When they lived together, Stephanie and her husband maintained separate bank accounts, splitting everything 50/50. In 2001 they married, continuing their financial arrangement. Then came the kids, starting in 2008. “That's when things started to change,” said Stephanie, granted a pseudonym by Salon to discuss her situation due to safety concerns.

The couple realized Stephanie’s paycheck wouldn’t go any further than the cost of daycare, so she quit her job; her husband made close to six figures. According to Stephanie, he asked: “How are you still going to bring income to pay your share of the bills?”

“I should have been more appalled and horrified than I was,” she said. But as a first-time parent she felt she had to “earn” being home with her child, so she scrambled for income while being the primary caretaker for the kids. "While I was at home with our first daughter, I was looking for change. I was digging in the bottom of my purses because I still had to go to the grocery store and buy the groceries.”

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Stephanie spent her available time trying to get her Etsy business going but crashed. She said her husband started giving her an allowance, but “I had to remind him to do it. So our relationship started turning very parent-child.” When she asked for a joint account, like other couples she knew, he said no.

It took the support of a therapist and her friends at her kids' preschool to name what was happening to her: financial abuse.

It can happen anywhere, at any household income level. Some states have laws to protect spouses, but most incidents are handled as civil matters and penalties are few and far between.

One of the key similarities among victims is that when children join the family, it becomes extremely difficult to leave and start over.

Spousal financial abuse is sometimes tricky to identify because it takes many forms and can often be rationalized by both the offending partner and the victim. Almost always, emotional and........

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