High-Conflict Divorce or Coercive Control? Why Family Courts Keep Getting It Wrong
When Courts Mistake Coercive Control for High Conflict
I am currently taking a training on Pathological Love Relationships. As I listened to the opening lesson, something occurred to me: the model was developed partly in response to what earlier approaches failed to recognize.
That same failure is alive in our legal system.
Courts and lawyers often misinterpret coercive control as “high conflict” or a dispute between equals. This framing erases abuse and places equal blame on the survivor.
Family-law research warns that when courts fail to distinguish coercive control from mutual conflict, custody decisions can endanger children and abused parents.
Judges and attorneys are trained in statutes, precedent, and legal procedure. Most are not extensively trained in the psychological dynamics of coercive control. Yet understanding those dynamics can be essential to determining a child's safety.
This is where subject-matter experts are needed.
The Pathological Love Relationships model, developed for coaching and therapeutic settings rather than legal assessment, offers four identifiers that help illustrate what courts may be missing.
## The Four Identifiers
1. The Cluster-B / Psychopathic Partner
One partner may display narcissistic, antisocial, or other Cluster-B traits. They can appear charming, composed, and credible while engaging in manipulation, intimidation, and domination privately.
Courts need to examine patterns of behavior that restrict another person's autonomy, not simply how each parent presents in a courtroom.
2. Erratic, Dramatic Relationship Dynamics
Love-bombing, gaslighting, financial control, isolation, threats, and harassment may form a recurring pattern.
Once divorce proceedings begin, years of coercive behavior can be reduced to “two parents who cannot get along.”
But disagreement between equals is fundamentally different from one person using conflict to maintain control.
3. The Survivor's “Super-Traits”
Survivors may be exceptionally empathetic, loyal, conscientious, and committed to making relationships work.
These strengths can be exploited by an abusive partner. A survivor's efforts to cooperate or preserve the relationship may later be misunderstood as weakness or codependency.
The question is not simply why someone stayed. It is how their values and strengths were used against them.
4. Atypical Trauma Responses
Survivors may appear anxious, angry, disorganized, or inconsistent under stress. They may struggle to recount events chronologically or become emotionally reactive.
Meanwhile, the controlling partner may appear calm, articulate, and persuasive.
Courts risk interpreting the survivor's distress as instability and the other parent's composure as credibility.
Neither presentation alone establishes what actually happened.
Where Courts Get It Wrong
Without a coercive-control lens, family-law professionals risk:
Treating both parents as equally responsible for conflict.
Mistaking trauma responses for hostility or instability.
Labeling protective parenting as gatekeeping or parental alienation.
Giving greater credibility to the more polished parent.
Overlooking psychological, financial, and post-separation abuse.
These mistakes have consequences. They can influence custody arrangements, force survivors into continued contact with abusive former partners, and expose children to ongoing harm.
Courts already rely on guardians ad litem and custody evaluators to understand complex family situations. Why aren't specialists in coercive control routinely part of that process?
The challenge is not whether these patterns exist. Survivors experience them every day.
The challenge is whether our courts will learn to recognize them.
Family law must learn to distinguish two people experiencing conflict from one person using conflict as a means of control.
Until it does, survivors risk being punished for the very trauma responses that should prompt closer examination.
About the Author
Jessica Knight is a certified life coach specializing in emotional abuse, coercive control, and high-conflict divorce. She provides coaching, court documentation support, and educational resources for individuals navigating difficult custody proceedings.
Please note that the blogpost above does not represent the thoughts or opinions of Fresh Start Registry and solely represents the original author’s perspective.