The Quicksand Model® of Coercive Control is a groundbreaking training program designed to make the often invisible tactics of coercive control visible and understandable. This model synthesizes 70 years of research and theory across various fields, including domestic abuse, human trafficking, cults, extremism, and trauma, to provide professionals with the tools needed to detect, intervene in, and prevent coercive control.
Key Aspects of the Quicksand Model
1. Evidence-Based Synthesis
The Quicksand Model® is an evidence-based model that integrates research from multiple disciplines, including neuroscience, psychology, sociology, and human rights. This comprehensive approach ensures that the model addresses the complex and multifaceted nature of coercive control.
2. Training for Professionals
The model is designed to quickly train professionals to recognize and address coercive control, which is often invisible in plain sight. By incorporating research on deep learning, metaphor, and alliteration, The Quicksand Model® helps overcome professional and societal biases that hinder the protection of targeted victims and accountability of perpetrators.
3. Identifying Coercive Control
The Quicksand Model® simplifies the strategies and tactics used by coercive controllers, making it easier to identify and hold perpetrators accountable. It focuses on recognizing coercive control in both the behavior of perpetrators and within system policies and practices that harm targeted victims.
4. Systemic Transformation
The model aims to facilitate systemic transformation by addressing the root causes of coercive control and shifting victim-blaming narratives. It provides real solutions for addressing systemic failures and offers collective societal hope and transformation.
5. Survivor-Centered Approach
The Quicksand Model® is trauma-informed and survivor-centered, drawing from the lived experiences of individuals and group survivors of coercive control. This approach ensures that interventions are empathetic and effective, focusing on the liberty, needs, and safety of victims.
Supporting Research and Expert Insights
1. Evan Stark's Work on Coercive Control
Renowned expert Evan Stark characterizes victims of coercive control as "hostages at home," emphasizing the systematic pattern of behavior that strips the targeted victim's liberty, freedom, and sense of self. Stark's work supports The Quicksand Model®'s focus on identifying and understanding the patterns of coercive control that underpin abusive relationships.
2. Pattern-Based Approach
The Quicksand Model™ aligns with the pattern-based model of coercive control, which contrasts with the incident-based model of domestic violence. This approach emphasizes the importance of recognizing coercive control behaviors such as isolation, excessive monitoring, denying autonomy, gaslighting, economic abuse, and post-separation abuse as red flags for intervention and support.
3. Ethical Decision-Making and Cultural Sensitivity
The model incorporates ethical decision-making skills and emphasizes the importance of cultural humility, sensitivity, and a trauma-informed lens in assessments. This ensures that professionals can effectively support targeted victims and address the full spectrum of coercive control tactics.
Conclusion
The Quicksand Model® of Coercive Control is a comprehensive and innovative training program that equips professionals with the knowledge and tools needed to detect, intervene in, and prevent coercive control. By making the invisible coercive controllers tactics visible, the QSM™ facilitates systemic transformation and provides real solutions for protecting victims and holding coercive controllers accountable. This model represents a significant step forward in the fight against coercive control and the promotion of a safer, more just society.
In response to the question "Could criminalizing coercive control further harm female victims?" the concise answer is a resounding yes.
This concern is frequently voiced by global domestic violence organizations when survivors seek legislative changes to outlaw coercive control. While this apprehension is valid, it’s worth noting that from the 1970s onwards, as domestic violence laws began to take shape across the United States, we've often witnessed the unintended fallout of laws designed to safeguard victims.
Various regulations, such as mandatory reporting and mandatory arrest laws, protective order procedures, supervised visitation and child support policies, among others, have been manipulated by coercive controllers. This manipulation allows them to inflict additional harm on their intended victims. This misuse extends to various other legal frameworks, policies, and procedural norms as well.
In my view, the potential for unforeseen ramifications should not deter us from enacting laws that criminalize coercive control. The reason? Coercive controllers are masters of manipulation, exploiting laws, policies, procedures, and indeed every aspect of their environment to their advantage. Thus, they will seize any opportunity to misuse any law or regulation that is implemented. To do this they use tactics such as Double Standards, Double Speak, Double Binds, Double Team, Double Cross, and DARVO etc.
So, if a coercive controller will consistently employ this form of manipulation to deceive and control, regardless of context or situation, how can we effectively reduce its prevalence? In my humble opinion, the answer lies in a comprehensive systemic transformation that addresses existing inequities and fosters liberty, freedom, and autonomy for all.
Coercive controllers are omnipresent, and their knack for securing positions of power grants them significant sway over others and larger systems. This necessitates effective strategies for identifying instances of coercive control in all situations and dislodging these manipulators from their positions of authority.
The ECCUSA recommends the following steps to revolutionize systems and prevent coercive control.
1. Criminalize coercive control so that victims have a pursuable legal means to hold coercive controllers accountable.
2. Enact additional legislation that shields vulnerable victims by safeguarding their rights and freedoms. This could be achieved through measures such as extending the statutes of limitations, and implementing laws that categorize crimes against women as hate crimes, thus mandating punitive sentences for these offenses. Make it compulsory to protect children's rights against abuse, even when the abuser is a parent. Furthermore, it's critical to establish clear legal definitions of consent. This shift would mean that victims are no longer burdened with proving their consent was infringed upon; instead, the onus would be on the perpetrators to demonstrate that they did not violate consent.
3. Amplify public understanding of the nature and dynamics of coercive control to equip individuals with the ability to identify it when they come across it. ECCUSA is employing The Quicksand Model™ of Coercive Control as a tool for this purpose, but it's important to note that other organizations are also actively participating in similar awareness-raising efforts.
4. Displace coercive controllers from power, replacing them with empathetic, driven, and intelligent individuals dedicated to enhancing our communities, businesses, and the wider world.
5. Overhaul systems by eliminating coercive and controlling policies and procedures, and advocate for policies that are fair and foster liberty, freedom, and autonomy.
6. Discourage coercive controllers from utilizing coercive control by incentivizing the creation of environments that flourish through cooperation, partnership, and support for both individual and systemic growth.
This is no minor undertaking. It might be a goal that won't be realized within my lifetime, or even that of my children or grandchildren. Nonetheless, it is a noble objective that ECCUSA and I are devoted to pursuing, step by step. This includes advocating for laws that criminalize the most perilous and damaging form of abuse, coercive control.
Coercive controllers are the puppeteers of manipulation! Every strategy they employ against their chosen victims at the start of the "relationship" to fabricate The Mirage, is also utilized on friends, family, and anyone within their surrounding circle. The implementation of these coercive control tactics usually intensifies when their main target begins to comprehend the abuse. However, there's no doubt, the coercive controller has likely been practicing manipulation and deceit from the get-go.
Cunning coercive controllers understand that no one relishes the experience of abuse, and when their control over their primary target strengthens, this person may begin to resist the abusive behaviors causing them harm and/or distress. As a result, they often introduce the Double Team strategy early on, in an attempt to thwart any possible escape plans by their main target.
In my paradigm, The Quicksand Model™, I've coined the term Double Team for a specific tactic often seen in manipulative relationships. Interestingly, this tactic is colloquially known as deploying flying monkeys, a term inspired by the minions in The Wizard of Oz. The concept of "flying monkeys" or Double Team, as I prefer to call it, is generally associated with a form of psychological manipulation termed narcissistic abuse.
Though I acknowledge the term narcissistic abuse can be enlightening for victims, helping them comprehend the intricate methods their manipulators employ, an overemphasis on psychological terms like narcissism, psychopathy, or sociopathy can inadvertently limit our understanding. Such a narrow focus might overlook other equally important aspects of manipulative behavior, especially a pattern of coercively controlling abusive behavior. Hence, I prefer referring to these patterns not as traits of a specific disorder, but as tactics, strategies, or tell-tale signs of coercive control. Through this lens, we can appreciate the broader spectrum of manipulative behavior and its effects on victims, while avoiding the problematic issues that can arise from viewing a person's abuse through a diagnostic lens.
I refer to 'The Double Team' as the tactic used by a coercive controller to manipulate others into believing negative things about the target, with the intention of isolating the victim, making them appear psychologically unsound, or discrediting them in some way. The coercive controller employs this Double Team strategy to evade responsibility for their abusive actions. The presence of the Double Team is a major red flag for coercive control and its deliberate nature. This is because it often starts while the coercive controller still maintains a facade of being actively involved in the "relationship" (I'm hesitant to label these situations as genuine relationships, as they echo more of a captive scenario) with their targeted victim.
In a harmonious relationship, partners refrain from negative talk about each other. They champion one another and always extend the benefit of the doubt. They lend support to their partners in the pursuit of their dreams, and they communicate positively about them to others. When their partner is unwell or fatigued, they respond with kindness, empathy, compassion, and attentive care.
On the contrary, in a situation that only resembles a relationship in name , the victim often experiences derogatory talk from their coercive controller, usually behind their back and often well before the "relationship" breaks up. This sly and manipulative method, designed to inflict harm on the partner unknowingly and sever them from external support, unveils the intentional nature of what I refer to as the Double Team.
The Double Team isn't the sole maneuver used in coercive control that exposes the intentional characteristic of this behavior. Other signs of coercive control under The Quicksand Model™ – like Double Standards, Double Binds, Double Speak, Double Cross, Double Down, and DARVO (the D's) are equally deliberate. The same applies to the The F's of Force, Fraud, and Fear.
Certain indicators may be more discreet than others, which can make it tougher to discern their purposeful intent. However, once you identify that multiple tactics are being deliberately used to control or dominate you, it's safe to assume that even the less conspicuous behaviors also serve the same purpose.
Coercive control is a complex, nuanced, and dangerous pattern of abuses of power. It is the pattern of behavior that establishes and maintains oppression, and it is often said to be invisible in plain sight. In order to be able to see the signs of coercive control, we need to understand the biological, psychological, and social forces that are keeping coercive control invisible.
In today's blog post, I'll be discussing the initial trio of signs that constitute The Mirage™ in coercive control. Recognizing these preliminary indicators may not prevent you from being targeted, but it could potentially help you from becoming ensnared, and eventually entrapped, in the bio-psycho-social quicksand of a coercive controller.
The Quicksand Model™ of Coercive Control has been meticulously crafted to expose the often unseen signs of coercive control, making the invisible visible. ECCUSA's training programs featuring The Quicksand Model™ aim to unveil the triad of aspects that coercive controllers frequently combine to ensure their targets are entranced, disoriented, and blind to the looming threat posed by the controller.
The image above illustrates how The Mirage™ encompasses three potent tactics of coercive control: manipulative kindness (also known as love-bombing), future-faking, and mirroring. Each of these tactics, individually, has the potential to destabilize a target, but when they converge, they form a formidable, almost irresistible force. That is, of course, unless you're equipped with the knowledge to identify these signs of coercive control even as they're being employed against you.
Do you see the signs of manipulative kindness, mirroring and future-faking in the image? Let's cover each one individually.
Frequently, the initial strategy deployed by a coercive controller is mirroring. "Mirroring is a behavior where one person subconsciously replicates the movements, speech patterns, or attitudes of another." Mirroring isn't inherently negative: many of us use it to some degree in our interactions. However, when wielded by a coercive controller, mirroring isn't a subconscious act, but a calculated tactic. This intent becomes apparent when we realize that it's employed to connect with the target, with the sole aim of ensnaring and eventually trapping them in the treacherous quicksand of coercive control.
Following the mirroring phase, the manipulative kindness tactic, often termed as "love-bombing", is typically set into motion. Once the target experiences a bond with the coercive controller, fostered by the use of mirroring, they might begin to notice the subsequent signs indicating that they are being subjected to coercive control. These signs can be categorized into four primary indicators: 1. The declaration of "soulmate status", 2. The showering of exaggerated compliments, 3. The giving of gifts, and 4. An onslaught of constant communication.
The concluding element of The Mirage™ is the tactic known as future-faking. Concurrent with mirroring tactics and the deployment of manipulative kindness, the coercive controller meticulously observes the target's values, aspirations, dreams, and more. They then craft a picture-perfect future, adeptly aligning it with the idealized version in the target's mind. This constructed future becomes almost irresistible for the target, as it resonates with their deepest desires and aspirations.
Coercive controllers utilize these tactics across various environments to construct The Mirage™. The more subtly and consistently these strategies are implemented, the more potent The Mirage™ becomes, masking the perilous quicksand of coercive control lurking behind its seductive surface.
Revisit the illustration provided above. Can you identify the signs of coercive control manifesting in the image of The Mirage™? Reflecting on your past, can you recall instances of these signs being used to strategically manipulate you or someone you know?
Seeing The Mirage™ unfold before you doesn't necessarily make it easy to resist, especially during significant life transitions. Instances such as departing for college, enduring a breakup, suffering a substantial loss, coping with financial instability, or relocating can heighten your susceptibility to becoming a target of coercive control.
Coercive controllers wield The Mirage™ not solely against their primary targets, but also extend its reach to professionals, friends, and family members. This becomes particularly evident when the primary victim (target) recognizes the harm being inflicted upon them and seeks help.
Professionals including therapists, attorneys, judges, police officers, and child protective services workers are not exempt from The Mirage's™ lure. They are just as susceptible as any other individual to the manipulative tactics and deceptions designed to obscure the reality of coercive control.
If you ever find yourself inexplicably drawn to someone unfamiliar, or if you're unable to articulate what you find attractive about them, recall the signs of coercive control we've discussed today that compose a coercive controller's Mirage™. And remember, if you detect a mirage masking the quicksand of coercive control, don't merely walk away - sprint in the opposite direction! The life you save could very well be your own!
In my upcoming blog post, I'll delve into detailed examples illustrating how coercive controllers employ The Mirage™ to orchestrate a 'Double Team' effect. They manipulate professionals, bystanders, friends, and family members into forming a united front against their primary victim, isolating them and, sometimes, terrorizing them further. Stay tuned for this insightful exploration.
NOTE: I will refer to the other person in the "relationship" as the "partner" for this post. I do so to avoid assuming that you are entangled with a coercive controller. If/when you determine that is the case, the words "relationship" and "partner" no longer apply. Coercively controlling abusers are not partners, nor is the situation they have entrapped their target into a "relationship."
Have you ever wondered if your partner/ex-partner was right about you being the abusive one?
The question "Am I the problem?" can haunt those of us with empathy, those of us who are introspective about our behavior and our impact on others... especially the person we married and/or hoped to build a life with. In this blog post I offer some basic questions to ask yourself and some general characteristics of coercive controllers, and the pattern of coercive control, to shed light on what is happening, and who is, in fact, responsible.
Critical Truths About Coercive Control used by Coercive Controllers (abusers and narcissists)
1. The vast majority of abusers know exactly what they are doing. Coercive control, in particular, is a pattern of behavior designed to establish and maintain domination and oppression. When the goal is domination, the tactics and strategies are always instrumental and purposeful, and they are never "love."
2. Women entrapped in coercive control reported higher use of physical violence themselves while entrapped by coercive control. Sometimes, behaviors that might seem aggressive or controlling can actually be acts of resistance. In contexts where power imbalances exist, individuals may resist coercive control in ways that appear confrontational. "How He Wins" discusses how those subjected to coercive control may fight back as a means of reclaiming autonomy, not as a way of exerting dominance.
Moreover, "A Typology of Domestic Violence" identifies violent resistance as a response to ongoing abuse. This form of resistance isn't about control but survival. It’s crucial to differentiate between actions taken to protect oneself and those intended to dominate another.
3. Coercive controllers use DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) to confuse their targets and cause them to doubt their own thoughts and feelings. This provides a way to constrain their target's behavior, limiting their autonomy and liberty.
4. Double Cross: Coercive controllers, such as abusers or narcissists, betray their targets through actions like infidelity, financial abuse, and exploitation, undermining trust and destabilizing the relationship from the start. Love-bombing (aka manipulative kindness) early on can set a target up to believe the coercive controller has their best interests at heart. Later, when the coercive controller becomes abusive, overcoming the cognitive bias this intentionally created can be challenging.
5. Double Team: Once exposed, these coercive controllers manipulate the narrative by turning friends and family against the target, playing the victim, and leaving the target isolated and vulnerable. When false allegations are filed with The Court, child protective services and/or law enforcement, institutional betrayal can result in CPIT (court and perpetrator induced trauma). (The significant negative impact of the Double Team on the target is illustrated by the image above).
6. Another common intentional strategy of coercive controllers is to use Double Speak, weaponizing language against their entrapped target. Through manipulation and deception the abusive and/or narcissistic coercive controller sows the seeds of self-doubt in their target. This makes the target more vulnerable, decreasing the likelihood they will escape the quicksand of coercive control.
Questions for Reflection / Understanding the Unlikelihood that it is You
There are various tactics that abusive coercive controllers use to undermine their victims' autonomy, often making them feel responsible for the controller's behavior. However, you don't need to know every tactic to address the questions in this blog. With an understanding of the intentional nature of coercive control, consider these questions to help you reflect on the reality of your "relationship."
1. Do you believe your needs are more important than your partner's? If the answer is no, you are likely not the abusive one.
2. Do you behave in ways that suggest you feel superior to your partner? If the answer is no, you are likely not the abusive one.
3. Do you expect your partner to meet your demands while refusing to hold yourself to the same standards? Coercive controllers exploit Double Standards for unearned privileges. If you hold yourself to the same (or higher) expectations as your partner, you are likely not the coercive controller.
4. When you feel guilty about your behavior, are these behaviors typical for you in relationships? If you usually act calmly and compassionately but find yourself yelling or slamming doors with this partner, your anger more likely indicates entrapment in an unhealthy, abusive situation rather than a character flaw.
5. When you acted out, was it to establish dominance or avoid being dominated? If you yelled to be heard because your partner twists your words or if you reacted violently after a betrayal, your behavior may be an act of resistance rather than an attempt to control or abuse.
6. Do you care about other's thoughts, feelings and well-being as well as your own? If so, you are probably NOT the abuser, the narcissist or the coercive controller.
Conclusion
The journey toward understanding and growth is ongoing. Remember, the willingness to question oneself and seek change is a powerful testament to your capacity for growth and empathy. By continuing to reflect and learn, you contribute to a world where relationships are built on mutual respect and understanding.
If you find yourself behaving in ways that are uncharacteristic with a specific person or certain individuals who exhibit coercively controlling behaviors, your "bad behavior" is likely situational rather than a reflection of your true character. This suggests that you may be in a coercively controlling environment. The sooner you can remove yourself from this situation, the sooner you can begin to rebuild your self-esteem, autonomy, dignity, and freedom.
NOTE: Leaving a coercive controller can be very dangerous, so it's important to seek help before doing so. Numerous resources are available on ECCUSA's resource page to assist you.
I've covered Double Speak before, but today I'd like to go into this tactic, commonly used by coercive controllers, in a bit more depth.
Double Speak is the Quicksand Model™'s term for the numerous ways that coercive controllers use language to manipulate and deceive others into viewing reality through their distorted lens. Coercive controllers perceive the world, and people in it, through their own unique combination of ideologies, myths, misconceptions, assumptions and biases. Here are some examples:
The biases and assumptions coercive controllers view the world through are like colored glasses that distort their ability to see reality clearly. Take, for example, gender biases (this post will cover gender biases exclusively, however, this is only one type of bias that coercive controllers may exploit). A coercive controller who believes that men are superior to women may have all sorts of unreasonable expectations for people based on their sex. If that coercive controller is male and his partner female, and his partner resists taking on 100% of the household responsibilities, he will perceive his partner as a "problem" or "uncooperative", because looking through the lens of gender bias, he views cleaning, laundry and child care to be "women's work"... and therefore... beneath him. Looking through his distorted glasses, he sees her as failing to "support" him appropriately.
Often the beliefs and assumptions held by coercive controllers are hidden in plain sight. This is because, prior to the relationship, the coercive controller doesn't dare express these sentiments out loud to his partner, because within societies where females are raised to believe they are "equal", outright sexism is often never revealed until AFTER a commitment is obtained from the target.
Coercive controllers take advantage of societal gendered #DoubleStandards, which can be quite easy to exploit without being noticed for what they really are... coercive control.
Following a commitment, this coercive controller with gender biased thinking may use tactics of coercive control to say and do things that he believes are his "right", possibly even his "duty", to keep his partner "in her place". He may tell his wife that she is not living up to her "Godly responsibilities" to "submit to him" as the "man of the house". He may insist on rules that he feels he has the right to set, and dole out consequences for, when not followed. Because his sexist expectations were never expressed to his partner before the commitment, his statement to her are an example of one type of #DoubleSpeak, contradictions/hypocrisy.
This coercive controller is contradicting what he previously led his partner to believe, which was that they were committing to an equally supportive relationship. That is what the target committed to, but not the coercive controller. All of his prior communication to her about being a "feminist" and "supportive of women's rights", all the promises to "honor" and "respect" her, were part of #TheMirage he used to hide his true intentions.
Exploitation of #DoubleStandards can be covert or overt. Overt exploitation of #DoubleStandards sounds like direct judgements and expectations placed on the target. For example, telling his wife that she must have sex when he demands, because it is her "duty" to "meet all of" his "sexual needs". Or, it could be much more subtle and covert, like inferring that he might "wander" if his sexual needs aren't being met. Either way, gendered #DoubleStandards becomes abusive if the target has not granted consent. This is especially true when the target states outright that her partner's demands are unfair, unreasonable and place on undue burden on her, while providing him with unearned advantages.
The exploitation of #DoubleStandards often turns into obvious #DoubleSpeak when the coercive controller receives push back from the target. As long as the target is fulfilling his demands, there is no need for him to force compliance. But once the target attempts to stand up for themselves, to ask for equal treatment, and to expect respect, that is typically when the #DoubleSpeak escalates. Double speak is the use of various types of psychological and verbal warfare, designed to force, coerce or control the target's thoughts, feelings and behaviors... without consent.
So, let's say that the wife in our example above, wishes her husband to share the household load equally, and she tells him so. Below are examples of tactics of #DoubleSpeak that a coercive controller might employ to obtain compliance.
- Distort reality (gaslighting): "I do just as much work around here as you do". This places the target in the position to defend herself. This tactic of #DoubleSpeak is designed to confuse the target, who knows the coercive controller is not telling the truth. It often causes cognitive dissonance, because the target may start to doubt their own experience. However, if the target refuses to be swayed by this specious argument, and presents evidence that his statement is false, the coercive controller might move on to...
- Smoke-screening: "OK... maybe you do more here in the house, but I bring home more money than you do." This form of #DoubleSpeak intends to distract the target from the topic of conversation and shifts the focus onto an irrelevant "fact" (I've placed this is quotes, because often this isn't a true fact, it is more likely a false equivalency). If the target responds by attempting to rationally address the false equivalency and states that "I work just as many hours as you do. The fact that I am not paid adequately for my work, does not make my work any less valuable than yours. Now let's get back to the topic at hand" the coercive controller may switch to...
- Playing the Victim: "Is it too much to ask to come home to a clean house and a satisfying meal on the table after my long hard day at work?" This is another way to change the subject, avoid accountability, and place all of the responsibility on the target's shoulders. The implication is that she is not being a "good wife". If the target falls for this ruse and determines to "support" her husband more, her life force and autonomy are reduced, and she may spend considerable time and energy, either trying to meet his unreasonable and unfair expectations, or get caught in a cycle of trying to prove that he is not carrying his weight. Either way... it entraps her in BioPsychoSocial Quicksand.
NOTE: Playing the victim can become even more confusing and disorienting when the coercive controller accuses the target of "playing the victim". This is a real mind f*%k, because the target actually IS being victimized. However, by accusing her of having a "victim mindset", she feels forced to "prove" her innocence. This is often used in public, in combination with the #DoubleTeam, which can cause the people around the couple to throw up their hands and declare this is a "toxic tango", "dysfunctional relationship" or "he said - she said". The coercive controller has succeeded in avoiding responsibility for his abuse, mutualizing it.
The previous tactics of #DoubleSpeak can escalate to a strategic #DoubleTeam if the cycle keeps repeating with no resolution (which it likely will, since it is so grossly unfair to one party). If the coercive controller is religious (or even if he isn't, but believes pretending his is will get him what he wants) and has a fundamentalist view of The Bible, he may quote scripture to her, as a means of coercing her to comply through the use of guilt and shame. And, if he and his wife are members of a religious organization, he may even #DoubleTeam his wife by getting church leaders, who also believe in male superiority and entitlement, to take his side and encourage his re-framing of her desire for equality, as "sinful".
He may speak to the couple's pastor behind his wife's back, and infer to him that she is "not supporting him". If the pastor holds the same types of gendered biases as the coercive controller, or if he simply doesn't ask clarifying questions to uncover the coercive controller's manipulation, this tactic may bring the pastor on board, and the wife may be called in for a conversation about her "duties as a Christian wife", or some other such patriarchal and misogynistic BS. However, if the pastor isn't swayed by the attempt to #DoubleTeam her, the coercive controller may throw in a manipulative false inference that his wife has "mental heath issues", which are making the marriage unsustainable. Even if the pastor doesn't completely buy the coercive controller's story, these inferences will plant seeds for the future, should the target ever attempt to divorce the coercive controller.
If none of the coercive controller's tactics to re-establish his dominance through #DoubleSpeak and #DoubleTeam, and his wife continues to request a fairer arrangement for household duties, the odds begin to increase significantly that he will escalate to the use of physical and or sexual violence. This show of power and force, using the #DoubleCross, is likely to cause the target considerable fear. Following a physical show of force, a target is far less likely to stand up for themselves, because they now have a visceral experience of how dangerous it is to defy their husband, and they will want to avoid that in the future.
A savvy coercive controller may realize that an escalation to physical and/or sexual violence has the potential to cause the target to flee, so this is often when they will employ preemptive measures, and attempt to re-establish #TheMirage of a perfect future together by apologizing. This is not a sincere apology, and there are often clues that it's insincere. One clue is more #DoubleSpeak. "I am sorry that you got hurt, but I just love you so much, it makes me crazy thinking that you might ever leave me." She may not have even been thinking she would leave him over this, but by setting her up to feel sorry for him, and/or convincing her that he will "change", he increases the chances that she won't exercise her right to leave, and will remain trapped in the quicksand.
As you can see, coercive controllers move from one double to the next quite naturally. These tactics can overlap and blend into one another. If #DoubleStandards don't work, they might move to #DoubleSpeak. If #DoubleSpeak fails they may try placing their partner in a painful #DoubleBind by threatening to take the kids if she ever leaves him. #DoubleBinds grow stronger when the coercive controller enlists others and #DoubleTeams her... overwhelming her ability to respond and protect herself. #DARVO is commonly employed during a #DoubleTeam to make the coercive controller seem like the victim, and all of these tactics of coercive control will eventually lead to #DoubleVision for the target, whose reality becomes a terrifying and torturous house of mirrors which reflects the coercive controller's contempt toward her for failing to prop up his false reality and adequately comply with his unreasonable and unfair demands.
