Most of us can spot the warning signs of domestic abuse when it is physical or verbal but did you know there is another form that is often overlooked and leaves its victims suffering in silence?

Is your partner manipulative when it comes to money?

Is your partner manipulative when it comes to money?

Financial abuse is within intimate partner relationships, where financial control, exploitation or sabotage is used to control a person's ability to acquire, use and maintain money. According to a new report "My Money. My Life," released by Refuge and The Co-operative Bank, a significant number of people in Britain have experienced financial abuse in a relationship

With 1 in 5 Brits bring financially abused would you be able to spot the warning signs in your own relationship or others?

Top tips on how to spot a financial abuser

1) Manipulation: Financial Abusers withhold and promise money to their partners as a way to control them

2) Making all financial decisions particularly the big ones ie buying a house without consulting their partner

3) Controlling behaviour: From monitoring their partners spending. Checking bank statements and spending habits. Keeping login details, passwords and PIN numbers to bank account. Keeping login details, passwords and PIN numbers to bank account.

4) They also tend to give allowances leaving their partner with very little money so they are reliant on them.

5) Prohibiting their partner going to work, earning their own income or attending university or college.

6) Creating situations where their partner needs to ask permission about spending any money, no matter how small

7) Create debt, loans and bank accounts in their partner's name.

8) Stealing money or using bank cards without their loved ones permission

9) Give allocated allowances leaving their partner with very little or no money so they are reliant on them.

10) Steal, damage or destroy possessions

To stop this ever growing common form of abuse, The Co-operative Bank is leading the way by committing to implement a series of key recommendations from the report, and remove some of the barriers and traps victims of financial abuse can find themselves in.

When spotting the signs of financial abuse Laura Carstensen, Chair The Co-operative Bank, Values & Ethics Committee

"Well do you know one of the big problems around this I think is that we still have a bit of a taboo in discussing money, so it can be very hard even among friends or colleagues at work to pick this up, but I would say what often happens is it starts off with little things like maybe somebody hinting that they're not quite free to spend on maybe a lunch or can't join on a social night out or something because their partner wouldn't like it. You're getting the idea that maybe you kind of know what they earn and you can kind of see that they're not able to spend without referring to some other authority, there may be signs like that. I think it can be really difficult to spot the signs and that's one of the reasons why we've done this bit of research and then produced a guide. Even the people who are suffering financial abuse sometimes don't call it that and they don't quite realise this is not normal, this is not okay, I don't have to put up with this."