Time is money. And in some cases of financial abuse, that time – that money – is wielded as a weapon.  

Janine Rees was married to a man we’ll call Oscar* – her business partner and the father of her children – for three decades. Oscar was physically and emotionally abusive and, for the final eight years of their marriage, Janine tried to leave several times. 

When she did manage to escape, within two weeks of their relationship ending, Oscar changed the pin numbers on their joint bank accounts and maxed out their credit cards. 

“I tried to separate really quickly, financially, but he just wouldn’t do it,” Janine shares on the award-winning FW podcast There’s No Place Like Home. 

A 2023 report from UNSW, Redfern Legal Centre and commissioned by Commonwealth Bank found that ‘systems abuse’ – when perpetrators weaponise legal and government processes to control victim-survivors – occurs in family law.

As we’ve explored in previous chapters of our Behind Closed Doors series, this could look like a perpetrator withholding child support. They could also file unfounded claims, delay property settlements and draw out legal proceedings.

Oscar used tactics like these to financially ruin Janine. 

“At one stage he owed $14,000 or $15,000 in child support,” she says. “He didn’t lodge tax returns for five years. He claimed he was earning $40,000 a year. 

“He was blaming the divorce. He actually told people he couldn’t afford to pay our mortgage and his rent – and that it was affecting the business.” 

“She’s exhausted. She’s at her wit’s end. She’s being drained emotionally, financially, in every kind of way.”

Angela Lynch, the Executive Officer of Queensland Sexual Assault Network, has seen systems abuse “destroy” victim-survivors on multiple fronts.

“It does break women down, psychologically and mentally,” Lynch says on There’s No Place Like Home. “It distracts a mother from her own care and attention to the children. She’s exhausted. She’s at her wit’s end. She’s being drained emotionally, financially, in every kind of way.”

While personally and economically devastating, from an outsider’s perspective, systems abuse can go unnoticed. Research by Good Shepherd New Zealand, a not-for-profit supporting domestic and family violence recovery, found that coercive behaviours are not always recognised in family law proceedings. 

As Lynch says, “[The perpetrator’s] goal is to muddy the waters to make it more difficult for systems to determine that the domestic violence victim is, in fact, the victim”. 

Which is how abusers, like Oscar, weaponise the law to gain more control. 

“He ended up winning the ability to sell the house,” says Janine. “I ended up with nothing. He made us homeless. He took everything. My car, everything. I lost everything.”

Today, Janine shares her story to expose the challenges of our legal processes. As a victim-survivor advocate, she campaigns for family courts to be better equipped to recognise and respond to systems abuse. Her message is clear: “we must rebuild systems to be survivor-centric”. 

Learning from the experiences of victim-survivors is part of the solution – as is access to specialised support. 

In partnership with CommBank Next Chapter, Good Shepherd’s Financial Independence Hub provides free confidential support and connection to specialist services, including legal support, for all Australians impacted by financial abuse. 

Justice starts with seeing and understanding.