“I Stayed Quiet so It Wouldn’t Get Worse”: Reflexive Experiences of Young Adults about Their Coping Response to Exposure to Interparental Coercive Control

Exposure to interparental coercive control (ICC) disrupts family life and deprives children of autonomy and constrain their capacity to build healthy relationships in young adulthood. This study examines how these effects unfold and what social supports act as buffers. ICC involves patterns of domination, control, and surveillance between one or both parents, reorganizing family life around fear, restriction, and silence, and shaping children’s understanding of relationships (Katz, 2016; Stark, 2007). ICC thus remains a hidden dimension of intimate partner violence (IPV), and its impact across the transition to adulthood is underexamined, limiting understanding of how children carry these experiences into adulthood.

Methodology

This study uses a sequential exploratory mixed-methods design. The quantitative phase of the larger project includes 497 participants who reported experiences of ICC on a cross-sectional survey. Of these, 38 expressed interest in follow-up interviews and were contacted by phone and email. The present analysis draws on 11 in-depth semi-structured interviews with young adults aged 18 to 26 residing in Florida who reported childhood exposure to ICC. Interviews explored childhood experiences, parental relationships, coping responses, service use, and current relationship dynamics with peers and partners. Interviews lasted 60-90 minutes, were audio-recorded, and transcribed verbatim. Transcripts were reviewed for accuracy, and reflexive memos were written following each interview. Participants received a $50 incentive. Following an iterative, inductive thematic analysis focused on patterns within and across interviews, preliminary findings are drawn using meaning-making frameworks and reflexivity (Braun & Clarke, 2019).

Results

Participants described silence and withdrawal as active strategies during childhood to manage conflict and unpredictability (“I stayed quiet so it wouldn’t get worse”), while protecting themselves. In adulthood, this pattern persists as avoidance of confrontation and violence tolerance (“I don’t say anything, I just leave”), suggesting continuity of learned relational responses and avoidance of healthy conflict. Results revealed how restricted autonomy shaped decision-making. Participants described limited agency in childhood (“Decisions were already made, I just followed”), which trickles into adulthood as difficulty making independent choices and reliance on external validation (“I still look for someone to confirm I’m doing the right thing”). Further, participants described carryover of learned coping into relationships, i.e., they constantly made efforts against reproducing learned coercion, while withdrawing in response to tension (“When people start yelling, I shut down”). These accounts suggest that early exposure to IPV and ICC becomes embedded in adult relational functioning. Protective and structural gaps were apparent. Participants identified trusted adults, school, and social activities as supportive (“Just someone safe to talk to”), while formal services remained largely unknown (“No, I don’t know of any service”).

Implications

Intimate partner violence advocates or behavioral health service providers, schools, and other community organizations must recognize adaptive responses to ICC. Providers should assess these behaviors during routine interactions. Interventions should move beyond crisis response by prioritizing trusted, nonjudgmental adult relationships while centering youth’s voice. Promoting developmentally responsive, trauma-informed support programs could strengthen autonomy and healthy relationship functioning during a child’s transition to adulthood and inform research reconceptualizing ICC as autonomy suppression pathways.