A GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING COERCION IN RELATIONSHIPS

Confusing relationships

This guide offers context for the patterns the quiz explores in the preceding article.

Coercion in relationships often operates beneath the surface, through subtle shifts over time that can be hard to identify while you’re living inside them. This guide aims to put language to those experiences, especially where love has blurred into pain, and where care has morphed into obligation.

The guide, although reflecting the quiz alphabetically, is structured by how are these patterns often first noticed from the inside. Many people recognise changes in their own state long before they can put their finger on its cause. Feeling on edge is often the earliest signal that something has shifted.

You’re invited to read gently, pause when needed, and trust your own responses as you go.

PART G  — HYPERVIGILANCE & WALKING ON EGGSHELLS

What this often means

If this section aligned or rang true, it usually reveals an environment that is unpredictable rather than safe.

Paying close attention to another person’s mood becomes a way of protecting yourself from escalation, conflict, or sudden shifts.

Over time, this kind of vigilance can feel like anxiety, even though it is actually a learned form of adaptation to an ongoing lack of safety.

Your nervous system isn’t overreacting — it’s responding to repeated uncertainty.

Orientation

In relationships where emotional safety is present, you don’t need to stay alert to feel okay.

Your partner’s responses are steady enough that you can speak, relax, or be yourself without monitoring their mood.

PART A — GOOD AND BAD AS A PACKAGE

What this often means

If this section aligned or rang true, it often reflects a relationship where care and harm are closely intertwined.

Moments of closeness, affection, or reassurance can make it harder to fully notice or trust what hurts.

Over time, this can create confusion, self-doubt, and a tendency to minimise your own experience in order to preserve the connection.

The push and pull between good and painful moments can keep you emotionally locked in, even when you feel worn down.

Orientation

In healthier relationships, good moments feel safe in their own right — they don’t cancel out pain or ask you to overlook it.

Your partner’s care is consistent enough that it doesn’t create confusion about whether pain will follow closeness.

PART  B — FINANCIAL PRESSURE & DEPENDENCE

What this often means

If this section aligned or rang true, it often points to a dynamic where money quietly shapes behaviour and choice, slowly reducing your freedom.

Rather than clear rules or overt control, financial pressure is often felt as caution, gratitude, or the need to be careful.

You may find yourself adjusting your needs, spending, or voice to avoid tension or conflict.

Over time, this can affect confidence and autonomy without ever being named as a problem.

Orientation

In healthier relationships, money does not require you to monitor yourself or trade comfort for peace.

Your partner relates to money in ways that don’t give them leverage over you or make you feel indebted for basic stability.

PART C  — CARRYING EVERYTHING

What this often means

If this section aligned or rang true, it often reflects a relationship where responsibility has gradually shifted onto you — emotionally, practically, or both.

You may have become used to managing day-to-day tasks, anticipating needs, solving problems, and holding things together, often without noticing how much effort this takes.

Over time, it can feel like you’re just getting on with things, even when you’re worn out, doing what needs to be done rather than what feels sustainable or fair.

Support may be something you feel more comfortable providing, while receiving it feels uncomfortable or absent.

Orientation

In healthier relationships, things don’t fall apart when you stop holding everything together — because the other person is actively contributing, not just benefiting.

Your partner notices what needs doing, shares responsibility without being prompted, and doesn’t rely on your effort to keep the relationship functioning.

PART H — FEAR-BASED COMPLIANCE & POWER

What this often means

If this section aligned or rang true, it often points to a relationship where disagreement isn’t welcome.

You may have learned, gradually and often unconsciously, that saying no, changing your mind, or expressing uncertainty leads to tension or backlash.

Over time, choosing the option that feels safest can begin to replace choosing what feels right.

Agreeing with your partner’s preferences may have become the least costly option to keep things stable.

Orientation

In healthier relationships, you can disagree, hesitate, or say no without bracing for what might follow.

A healthy partner responds more like a grounded parent than a threatened child — they stay regulated, curious, and emotionally present even when things don’t go their way.

Your partner stays present and steady when you disagree, rather than making things harder afterwards.

PART  F — BODY, BOUNDARIES & CONSENT

What this often means

If this section aligned or rang true, it often reflects a relationship where emotional safety has been compromised.

When closeness no longer feels fully safe, the body may respond with tension, numbness, avoidance, or a loss of desire.

You may have found yourself overriding your own signals to keep the peace, avoid guilt, or prevent conflict.

Over time, it can become harder to trust your body’s responses, even though they are giving you important information.

Orientation

In healthier relationships, physical closeness grows from emotional safety.

A healthy partner doesn’t push, sulk, or withdraw when you hesitate, and doesn’t make you feel responsible for their reaction or react in ways that make you feel at fault.

PART D — MOTHERHOOD & PROTECTIVE AWAKENING

What this often means

If this section aligned or rang true, it often reflects a shift that happened once you became responsible for a child.

What you had learned to manage for yourself began to trigger alarm once it felt like your child might have to adapt to it too.

Behaviours you once absorbed yourself may have begun to trigger a strong protective response when they were no longer just affecting you.

You may have felt caught between protecting your child and holding the family or relationship together.

Love for your child, respect for your partner, and responsibility for everyone involved can pull you in different directions, leaving you feeling torn and without a clear way forward.

Orientation

In healthier family environments, a mother feels supported in her instincts and doesn’t feel torn between her child’s wellbeing and her relationship — protecting her child doesn’t threaten the connection.

Both the child and the protective parent don’t have to stay alert to adult moods, nor are they expected to absorb tension or adapt themselves to keep things calm.

Children are shielded from adult conflict, because protecting their sense of safety matters more than preserving appearances.

They are not put in the position of siding with one parent to stay safe with the other.

PART  E — HOPE, ATTACHMENT & STAYING

What this often means

If this section aligned or rang true, it often reflects how hope and attachment can keep you emotionally invested, even when the relationship no longer feels safe or nourishing.

You may have found yourself holding on to potential, promises, or brief moments of closeness rather than how things felt most of the time.

Care, empathy, and responsibility can make it harder to step back, especially when you worry about your partner’s wellbeing.

Staying may have felt less like a clear choice and more like something you slowly adjusted to for the good of everyone else.

The idea of leaving may have felt like breaking something you were responsible for keeping together.

Orientation

In healthier relationships, hope isn’t something you have to hold onto on your own.

Care and commitment to the relationship don’t feel lopsided.

Leaving doesn’t feel like failure — because the responsibility for the relationship was never carried by you alone.

A grounding closing

If reading this has stirred something, pause here.

Recognition can feel unsettling. Not because you’ve discovered something new, but because you’ve stopped explaining something away. And that can momentarily loosen the sense of stability you’ve been relying on - even if that stability came at a cost.

Nothing here requires action. You don’t need to decide, confront, explain, or make sense of everything at once.

It’s enough to notice how your body feels right now and breathe!

What matters is not how quickly you move, but that you stay connected to yourself - your truth.

If this has brought clarity, let it settle.

If it’s brought uncertainty, let that settle too.

You are allowed to take this in slowly.

If you are interested in reading about my personal experiences with living inside a controlling relationship, you can read here and here.

Thank you for reading. If my article contributed to understanding yourself, please be generous and share it with others.

Copyright © 2026 Michaela Patel