This is Nell’s story, edited to keep her safe and help you read. Quotes are Nell’s own words. Names have been changed.

I moved to New Zealand 10 years ago. I studied, got my residency visa and gained full time employment. I was enjoying life — making good friends, earning good money, and saving as much as I could for a deposit on a house. 

I met Byron at one of the hobby clubs I was part of. He was charismatic and charming. He felt like someone I had been looking for my whole life. I had some painful abusive relationships in the past and I was thrilled to think I was leaving that behind.   

“I had dreamt about meeting someone like him. And finally, I did.”

Things moved quickly. Within weeks he wanted to move in together. Within months he said we should get married, open joint bank and credit accounts, have children and buy property. I was surprised by the whirlwind of this time but I went with it because he seemed like the perfect man. It’s rare to meet a man who actually wants to have children. I became pregnant quickly and he pushed for us to buy a family home. 

My friends were alarmed at how fast we were moving and so was my financial advisor. They advised against buying a house together and said I should get a prenuptial contract since I was bringing $100,000 in savings to the marriage, and he was bringing debts. Byron was furious when I suggested this. 

“He made me out to be a very bad person for asking [for a prenuptial agreement]. He said, ‘there is no way I would ever leave the mother of my child in need’.”

I was afraid he would leave me, so I let it go and agreed to joint bank accounts and credits cards. I agreed we could use my savings as a deposit for a house. 

We bought the house, used the rest of my savings to renovate, and our son was born. Not long after this our relationship started to fall apart. It was like a mask dropped for him. He was verbally and psychologically abusive and he made a lot of threats. 

“It feels like he’s a spider and the more web he had around me — in terms of the joint property, the child — the more dependent and the more vulnerable I was. The more he suffocated me.”

He threatened to take our son away from me and take the house away. The house was important to me because it represented my life’s dreams and my savings. He was cheating on me, claiming to be a sex addict, and begged me to stay and help him rehabilitate.

As things in our relationship got worse, I was horrified to learn that New Zealand law meant he could take half of the house even though we used my savings to buy it and I paid the mortgage. I was even more shocked when I found out I would be forced to take on half of my husband’s debt if we got divorced. That’s when I realised I was going to lose half of the money I had worked so hard to save. I had no family and no information about the legal system.

“All his actions were strategic moves. A sort of game for him. He knew the process, he knew the laws and I didn’t.”

He tricked me into moving out of the house by saying his lawyer recommended showing and selling the house with no one in it. When my son and I were out, his girlfriend moved in and he refused to talk with lawyers or real estate agents about selling. He and his girlfriend wouldn’t pay the mortgage, rates or bills, and the bank started calling me to ask for payments. I was now caring for my son full time as a single parent and felt forced to sign for a mortgage holiday, which meant debt was accumulating and would come out of house sale proceedings.

“Once we were finally free of him, he started to use the legal system to abuse me.”

I managed to hire a lawyer with a small amount of money I had hidden from him. A judge ordered the sale of the house and by this point I had lost more than half of my investment and taken on tens of thousands of dollars in my husband’s debt. He was enraged about the sale of the home. 

He quit his job and started work that paid under the table so he could hide his income and avoid paying child support. He claimed he could only find work in expensive areas of town, and demanded the courts order me and our son to move to these areas where rent was more than I could afford. When I complied and moved, he would quit his job and move again, and return to court to insist I move too. This crippled me financially and I couldn’t understand why he was able to dictate where we lived. 

He started typing up false things about me and filing them in court, saying I wasn’t a fit mother. It didn’t cost him to make false allegations, but I had to put together massive affidavits and evidence, paying for a lawyer and taking up lots of my time. He is still using the court to financially abuse me, and unless laws change, he could keep doing this until our son is an adult.

“Just knowing that there are people who I can reach out to … that’s so precious and this saves lives.”

I have a lot of legal debt, but I still feel hopeful. The little money I got from the house sale went towards a small home where the mortgage is less than my previous rent. I’m grateful to people who have helped me find housing, clothes and food — some of them are complete strangers. And I’m thankful to organisations like Women’s Refuge and Good Shepherd who have helped me navigate the financial system and try to repair my ruined credit.

“I’m quite confident that we will be okay because I’m quite careful with our finances . . . Our income is very low, and our expenses are quite high, but we’re managing because of all the support.”

This is Rina’s story, edited to keep her safe and help you read. Quotes are Rina’s own words. Names have been changed.

I’m an IT professional and am now a single parent of my two teenage boys. I met my ex-husband Mal when I was very young, and we got married when I was 20. 

He had always managed our finances. The mortgage, car loans and bank accounts were in both of our names, but he handled the accounting. I didn’t have much visibility of the family finances. I thought we were financially stable.

“We had an amazing marriage for almost twenty years. We had a 1.5 million dollar property. We had a Range Rover. But then something changed.”

About 16 years into our marriage I noticed some changes in his behaviour that worried me. He started disappearing a lot and he lied about where he was. He was often short tempered. He started obsessing about money. 

When I started getting calls from banks and creditors looking for payments, I was shocked. 

The calls from creditors continued, and I learned Mal was getting credit cards out under my name. He was applying for them online. When you’ve been together for so long your partner has access to your passport, your driver’s license, your logins.

“It’s so easy to apply for stuff online . . . He was going to screw up my credit rating. Once your rating’s gone, you’re screwed.”

I found out he had developed serious gambling and drugs addictions. He was slowly bankrupting our family to pay for these habits. He became erratic and violent. I saw gang members coming to the house. I was afraid for myself and my children. Every day for four years, he would demand that I give him money and jewellery my family had given me. He smashed up the room, pulled all my clothes out of the drawers. It looked like I had been robbed every day.

“We had no food, no money, and I didn’t know how to get out of it.”

Eventually his physical attacks got so bad that I got a protection order and he was forced to leave the family home. The court ordered the sale of the house and I was shocked to realise that the law says if a couple takes debt on — even if it’s only in his name — everything is split 50/50. So even though the house was valued at $1.5 million I walked away with $30,000. 

I moved into my mum’s house. I felt like I was 16 years old, and I felt like a failure.

Good Shepherd helped me to clean up my credit and get a loan for a small home. 

“I fought for this independence and if it wasn’t for Good Shepherd I wouldn’t have my own home.”

I’m now the sole supporter for my children. We were starting to get back on track but I was made redundant recently. Doing well in my work is important to me and this came as a real blow. The market is really tough at the moment, and I really don’t want to lose another house.

Looking back, I am furious my ex-husband was able to take out so much debt in my name. What he did was horrible, but I wouldn’t be in this situation if our laws and financial institutions were different. If someone does a credit check and sees lots of cards under my name, how can they keep approving loans? A lot of big banks approved credit cards in my name but they never once asked me to go in person to validate or verify or authenticate. 

“I started blaming myself. I was like, ‘how dumb can I be?’. But I also feel as though all these people online approving stuff, they failed me because they should have done more to validate who was actually applying for a loan.”

It was also very frustrating that no one believed the debt wasn’t mine. When the bank would call I kept telling them I don’t know about the debt they’re mentioning and they said ‘It’s under your name. You’re responsible’. It wasn’t until I got in touch with Good Shepherd that anyone believed me.

An experience like what I’ve been through can weigh heavy on your chest. But I’m putting my energy back into my future, into my kids and into growing myself. I am letting go of anger so I can grow.

“I’m in a really, really good space and I no longer blame myself. But one thing I will say is, to women or anyone going through economic harm — go with your gut.”

This is Connie’s story, edited to keep her safe and help you read. Quotes are Connie’s own words. Names have been changed.

When I met James, I had a good job in the medical sector and was living at home with my mum and nana. I was growing my savings.

“I was pottering along and doing well. And, because I was working and living at home at that time, I was saving a lot.”

We met through his family. His sister was a friend of mine and I knew his mum too. He started paying attention to me over time, talking about how great I was. He was a very fun and very popular person, and it was amazing to hear that he felt lucky to have me. I was so excited when we decided to get married. We had the same values and wanted the same things for our future.

Very soon after the wedding James had new ideas for his future. He wanted fewer children than we had talked about, and he said he would be away from home a lot. He had never mentioned this before. Being alone in a relationship would have been a deal breaker for me.

“Within the first six months of being married, I was in debt. It felt like being mugged — like you’ve been stood over by your husband and he’s saying ‘I need your card. I need to take your card’.”

He started to demand money from me. If I hesitated, he would say I wasn’t a good partner and threaten to leave. I found that really difficult because I didn’t want to be a failure.

In the early days of our marriage, I had a good job and a healthy savings account. When we had our first child, I stopped working so I could take care of the baby. As my money dried up, my husband started to take out credit — in my name. Any debt was taken on in my name. I knew this and I signed on to things because if I didn’t, he would get angry and scream or do things like driving dangerously on purpose when me and the baby were in the car.

“It’s so much easier to give in than to go through whatever is going to happen to you from saying no.”

We both went on the benefit after I stopped working. Half of the money coming in went into my account and half went into his. He expected my half to cover our rent and anything the children needed. He would have the newest phone and nice shoes, and I didn’t have money to put credit on my old phone or buy formula for the baby. His family noticed the differences in how we were living, and they would sometimes give money to me or the kids. My parents help me out too, paying for appointments or clothes for the children.

I think this family support was part of why he insisted we move to Australia. The physical and economic abuse got much worse when we moved to Darwin. I wasn’t allowed to call my family.

“Basically, he was like ‘I will destroy you. No one will ever want you. I’ll make sure you have no relationships and I’m not going to stop until you kill yourself’.”

In the wake of the marriage, I was left with masses of debt, including an overdraft and credit-related bills that I just couldn’t budge. My ex-husband is working but gets paid under the table, so he doesn’t have to report his earnings or pay child support.

The stress caused by the debt has been huge. It was feeling totally unmanageable until I learned about Good Shepherd. They helped me get an overdraft wiped, got my debt consolidated, and offered me an affordable loan so I can pay things off slowly.

My main goal is to get back to the life I was living before I met my ex. Ever since we were married, I have lived in poverty, which wasn’t the case before. I’m in a support group with women who have been through similar experiences. I keep telling them, and myself, that we just have to get through this. It’s scary but I know things will be better.

“Even though I’m so much better off than when I was with him, I’m still not out of that hole he dug for me because I don’t have any savings. I hope one day that will change.”

This is Amber’s story, edited to keep her safe and help you read. Quotes are Amber’s own words. Names have been changed.

I have two boys — age 8 and 12 — who both have special needs. It has been a year since I left my marriage of 18 years. Throughout our relationship, John used control and deception to stop me accessing money. It started with him questioning my ability to manage money, and built to the point where I had no access to my money and he was actively increasing my debt.

In the years before meeting him, I worked in the creative industries with a successful career. I was financially independent and self-sufficient in a senior role.

We met through mutual friends. He seemed outgoing and motivated, and any doubts I had about him shrank away with promises that he would take good care of me. A few months later he suggested we move in together to save for our own place

“It wasn’t until I met him that I actually started to feel like I was bad with money.”

He started questioning me about how I spent and managed money. He said I was bad at managing it. I never had problems managing money before, but over time I started to think I needed his help.

He worked in a bank. He suggested we set up a joint account and have him manage our finances so we could buy a house.

My husband’s control and abuse escalated. If I bought anything — even a coffee at work — he would call and berate me so loudly that other people could hear. I wasn’t allowed to buy anything for our children without his permission, and if I needed to, I was frightened about what he would do.

“I never knew what money we had because he took control of that, and he dictated how much money we had. So, if wanted to buy something it was never simple.”

He set up multiple bank accounts, including six for the mortgage. He would move money between them every day, so it was almost impossible for me to understand. He restricted my access to our accounts. He became aggressive if I asked what was happening with our money.

We were both earning good salaries, but he insisted we had no money and I was in “fuckin’ la la land” if I thought differently.

He set up a personal bank account without telling me. He called it ‘Car Loan’ and put all of his money into it. My salary paid for the mortgage and bills, and any leftover money was moved into the fake car loan account for him to spend. I didn’t know our real car loan was not being paid.

As our relationship began to fall apart, my husband moved into the sleepout. He abused me constantly, regularly sending threatening texts saying I would never get the children or the house.

“My mental health just could not cope with what was going on. He was taunting me, sending me abusive messages. It was the worst case of emotional abuse.”

The stress was overwhelming. I felt suicidal and I ended up in hospital. During that time, he staged the house to make it look like I was an alcoholic and an
unfit mother. He took photos for a custody application and gained full custody of our children. I paid for a hair follicle test to prove his allegations were false.

When I left the relationship, I had nowhere to go, so I slept on the floor in my sister’s lounge for a month. I’m renting a two-bedroom house now. It’s an hour’s drive from the city where my children go to school. My weekly outgoings are more than I have coming in, so I rely on food parcels from Women’s Refuge and Love Soup, and handouts from family. My ex still won’t let me into the house to get my clothes or belongings. He kept joint assets like our furniture and car. I had to use my Kiwisaver to buy a car so I could get the kids to school.

I’m so grateful to Good Shepherd and Woven Earth for organising donated furniture so my boys and I now have beds. Having items like furnishings, plants and posters gives me a sense of hope, dignity and respect.

“It keeps me stuck where I am not able to move forward because he still dictates what’s happening with the house. He’s still got all my belongings.”

My ex-husband’s abuse and the challenges that come from it continue almost a year after I left the relationship. I sought legal advice to regain access to my children after he lied to government agencies about their safety and my competence as a parent. I care for our children more than half of the time, but he told the IRD he is their primary carer, so I am not entitled to child support. I cover the cost of their clothing, school and extracurricular activities, medical care, and counselling even though I earn a third of what he does. If I ask for money to help with these things he verbally abuses me.

He is also actively putting me further into debt. I pay half of the mortgage while he lives in the family home, but he changed the bank account details without telling me so I couldn’t pay and fell into arrears. He pays his half of the mortgage — it’s with the bank who employs him — but he refuses to pay any rates, bills or insurance for the house he is living in. He won’t talk with me about the sale of the house and is neglecting maintenance so it will decrease in value and he can buy my share at a reduced price.

His abuse and the situation I’m in have affected my mental health. I had to give up my well-paid job and I’m on the Jobseeker benefit. I have lost confidence, and I feel like I have PTSD.

I’m fighting for increased custody of my children, child support payments, access to my things, and to be able to sell the family home so I can untangle my finances from John’s and move on. He has the means to pay for a high-powered lawyer and I am relying on legal aid. The process is slow and difficult, but I will persist.

“[I want to] start using this experience to give me the courage to put myself out there, and not let this experience just bury me”.