Coercive control in texts and emails: what it looks like and how to keep a record

Coercive control can be hard to name, especially when it arrives one message at a time. Each text on its own might look small: a question about where you are, a demand for a reply, a comment about money. It is the pattern, repeated over weeks or years, that wears a person down and narrows their life.

This guide explains what coercive control is, how it tends to show up in texts and emails, how it is treated in general terms, and how to keep a record without putting yourself at greater risk. It is general information, not legal advice. If you are in danger right now, call 000 in Australia or 911 in the US.

What coercive control is

Coercive control is a pattern of behaviour that one person uses to dominate, frighten or control another. The idea is most closely associated with the sociologist and forensic social worker Evan Stark, who described it as a course of conduct that can combine violence, intimidation, isolation and control. Its purpose, in Stark’s account, is to take away a person’s liberty and autonomy, often by regulating the details of their everyday life.

The key word is pattern. A single heated exchange between two people is not coercive control. What matters is repeated or ongoing behaviour that, taken together, leaves one person afraid, isolated or unable to make their own choices.

Physical violence is not always part of it. Many people experience coercive control without ever being hit, which is one reason it can take so long to recognise.

How it shows up in texts and emails

Phones and email give a controlling person constant access. Common patterns include:

• Monitoring: asking where you are, who you are with and why, or asking for photos to prove it. Mentioning things you never told them, which suggests they are tracking you.
• Demands for replies: insisting you answer within minutes, then sending more and angrier messages if you do not.
• Threats: direct or veiled threats to hurt you, themselves, a pet, or to take the children, report you, or share private information or images.
• Financial control: demanding receipts, controlling access to money, refusing agreed support, or using payments as leverage.
• Isolation: criticising your friends or family, pressuring you not to see people, or making contact with others feel not worth the fallout.
• Using children: sending messages through the children, questioning them about you, or tying arrangements for them to your compliance.
• Constant contact: dozens of messages a day, late-night streams, or messages across every channel at once.
• Put-downs and rewriting events: repeated insults, or insisting things did not happen the way you remember, often called gaslighting. Our guide to DARVO explains a common version of this.

After separation

Coercive control often does not end when a relationship does. Where there are children, property or money to sort out, messages can become the main way control continues: arguments over every handover, demands dressed up as parenting questions, or a flood of messages that makes ordinary life hard to manage. Separation can also be a time of increased risk, which is why safety planning matters so much.

Examples of controlling messages by pattern

These examples are illustrations, not a checklist. A single message like one of these does not prove anything on its own. The pattern over time is what matters.

Coercive control and the law

Coercive control is widely recognised as a form of family violence. In some places it is also a crime, and the law is changing in many parts of Australia, the US and elsewhere. Because the rules differ from place to place and keep changing, we don’t try to summarise them here.

What is worth knowing is that help does not depend on there being a specific law where you live. Protection orders, known in Australia as an AVO, IVO, DVO or similar and in the US as a protective or restraining order, can cover controlling and frightening behaviour. Family courts can also take it into account. Our guides to protection orders in Australia and protective and restraining orders in the US explain the basics.

If any of this sounds familiar, police, a specialist family violence service, a lawyer or a free legal service can tell you what applies where you live. You’ll find some in Where to get help.

Safety planning comes first

If you think you are experiencing coercive control, the most important step is a safety plan, ideally made with a specialist service. Changes that seem sensible, such as blocking someone, changing your number or setting up a new address, can sometimes increase risk if the other person feels they are losing control. A specialist can help you weigh that up.

• In an emergency: call 000 in Australia or 911 in the US.
• Safety planning support: 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 in Australia, or the National Domestic Violence Hotline on 1-800-799-7233 (text START to 88788) in the US. Both are free, confidential and open 24 hours a day.

See Where to get help for services in Australia, the US and the UK.

How to keep a record safely

Because coercive control is a pattern, a record matters. One message rarely shows much. A dated collection, kept over time, can show police, a court or a lawyer what has been happening. Our guides on keeping a record of harassing messages and documenting emotional abuse go into detail. The safety points specific to coercive control are:

• Think about who can see your devices. If the other person may have access to your phone, computer or accounts, keep your record somewhere they cannot reach, such as an account with a new password or with a trusted person.
• Do not delete messages, even ones that are painful to keep. Save screenshots that show the sender and the date and time.
• Keep a short log of what happened, when, and how it affected you. Include things that happened outside messages, such as phone calls, visits or what was said at handovers.
• Do not reply to threats. Save them, and consider reporting them to police.
• Check your devices. Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has guidance on technology-facilitated abuse, including tracking and monitoring, at esafety.gov.au.

Where FenceChat can help, and where it cannot

FenceChat cannot tell you whether you are experiencing coercive control, and it does not decide whether any law has been broken. What it can do is make the practical side of contact easier. If you still need to communicate, for example about children, it can reduce the volume of hostile messages you have to read, and it keeps every original, timestamped and organised, in your Archive for you or your lawyer.

The first time someone messages a FenceChat address or number, they receive a one-time notice that messages are processed by AI and stored. Where telling the sender could put you at risk, you can switch that notice off. Replies you send through FenceChat still end with a short “Sent via FenceChat using AI” line. Before you make any change to how the other person contacts you, talk it through with 1800RESPECT, the National Domestic Violence Hotline in the US, or your support worker.

FenceChat gives you a separate email address and, on the Protected and Legal plans, a separate mobile number to give the other person instead of your own. Their messages are filtered before they reach you: the practical information comes through and hostile language is filtered out. The untouched original is kept in your Archive, timestamped, in case you ever need it. They do not need an app or an account, and you never have to share your real number or address.