It’s funny what memories float up on a hot summer’s night in Spain.
Tonight, sitting outside with my loyal companion Ellie — my beloved black Labrador — I found myself thinking about my trip to Perth, Australia. A trip that should have been joyful. A reunion with my daughter, her husband, and my grandson, whom I hadn’t seen for years. A beautiful chance to reconnect after so much distance and time apart.
But what should have been a time of closeness and celebration was laced with restriction, punishment, and control.
You see, the invitation to visit was met — as usual — with hostility from my husband.
Not because we couldn’t afford it.
Not because I was needed at home.
But because the trip wasn’t about him.
He didn’t want to fund it. He didn’t want me to go. And if I did go, it had to be under strict conditions.
I could only go if I paid for it myself — out of my personal UK savings, not the joint account we both contributed to for years. And I could only go for 15 days. Fifteen days. To Australia. From rural France.
That meant traveling from Limoges to Paris alone. Navigating long-haul flights alone. Managing layovers alone. And when the return journey included a 5-hour stopover in Dubai — a place I’d never been and would’ve loved to see — I was told to come straight home. Because he had spent enough time alone.
When I landed in Paris in the middle of January, after two exhausting flights and an overnight layover in a hotel I paid for, I had a 6-hour wait at the train station. He refused to pick me up from the airport.
My friends said it was cruel.
My family said it was controlling.
But I already knew — this was normal in my marriage.
💔 The Neuroscience of Emotional Control
When someone deliberately isolates you from your family, restricts your freedom, or weaponizes money, it’s not just unkind — it’s a form of emotional abuse. And our nervous systems know it.
The human brain is wired for connection.
The limbic system — the emotional brain — lights up when we bond with loved ones. Visiting family, especially across long distances, nourishes this system. It soothes stress, strengthens emotional resilience, and helps us feel grounded in our identity.
But when those needs are constantly thwarted — when connection is denied or punished — our bodies suffer.
Being told how long you’re allowed to love your family isn’t just cold-hearted.
It’s regulating your nervous system with fear instead of safety.
Over time, the brain adapts to that kind of environment.
The amygdala, the brain’s fear center, becomes hyperactive — alert to potential conflict or punishment. The prefrontal cortex, responsible for decision-making and future planning, begins to shrink its role in favor of survival instincts.
You stop asking for things. You shrink your needs. You learn that expressing desire equals pain.
That’s not love.
That’s psychological warfare.
💸 When Finances Become a Weapon
Financial abuse is rarely spoken about, but it is deeply damaging. It’s not about who earns what — it’s about who controls what.
When a partner insists you use only “your own money” to visit your children, while denying you access to shared funds, it reinforces a power imbalance. This sends a dangerous message:
“I control the resources, and therefore, I control you.”
You are made to feel like a burden for having a basic human need — to see your child. To hold your grandchild. To feel part of your own family.
This kind of financial gatekeeping erodes self-worth and agency. It forces you to beg for what should be freely given in a healthy relationship: support, trust, freedom, and love.
🧠 Psychological Manipulation: Death by a Thousand Cuts
What stands out the most is not just the single act of cruelty — it’s the pattern.
- Isolating you from loved ones
- Withholding funds but demanding loyalty
- Refusing to pick you up, knowing you were exhausted
- Imposing tight limitations on your time and freedom
- Then disguising all of it as “normal”
This is coercive control — subtle, constant, and devastating.
Over time, survivors begin to normalize this behavior. “Maybe I am asking too much,” you tell yourself. “Maybe it’s just easier to stay quiet.”
But it’s not easier. It’s just quieter. And silence is how abuse survives.
✨ The Human Right to Belong
Wanting to see your family isn’t a luxury.
It’s not “selfish.” It’s not “needy.”
It’s a human right. A deeply wired biological need.
And any relationship that punishes you for needing to love — to belong — to connect — is not love at all.
Looking back, it’s clear. What I experienced wasn’t a disagreement. It wasn’t a compromise. It was control. And the price I paid wasn’t just financial — it was emotional, psychological, and neurological.
Today, I sit under the stars in Spain with my dog, free from that life, and I honor the woman who still went.
Who still held her grandson.
Who still loved her family.
Who still made the trip — not because it was easy, but because it mattered.
To anyone reading this who has been punished for having a heart:
You are not wrong. You are not selfish.
And you are not alone.
You are human. And your love deserves room to breathe.
