I first met “Diane” in a parking lot.
That’s where she handed me a stack of cash outside her car. To a passerby it probably looked like a drug deal. But the kind of “escape” Diane desperately wanted was different. She needed my help to plan a long awaited getaway from her husband.
“He controls the finances ― always has ― and looks at every penny I spend,” she told me when we first chatted on the phone. “He also has monitoring devices and cameras around our house, and maybe even in my car. So I have to pay you for your services out of my secret stash of cash.”
We met at the local Whole Foods, one of the few places she was “allowed” to go.
As a divorce coach living in Fairfield County, Connecticut, a suburb in the New York City metro area, I’m used to the finance guys, hedge fund partners and multimillionaire business owners. Many of the women who come to me feel trapped in a golden cage ― a way of life that looks like “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” from the outside, but is hell behind the gilded locked doors.
“Why don’t you just leave?” so many friends and family ask my clients. But in my view, just like Cassie, who is testifying against rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs in his federal sex crimes case, they are abuse victims whose exits have been blocked. Combs has pleaded not guilty.
What I see so often in my work coaching women (and a few men) is something called coercive control. And, while it may not always leave a black eye or bruise, it’s a form of subjugation that’s insidious and paralyzing. I have had clients physically beaten, then were denied a restraining order because a judge said they “waited too long to report it.” So they were forced to go back to their home with the abuser. I’ve had clients see every dollar in the joint bank account disappear and have no way to buy food.
And sadly, at least half of my clients, which include women from other parts of the country, too, have told me their husbands raped them after they refused sex. These men handled the rejection by saying things like, “You’re my wife. I pay the bills, and I’m entitled to sleep with my wife.”
Many of these women are highly educated, but gave up their careers to “be a team player” and stay home with the kids, not realizing that once they gave up their financial freedom they wouldn’t be able to get it back.
As a coercive control survivor myself, I know how it creeps up on you. Even the smartest, most independent, cautious women (I am a former full-time investigative reporter on TV) can be hoodwinked. Think of the fable describing a frog that finds itself in a pot of boiling water. If the frog had known what was coming, it never would have jumped in. Instead, coercive control victims start out in tepid, even balmy, water. But little by little…they are boiled alive.
Leaving can seem impossible when your abuser appears omnipotent ― a puppeteer pulling the purse strings of your life. They are expert manipulators; I once got sweet-talked into going back to mine when he promised he “would change and get better” because we were “soulmates.” You also fear their rage if and when you leave. That’s why it takes abuse victims seven times on average before they escape for good.
Photo Courtesy Of Amy Polacko
As the Domestic Violence Services Network, Inc. reports: “The time surrounding leaving their abuser is the most dangerous time for a victim. Risk of lethality is severely increased if the abuser feels they are losing any of the control they have over the victim. 75% of homicide victims and 85% of women who experienced severe but nonfatal violence had left or tried to leave their abuser in the past year (Dept. of Justice). Victims may also fear reprisals after leaving, that their abuser will be determined to track them down and hurt them more because they left.”
Cassie testified that it was when she tried to leave after a “freak-off” sexual encounter in a Los Angeles hotel that the 2016 surveillance video was taken that shows Combs dragging, kicking and shoving Ventura in a hotel hallway. In her 2023 lawsuit against Combs, Ventura alleged she was raped and suffered years of abuse ― and that he paid the InterContinental Century City hotel $50,000 for the surveillance footage.
Criminal Behavioral Analyst Laura Richards is a coercive control expert and advocate who has given evidence that has led to coercive control law reform in the U.K., U.S. and Australia. She believes Diddy’s defense will try to muddy the waters by painting Cassie as complicit. It’s much like the way Amber Heard was demonized in her case with Johnny Depp. Richards called these “dirty tactics” an insult to every victim.
“I don’t believe there is such a thing as mutual abuse. There is always one who is the abuser, and the other who reacts to it. And I believe that’s what was going on,” said Richards about the Cassie/Diddy dynamic. “He held the power…but the defense is going to say that she did.”
Cassie, who is now married and 8 1/2 months pregnant, testified for days about how she was drugged and had sex with other people for Combs’ viewing pleasure. They will likely try to use texts between Cassie and Combs where she repeatedly says “I love you” and agrees to sexual meetups as “proof” that she was complicit. But when you look closer at the texts, you’ll also see her saying “I’m sorry” ― a dynamic often seen when victims are desperate to placate abusers. Attorney Emily Johnson said it best on May 12: “Her livelihood and safety depended on keeping the defendant happy.”
Armchair viewers of this trial may have preconceived notions of how an abuse victim should act. But as psychotherapist and author Dr. Nadine Macaluso, who writes about trauma bonds, points out, it’s easy for a power imbalance and love bombing (when the target is showered with affection) to entrap a victim in a strong emotional attachment with their abuser.
Macaluso would know. She is the real life ex-wife of “The Wolf of Wall Street,” the former stockbroker and businessman Jordan Belfort who pleaded guilty to fraud and related crimes in connection with stock market manipulation.
“Power, money, status, they can all hide coercive control in plain sight,” said Macaluso, who has turned her own experience into a mission to educate others. “He buys you flowers. He treats you like a queen in public…and behind closed doors, he insults, disparages and manipulates you. You become a shell of yourself. No autonomy. No agency.”
I have coached hundreds of women who say the same thing: “I don’t even recognize myself anymore.” Creating a support team who believes you is the first step in reclaiming your life, but when your abuser has respect, power and money, some people will still align with him or her no matter what.
As for Diane? I’m helping her get her “ducks in a row” so when she finally tells her husband she wants out, she has a plan. This involves stockpiling money, hiring an attorney, gathering financial documents, creating a strategy and having a place to go in case her home isn’t safe. For some women, this could mean a shelter.
“I don’t care where I have to live,” she told me, after 25 years of marriage. “I just want peace.”
Amy Polacko is a divorce coach, journalist and single mom who lives in Connecticut. She worked in print and television journalism for over 10 years, running an investigative unit that earned her the nickname “Pitbull Polacko” in her newsroom. You can find her on Instagram @freedomwarriortribe.
Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch at [email protected].
Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) for the National Domestic Violence Hotline, or call 1-866-331-9474 or text “loveis” to 22522 for the National Dating Abuse Helpline.
