JLPostmus

Yes! The first stop would be to get connected to your local domestic violence organization. They often provide residential and non-residential support for those wanting to leave. They also provide a wide array of services including individual and group counseling, support for finding employment and housing, and support for children.

To find a place near you, call, text, or go to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. They can provide you with the closest program.

First of all, I'm sorry your loved one is experiencing this "gaslighting" by a friend who is taking advantage of their finances. And yes, manipulating someone to exploit their money is financial abuse even if they aren't intimate partners. So yes, it would be easier to cut financial ties but the emotional ties may be the part that binds your friend in this relationship.

Talk about abuse with your friend and how it isn't just among intimate partners and it isn't just physical or sexual violence. In my research with survivors, many could talk about the more recognizable abuse experiences and were surprised that financial abuse was yet another way they were being abused and controlled. Reach out to your local domestic violence organization to help guide you and your friend to learn more. Good luck.

Welcome everyone to this AMA. I look forward to answering your questions about financial abuse and empowerment. This is my first AMA so I'm a little nervous. But I'm sure you'll ask great questions and we'll all learn from each other.

Financial abuse is all about taking control over someone's finances and exploiting them to maintain power over them. This usually happens in relationships, more likely in intimate partner relationships. But it can also happen from parent to child (in the case of Brooke Shields) and the reverse (adult child to parent). Regardless of who is doing the abuse, the victim could seek help from domestic violence organizations in their community to learn more about resources available to get help.

Glad you are here! Yes, economic abuse is often used as part of a variety of tactics including physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Our research has found that while economic abuse is strongly related, it is still a distinct type of abuse from those other forms.

Motives for abusers (or why do they abuse?) is a really good question and one that we don't have simple answers to know. Such motives could come from their strongly held beliefs about the roles of men and women in relationships or from their learned experiences as a child in a family experiencing domestic violence. I've written about the various frameworks and theories to understand why someone abuses another in my book as part of Chapter 1 to provide more detail information.

To answer your final question... no.