Joanna Thomas, who is in her 40s and lives in southwest England, had been working for a UK government department when she received an unexpected bonus. Normally, her income went into a joint bank account she shared with her now ex-husband. Here’s how she found out her husband had squandered her bonus on an eBay boat within hours of receiving it. She describes a long struggle with her ex-husband’s manipulative and abusive behavior, including financial mismanagement and debt accumulation, which lasted well beyond their marriage. It took her over 11 years to recover from the ruin he left on her credit file, estimated to cost her at least £130,000.
Joanna’s ordeal is indicative of a larger issue known as coerced debt, a form of economic abuse where individuals are forced into debt through manipulative tactics from their partners. This issue is far more common than many recognize, with debt charity StepChange estimating around 1.6 million people were victims in the past year alone. Coerced debt can ruin credit scores and lead to financial insecurity long after the abusive relationship has ended, leaving survivors grappling with the aftermath.
Richardson, a senior public policy advocate at StepChange and the author of the report on coerced debt, emphasizes the lack of support for victims, many of whom do not even realize they have been victims of this form of abuse. There’s a call for better recognition and response to economic abuse from banks, creditors, and the government to prevent further harm and provide a path to financial recovery for the victims.
For Joanna, and many others in similar situations, the road to financial independence and recovering from the trauma of coerced debt is long and fraught with challenges. There is, however, a growing movement aiming to tackle this issue, including the piloting of a new form to document experiences of financial abuse and calls for a cross-government task force to address the multifaceted aspects of economic abuse.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/mar/03/charity-calls-for-action-coerced-debt-economic-abuse-uk
