Leaving safely

This module exists because if you do leave, or if your partner thinks you might, the way you do it matters more than almost anything else on this site. It is not an argument for leaving. Read it whether you have decided or not. The knowledge keeps.

Why separation is the dangerous time

Where one partner controls the other, the relationship ending is the moment that control fails. Everything the controlling partner has been doing, the monitoring, the moods, the threats, has had one purpose: to keep the other person in place. When that stops working, some people escalate, and a small number escalate badly.

The data on this in the UK is consistent and it is gendered. The large majority of people killed by a partner or former partner are women, and a high proportion of those deaths happen in the weeks and months around a separation, often after the woman has said she is leaving or has just left. Men are killed by partners too, and people in same-sex relationships, and the pattern of risk around separation is similar. The period you may be most tempted to relax, because the decision is made, is the period to be most careful.

Things that raise the risk around leaving include a partner who has threatened to kill you or themselves if you go, strangulation or choking at any point in the past, a partner who has access to weapons, stalking or intense monitoring, a recent escalation, pregnancy or a new baby, and a partner who has just lost a job, a home or status. If several of these are true for you, please involve a domestic abuse service in your plan before you act. They do this every week.

Planning the leaving

People who leave safely tend to do a few things differently from people who leave in the middle of a row. They leave on an ordinary day, when their partner is out and expected to stay out. They tell very few people in advance, and only people who will not let it slip. They have somewhere arranged. And they have thought about the things below.

Timing. Not during or just after an argument, when your partner is already at a high pitch. A planned time when they are reliably away. If you work, your employer may be able to help with time off or a change of pattern. Many large UK employers now have a domestic abuse policy, and HR will not contact your partner.

Children. If you have children and they are coming with you, take them. Leaving them and coming back is harder than it sounds, legally and practically. Take their birth certificates, passports, red books, school details and any medication. If they are at school, think about who collects them that day and whether the school should be told that only you may collect. You do not need anyone's permission to take your own children with you when you leave. If your partner later disputes where they live, that is a matter for the family court, not for the day you go.

Money. Your own account if you have one, with as much in it as you can arrange without being noticed. Cash. Your National Insurance number. Details of any joint accounts, mortgage or tenancy, benefits and debts, photographed. If you have no money of your own, that is common, and it is not a reason you cannot leave: refuges, councils and the benefits system are built around this, and the module on your money explains how.

Where. A friend or relative your partner would not think of first. A refuge, through the helpline. Emergency housing from the council. Somewhere you can stay for a few weeks, not a few nights, because the first weeks are when you need to be hard to find.

Who knows. Fewer people than you want to tell. Not shared friends. Not the children, until the day, because children repeat things without meaning to. One or two people you trust completely, and the service that is helping you.

Digital. Your partner may be able to see your location, your messages, your search history and your bank activity. Before you go, read the module on your phone and your data, and assume you are watched until you have checked. Many people leave safely and are found again by a shared account they forgot about.

The law, briefly

You do not need a lawyer to leave. But two kinds of court order exist to protect people, and knowing about them before you go changes what you can do afterwards.

England and Wales. A non-molestation order tells your partner not to contact, harass, threaten or come near you. Breaking one is a criminal offence, and the police can arrest without a warrant. An occupation order decides who lives in the home, and can require your partner to leave even if their name is on the tenancy or mortgage. Both are applied for in the family court. There is no court fee, they can be granted urgently without your partner being told in advance, and legal aid is often available where there is evidence of domestic abuse. The police can also issue short-term protection notices and orders of their own in the days after an incident.

Scotland. The equivalents are interdicts, which can carry a power of arrest, exclusion orders which can remove a partner from the home, and non-harassment orders. Scotland also made coercive and controlling behaviour a specific criminal offence in 2019, so a pattern of control can be reported to the police as a crime in its own right.

Northern Ireland has non-molestation and occupation orders on a similar footing, and a coercive control offence since 2022.

A domestic abuse service, Citizens Advice or a family solicitor offering a free first appointment can tell you which of these fits your situation. We cannot, and this is not legal advice.

What refuge actually is

The word puts people off. A refuge is a house or a set of flats at an address that is not published, where you and your children have your own room or your own small flat, with workers on site who help with benefits, housing, schools, the law and the ordinary business of starting again. It is not a hostel, or a shelter in the American sense. Stays are usually weeks to months. Most refuges take women and children. There are a smaller number of spaces for men, and specialist refuges for LGBT+ people, for particular communities and for people with no recourse to public funds. You reach one through the National Domestic Abuse Helpline, or through Men's Advice Line or Galop. You do not have to be injured, and you do not have to prove anything.

What to expect from the police

If you call 999 during an incident, officers should attend, separate you, and ask you a set of questions about risk. They may arrest your partner. They can issue a short-term order keeping your partner away from the home for up to a few weeks, which buys time. Afterwards you should be referred to a local service. Experience of the police varies, and some readers will have reasons to be wary of them. If that is you, a domestic abuse service can act as a go-between, and you can still get the civil orders above without the police being involved at all.

What this is not

This module is not a recommendation. Plenty of people read it and stay, and some stay because leaving is not yet safe enough, which is a reasonable judgement. If you are not ready, the previous module on staying safer while you decide is where the work is. If your partner does not control you and there is no fear, most of this will not apply, and the modules on patterns will serve you better.

Where to go next

• Your phone, your money, your data. Do this before the day, not after.
• Staying safer while you decide, if leaving is not for now.
• The first ninety days apart. For members who have gone, on what the weeks after tend to be like.