It Started with Flowers!

I recently spoke at a corporate training event on personal safety. The audience, mainly women, worked in the financial sector, and as the session began, I posed a question:

“Who likes it when a boyfriend sends you flowers?”

The response was overwhelmingly positive. Smiles, nods, and a chorus of “Of course” filled the room. It was a moment of shared warmth, a reminder that gestures of affection are still cherished, even in the impersonal world of finance.

But then I asked: “What if he sends them to your office?”

Confused faces! While flowers can be romantic, they are also a form of surveillance, a way to declare ownership. A signal to her male colleagues; “she’s mine.”

The bouquet is large, conspicuous. It should be a red flag, but blinded by his attention, she fails to notice.

Later that night, he calls to say goodnight. But when she doesn’t answer immediately, the calls and texts pile up. The relationship is still in the beginning phase, and she’s enjoying the powerful devotion.

He asks for a goodnight photo. To her, it’s funny. To him, it’s proof she’s home.

In too many relationships, these actions are dismissed as harmless, or even affectionate. But they often mask a behaviour known as coercive control, a strategy used to monitor and dominate a partner.

Control doesn’t begin with violence. It starts with caring gestures.

Take the flowers. Sent once, they might mean appreciation. Sent repeatedly, they become territorial displays.

Or the “goodnight” call. It sounds tender; or is it to end her day on his terms?

Partner stalking falls into three phases; the beginning phase, the relationship phase, and the end phase, relating to separation and or divorce.

According to government statistics, there were 738 recorded murder cases in 2022, with 605 men and 137 women arrested. However, police data narrows the murder definition, so they recorded 289 homicides, of which 83 victims, 29%, were killed by someone they had been romantically involved with.

While the police data does not break down the gender of intimate partner homicide victims, national statistics show that over 80 percent of homicide suspects in 2022 were male. This mirrors longstanding national and global trends; most intimate partner homicide victims are women, and the killers, men. These are crimes of control, not passion.

The most dangerous myth about intimate partner homicide is that it comes without warning. But often, the signs are there; ignored or misread.

A girl growing up witnessing her father regularly beating her mother may normalise the behaviour; and as such, when she herself is the victim, she rationalises it, often blaming herself. Worryingly, boys growing up in similar households can also normalise the same behaviour!

The media tends to focus on young victims of dating violence, but the 2022 police data reveals a different picture.

Among female homicide victims, the largest group were women over 60 years old. In total; 44 were 60 and over, 26 were in their 50s, 21 in their 40s, and only 2 in their 20s.

This suggests a deeply unsettling truth; coercive control does not burn out with age. In some relationships, it persists, quietly, until it becomes lethal. It may no longer wear the mask of flowers or phone calls, but it survives in subtler forms, financial control, and emotional intimidation.

If more women recognised monitoring signs at the beginning phase, some of these lives might be saved. If friends and families questioned the man who seems “too attentive,” we might disrupt the pattern before she gets too involved.

Such relationships are not about love, they’re about possession. And for too many women, those flowers they once fell for in the beginning phase, appear again at the end phase, with a funeral.

Anthony Hegarty MSc

The Korean version of this article appeared in the Maeil Shinbun Newspaper (print edition) on 7th August 2025

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