warfare; and manipulating children about money. The victim, already financially weakened by years of economic abuse during the relationship, faces continued financial assault precisely when they most need resources to rebuild. Courts are slowly recognising post-separation economic abuse as a continuation of domestic violence.