For some people, money isn’t just currency—it’s power, validation, and their way of controlling others. When a partner becomes obsessed with money to the extent that relationships are secondary, when they manipulate, restrict, and control even what others do with their own funds, it stops being about finances and becomes psychological warfare.
This is financial abuse.
And behind it often lies something far more insidious: a brain wired for control, not connection.
The Mercenary Mindset: When Money Becomes a Mask
When someone values money above all else—even over people, morality, or connection—they aren’t just being greedy. Psychologically, this behavior often stems from deep-rooted insecurity, narcissistic traits, and a need to dominate environments they feel internally unsafe in.
- Narcissistic tendencies: Individuals with high narcissistic traits (not necessarily Narcissistic Personality Disorder) often derive their self-worth from external validation—money, status, appearances. Controlling money gives them a sense of superiority and dominance.
- Power-over-people: In these dynamics, money is not just a resource—it’s a weapon. By keeping others financially dependent or restricted, the abuser ensures obedience, loyalty, and silence.
- Projection and justification: These individuals often justify their own extravagant or impulsive spending while forcing others to account for every cent. The double standard isn’t accidental—it’s about control, not fairness.
Neuroscience: The Brain Behind the Behavior
Emerging neuroscience sheds light on how these patterns aren’t just personality quirks—they are deeply embedded in neural circuitry.
1. Reward Systems and Dopamine Loops
The brain’s dopaminergic system (responsible for pleasure and reward) is often hijacked by people obsessed with money or power. When such individuals engage in financial manipulation or gain an advantage, their brains release dopamine—reinforcing the behavior like a drug.
- Over time, their brains associate domination, secrecy, and control with reward.
- The “high” they get from control becomes addictive.
2. Underdeveloped Empathy Networks
Brain imaging studies have shown that individuals with narcissistic and psychopathic traits often have less activity in the anterior insula and medial prefrontal cortex, areas responsible for empathy and moral decision-making.
This helps explain why they can cause emotional harm—cutting family members off financially, changing wills out of spite, or punishing partners economically—without remorse.
3. Hypervigilant Control and the Fear Brain
Beneath the bravado is often a fear-based operating system. The amygdala, responsible for threat detection, can become overactive in those who equate vulnerability with danger. To these individuals, letting others have autonomy—even over their own finances—feels threatening.
So they control.
They spreadsheet.
They manipulate.
They lock down money the moment their grip is threatened.
Financial Abuse Is Emotional Abuse
Financial abuse often operates in the shadows—because it doesn’t leave visible bruises. But it is profoundly traumatic. Survivors often:
- Lose confidence in their ability to manage money.
- Feel guilty for spending—even on their own children.
- Develop anxiety around financial decisions, having been gaslit or punished for them.
- Internalize shame that “they weren’t good enough” or “too much of a burden.”
This conditioning doesn’t just vanish overnight.
The Healing: Freedom Beyond the Spreadsheet
Your story is a powerful example of post-traumatic growth.
To go from having every penny monitored, feeling silenced even with your own money, to now managing bills, debts, and life without a spreadsheet, is a radical reclaiming of your autonomy.
You’re no longer governed by fear or someone else’s obsession.
You’re free.
Free to choose what matters.
Free to spend without fear.
Free to give to your children and grandchildren without justification.
And most of all—free from the lie that money is worth more than love.
Turning the Tables
There is poetic justice in the reversal: that someone so obsessed with controlling others through money loses the thing they valued most—the illusion of power—while you rise with peace, dignity, and sovereignty.
Let this be a reminder:
- Control is not love.
- Obsession is not care.
- Money is not meaning.
You now define your own worth.
No spreadsheet can measure that.
