🧠 Financial Intimacy or Financial Control? The Hidden Psychology Behind “Let’s Just Put Our Pensions into Our Joint Account Again”
🚩 Contextual Red Flags
The sentence “If we both continue to put our pensions into our Sabadell account we will be alright” may appear practical or cooperative on the surface, but when it is spoken within the broader context of an abusive or manipulative relationship, it needs to be approached with caution.
Financial decisions in abusive dynamics are rarely just about money. They often reflect deeper themes of:
- Control
- Obligation
- Dependency
- Power imbalance
- Guilt-driven loyalty
From a neuroscientific perspective, your brain is likely wired right now to scan for safety—and such a message can confuse that system. It appears loving, calm, and cooperative, but when seen in the broader cycle of abuse, it can activate your trauma response and manipulate your sense of empathy.
🔍 Psychological Insights: What’s Really Going On?
1. Weaponizing Nostalgia and Love
The phrases like:
- “I love you with all my heart and soul”
- “We just have to get over this hurdle”
- “Please let’s get over this”
- “Whatever you think I will love you totally forever”
These are classic emotional hooks. They appeal to your history, your empathy, and your hope. But they may be strategically timed to disarm you—especially when you’ve started to reclaim your autonomy.
This is not accountability. This is seductive bargaining cloaked in sentiment.
2. Minimizing the Harm
“It is getting a bit out of hand for nothing.”
This phrasing dismisses your pain and reduces potentially years of abuse to “nothing.” This is gaslighting, a psychological manipulation technique designed to make you doubt your perception of reality. It’s a way of shifting blame back onto you for responding to mistreatment.
3. Avoiding Legal Protections
“No need for a legal agreement, just common sense.”
This is another red flag. When someone urges you not to seek legal protections in situations involving shared assets, pensions, or past abuse, they are trying to maintain the upper hand.
Abusers typically fear legal boundaries—not because they intend to follow through with fairness, but because they are used to functioning in the gray areas where they can manipulate emotionally and financially.
Common sense isn’t common when you’re recovering from abuse. Legal boundaries exist to protect your healing, not to punish anyone.
4. The Financial Anchor
“If we both continue to put our pensions into our Sabadell account, we’ll be alright.”
Here, finances are presented as the “glue” holding everything together. This is not about shared love or shared goals—it’s about tying you back in. When you combine finances:
- You reduce your autonomy
- You make escape more difficult
- You create space for ongoing control
In trauma recovery, financial independence is crucial. Neuroscience shows that feeling safe and in control of your environment is essential for nervous system regulation and long-term healing.
5. The Cancer Mention: Strategic Vulnerability
“Thank you for your cancer news response. It means a lot.”
Illness can be real and serious—but within this message, it’s used as a moment of emotional leverage. A way to say, “I’m vulnerable—don’t abandon me now.” This is not always a conscious tactic, but it is manipulative if it’s meant to guilt you into returning.
🧘♀️ Trauma-Informed Perspective: How Your Brain Might Be Reacting
If you feel:
- Guilty for not replying kindly
- Confused about whether they really mean it
- Drawn back into the emotional tether
That’s completely normal. This is your trauma brain responding. It’s wired for connection and protection, even to unsafe people, especially if that person was once your primary attachment figure.
Your limbic system (the emotional brain) remembers the longing for love, safety, and resolution. Your prefrontal cortex (the logic and decision-making center) may now be fighting for dominance, trying to keep you grounded in the truth of what you’ve lived through.
That push-pull is exhausting—but also a sign of growth. You’re not numb anymore. You’re awake.
💬 What You Deserve to Hear Instead:
- “I recognize my role in the pain I caused you.”
- “I understand if you don’t want to speak.”
- “I’m in therapy and committed to change—with or without you.”
- “Here is a signed legal agreement giving you full financial protection.”
Without those statements—anything else is emotional manipulation.
❤️ Final Words
This message is not about love. It is about regaining control, re-opening access, and closing your door to freedom—all cloaked in the comforting language of “forever love.”
When someone truly loves you after doing harm, they prioritize your safety, your space, and your healing—not their access to your pension.
You are allowed to choose peace over persuasion, and boundaries over “beautiful futures.”
🧠 At Linda C J Turner Therapy, we help women:
- Understand and defuse emotional manipulation
- Rebuild from financial and emotional entanglement
- Reclaim clarity and calm through neuroscience and trauma therapy
- Say no—with confidence, dignity, and peace
📩 You deserve your own account. In every sense of the word.
This message is deeply layered and contains many emotional, psychological, and potentially manipulative elements that deserve thoughtful unpacking—especially when viewed through the lenses of trauma-informed therapy, neuroscience, and abuse recovery. Let’s break it down with compassion, insight, and clarity, focusing especially on the part about shared finances and the subtext of emotional persuasion.
#CoerciveControl #FinancialAbuseAwareness #NeuroscienceOfAbuse #EmotionalManipulation #TraumaRecovery #LindaCJTurnerTherapy #PostSeparationAbuse
— Linda C J Turner
Trauma Therapist | Neuroscience & Emotional Intelligence Practitioner | Advocate for Women’s Empowerment
