Survivor Insights: The Cost of Keeping the Peace
In a relationship with an abuser, every choice comes at a price
The Survivor Insights series shares the voices of survivors themselves. These words come from hundreds of people who have contributed their experiences across my social media pages, and they help give language to the hidden realities of coercive control and domestic abuse.
From the outside, people often assume that resistance is straightforward. If something feels unfair or controlling, it seems like the answer should be to refuse or stand your ground. Inside a relationship with an abuser, decisions rarely come down to what you want. The abuser trains you to make decisions based on what will happen if you do not comply.
Every boundary, disagreement, preference, or independent decision carries consequences. The abuser may respond with hours of arguments, days of silent treatment, accusations, intimidation, guilt, emotional withdrawal, threats, or relentless pressure until you eventually give in. Sometimes the punishment is immediate. Sometimes it is delayed. But it is almost always present.
After months or years of paying a high price for resistance, many survivors shift from asking themselves What do I want? to asking What will cost me the least? Choices become about harm reduction instead of freedom. You weigh two painful outcomes and try to survive the one that feels less damaging.
The voices gathered here reveal the hidden price of keeping the peace, even though there was never really true peace to maintain. Survival meant continually working to reduce the fallout the abuser created.
Every Decision Carries a Price
Healthy partners allow space for different opinions, separate interests, and individual choices. You can disagree, say no, make plans, or change your mind without fearing punishment. When an abuser uses coercive control, ordinary decisions stop feeling ordinary. Every choice becomes a calculation. Before speaking, going out, buying something, or making a plan, survivors often find themselves weighing the consequences the abuser is likely to impose. It is not simply about deciding what you want to do. It becomes about deciding what you can afford to do.
“There’s an endless cost-benefit analysis going on in your head. ‘If I hold this boundary, what repercussions will I have to try and manage?’”
“I remember when I booked a ticket to go with friends to a club. My husband had said ‘you can go if you want, but I won’t be happy if you do.’ I was so confused as to what to do, I was so excited about revisiting my clubbing days but I fully knew that there would be a consequence. I had tried to imagine how that consequence might pan out, I imagined months and months of it being thrown in my face any time he wanted something to attack me with. Needless to say I didn’t go.”
“My ex used to pick a fight just before I had to go out to meet friends. It spoiled the day/evening. I was on edge the whole time. Sometimes the fights were so awful that I cancelled my plans.”
“I used to ask myself ‘What is this going to cost me?’ If I went out with friends, or bought myself Starbucks, or needed him to help me do something. Sometimes I would know that I was going to pay heavily for it, so I just prepared myself. Sometimes I knew that I didn’t have the energy to deal with the cost, so I just didn’t do what I wanted. It was a miserable way to live.”
“Mine started texting if I was 5 mins after his calculated timings for my excursions. ‘It’ll take you 20 mins to drive there, say 5 mins to park up, another 10 mins to get to wherever it is, then you’ll only be an hour with your friends, then the walk back to the car, drive back, so you’ll be back here at this o’clock then.’ I became terrified of traffic or anything holding me up and eventually declined the invites out - it was too stressful.”
