The invisible form of abuse you might have missed in your relationship

When Marnie* first started going out with her boyfriend in sixth form, it felt like a normal relationship between two 16 year olds. They’d been friends before they started dating; “I’d liked him for a while, so it was really exciting to think he liked me too,” she says.

As you might expect from a boy in the throes of first love, he wanted to spend all his time with Marnie. They didn’t go out much, but he’d come over to her house every night after school, and she was flattered by the attention. Having never been in a relationship before, she assumed this was a “good thing”.

It wasn’t long before the controlling behaviour started.

“When I did go out, I’d get constant calls and messages from him – and sometimes he’d just show up,” says Marnie. “My friends and family had doubts about him, but I didn’t listen. I thought that’s just how things were supposed to be when you were in love.”

Over their two-year relationship, Marnie became increasingly isolated from her loved ones via technology. As well as the never-ending digital check-ins, her partner also began intercepting her phone and deleting messages before she could read them “so I wouldn’t know who had tried to reach me or that my mum was asking where I was”.

Social media was outlawed, she says: “I wasn’t allowed to use it, which was a big part of the control – and there was a lot of jealousy too.”

Marnie eventually managed to end the relationship, but it wasn’t until years later that she understood that what she had experienced was actually abuse. “It’s so hard to recognise that kind of behaviour as harmful or dangerous,” she says now. “We’re not taught how to spot the signs.”

As well as other forms of coercive control, Marnie was a victim of a form of relationship abuse that often goes unrecognised: Technology Facilitated Intimate Partner Violence, or TFIPV. This covers any abuse carried out by a current or former romantic partner that’s enabled by technology or digital tools, such as smartphones or particular apps.

It can involve financial, sexual, physical, or psychological abuse and may cause fear or intimidation, privacy violations, image-based abuse, unwanted sexual attention or physical harm, according to Dr Afroditi Pina, a reader in forensic psychology at the University of Kent who has led a major research project into TFIPV.

She gives a list of behaviours that can constitute technology-facilitated abuse:

“Tech-facilitated abuse can take many different forms, from stalking and harassment through social media and location sharing, to controlling smart household devices or restricting someone’s access to technology altogether,” says Jodi Leedham, technology-facilitated abuse service manager at domestic abuse charity Refuge. “What all these examples have in common is a perpetrator weaponising technology as a means to control, intimidate and isolate a survivor, and the consequences can be devastating.”

The number of victims reporting TFIPV has surged in recent years, particularly after the pandemic forced our lives increasingly online. Referrals to Refuge’s specialist Technology-Facilitated Abuse and Economic Empowerment team rose by 78 per cent in 2025-2026; Victim Support, a charity in England and Wales that provides specialist practical and emotional support to victims and witnesses of crime, has seen a 140 per cent increase in people seeking support after experiencing technology-facilitated abuse in the last year.

While some forms of TFIPV might be more obviously recognisable as abuse – revenge porn, or threatening to share intimate images, for example – others can be all-too-easily excused under the guise of caring about a partner’s safety or demanded in the name of trust.

It’s why TFIPV can be so insidious and dangerous, according to research consultant and psychologist Dr Nina Jane Patel, who was commissioned by YSL Beauty to research and author a new commentary piece on technological abuse as part of the brand’s “Abuse is Not Love” programme. “The absence of physical signs makes this psychological violence highly invisible,” she says.

Many of TFIPV’s tactics resemble ordinary relationship practices thanks to the normalisation of using digital controls: location-sharing via apps like Find My Phone, for example; checking in frequently; password sharing; accessing one another’s devices and “open phone” policies – which allow a significant other to have complete access to the device.

These practices “have become so routine that young people do not question them,” says Patel.

For instance, the recent Australian e-Safety Commissioner’s survey report found that 23.3 per cent of people considered expecting access to a partner’s passwords reasonable; 13.6 per cent considered unrestricted location tracking reasonable; and 19.1 per cent regarded expecting constant digital availability as a sign of care.

The concept and language of “trust” can insidiously obscure the boundaries between intimacy and control, according to Pina. Surveillance may be framed as care (“I only track you because I worry”); password access may become a test of loyalty (“If you trust me, you have nothing to hide”); constant availability may be treated as proof of commitment.

“Practices initially agreed to can gradually become compulsory,” she says. “Because the technology itself is mundane, each incident can appear trivial when viewed separately.

“Victims may blame themselves or hesitate to describe the behaviour as abuse – especially without threats or physical violence.”

While digital access is not cause for concern in and of itself, what we need to pay attention to is the surrounding pattern of consent, power and consequences. “A healthy arrangement is freely chosen, limited, transparent and genuinely revocable,” says Pina. “It becomes concerning when saying no, withdrawing consent or changing a password leads to accusations, pressure, punishment, intimidation or fear.”

Patel says that, while each relationship might look different in terms of boundaries, it’s good to ask yourself whether privacy is something you have to earn or something that is respected.

In addition to constant bombardment of messages, the opposite – giving the digital “silent treatment”, whereby someone intentionally ignores calls and messages from their partner as a form of punishment – can also feed into an abusive and controlling pattern of behaviour.

Social media is another area where the potential for toxic behaviour is rife. The idea of “stalking” a romantic interest on their socials has become normalised to the point where not doing so is seen as unusual. Again, looking at who’s liked your partner’s posts isn’t inherently concerning, but Pina highlights behaviour that should set off alarm bells.

This includes repeatedly interrogating someone about every social media interaction or demanding explanations; expecting access to someone’s DMs; contacting or investigating the people who engage with a partner; pressuring someone to unfollow people, remove posts or change how they behave online; and using fake accounts to monitor or harass.

“The key distinction is whether someone feels they must manage their online life to prevent a partner’s anger: then I would argue that the situation has already crossed an important line,” says Pina.

Although TFIPV can happen to anyone at any age, Gen Z are thought to be particularly vulnerable as technology has been so deeply embedded in their lives from an early age. “The prevalence among young people is deeply concerning,” says Leedham. New data from Refuge and the End Violence Against Women coalition (EVAW), published in their joint report, Dangerous by Design, found that 36 per cent of women have experienced online violence against women and girls (VAWG) – a number which rose to 47 per cent of women aged 16-24.

Patel’s “Abuse is Not Love” research identified that young people in particular face systemic barriers in distinguishing care from abuse, on top of the normalisation of digital controls. One of them is what she calls “the language gap” – young people may well feel the profound anxiety of constant digital monitoring “but lack the vocabulary to define it”. Controlling behaviour is rebranded as “intensity”, “protectiveness” or “jealousy”, rather than labelled as abuse.

There’s also the fact that early modelling from parents or caregivers, done in the name of love, sets the tone for what’s expected in intimate relationships later down the line. “Well-meaning parental tracking instils an early lesson: if you love me, you have nothing to hide,” warns Patel. “These behaviours are later demanded by partners as proof of devotion.”

So how can you spot this pernicious form of abuse lurking in your own relationship? The “Abuse is Not Love” research has informed nine warning signs to watch out for:

“Some of our survivors saw these early warning signals and didn’t listen to their gut instinct about it because they didn’t have the language for it,” says Patel. The idea of technology being a part of an abusive relationship didn’t really cross their minds, because it’s not something that we traditionally associate with domestic abuse.

“As the technology continues to develop, these conversations need to continue,” she advises. “We need to look at our relationships and consider them within the context of technology – because it will become more and more a part of our relationships, and more and more a part of what constitutes an abusive relationship as well.”

The national domestic abuse helpline offers support for women on 0808 2000 247, or you can visit the Refuge website. Those in the US can call the domestic violence hotline on 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org

*Name has been changed