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Could Your Need for Control be Ruining Your Relationship?

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All of us seem to have a craving for power. We are all driven to get control over the situations we find ourselves in, and mostly, over our partners.

We think to ourselves – “If she would only do what we want her to do,” or “If he would only do what I need him to do,” then life would be better. In some ways, these things might be true.

How we go about getting what we want often turns into attempts to get power and control over our partners. This, of course, happens when we ourselves feel powerless.

When we feel powerless we feel overwhelmed, out of control and helpless. It’s unbearable. So, we try desperately to regain a sense of control.

Common Ways of Gaining Power Over Our Partners

Physical/Emotional Intimidation

Some of us do it by puffing ourselves up as big as possible, yelling, screaming, intimidating with our full force. (If we are physically large it’s easier to pull this one off).

We can do it by throwing out intimidating words if we are smart or college educated (women have an advantage here, having more command, generally speaking, over language than men).

Subtle Manipulation

If we are charming we can do it with our manipulative pleasing behaviors, charming our partner into doing what we want them to do.

Abandonment

Oh, another great one is to threaten to abandon our partner. If our partner is really attached to us, this can be very effective.

Withholding Information

My personal favorite is to withhold information. Yes, this is a power play. I know it doesn’t seem like it on the surface, but it is a very controlling behavior.

What we are doing when we withhold information is that we are controlling our partners’ reactions to what we are doing by not telling them. If they don’t know about it, they can’t get mad at us.

All of these are very effective if what you want is a partner who is controlled by you, intimidated by you, and kept at a distance.

But, if what you want is an intimate connection where you and your partner are truly partners, you have to find a different way to not feel powerless, helpless and despairing.

Focus on Gaining Control of Yourself Instead

Most of the time when clients come into my office they are both trying to get control of their partner. It’s the only way they know how to get their needs met. The good news is that there is a better way.

When we stop the controlling behaviors it can feel scary, because it feels like our only other option is to stay in the out-of-control state. Fortunately, it’s not the only option.

Learning the skills of navigating an interpersonal relationship that is deeper than one based on power and control is an ongoing effort. We have to learn how to stay in the fear. We have to learn that feeling out of control is not going to kill us or make us crazy.

To simplify the process for you I am going to give you the following steps as a starting point:

5 Easy Steps to Help You Cope with Your Fears

Step 1: When you feel out of control and powerless, stop and breathe before you react.

Step 2: Look at your partner and remember that you love them and wouldn’t want them to feel trapped and controlled.

Step 3: If there is something that they said or did that triggered an emotion on your part, reflect back to them what you heard them telling you through their words or behavior.

Ask if you got that right. Then let them know that what they are saying makes sense (coming from their perspective…not that they are “right”).

Step 4: Find something in what they said that you can relate to (Have you ever felt that way?)

Step 5: Let your partner know what you are feeling, don’t try to “save face.” If you feel ashamed, fearful, angry, hurt…whatever it is, tell them! You may think they should know, but trust me; they can’t read your mind. Don’t be afraid to let your partner see you cry (this goes for you guys, too).

If either one of you gets triggered into controlling behaviors, ask for a time out. Come back to the topic later when you are not so upset.

Love is not simply a feeling. It’s an action. Taking the time to connect in this way will give your relationship life. It may mean more intense interactions, but at least it’s not dead.

One sweet, intelligent couple I worked with has been together for 20 years. They have spent most of that 20 years controlling each other’s reactions by not telling each other what they really think, what they really do, and how they really feel.

They came into therapy because their relationship had lost its luster. They had become so distant and lifeless that they had not had sexual intercourse in a year!

Connecting through sharing of real feelings allows for the spark to be reignited between you.

The Little Known Secret to Getting What You Want From Your Partner

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Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus. Really!

He leaves his things on the floor and then gripes about the house being a mess.  He doesn’t seem to get it that I want him to listen to my feelings. He is so distant and in his head all the time. Why doesn’t he act like he cares about me?

That woman! She always acts like she knows the best way to do everything, and she is never listens to what I have to say and get irritated with me over the most stupid things. Why doesn’t she pay more attention to the important things? I hate it when she makes such a mess with her stuff in the bathroom and leaves those bottles everywhere.

Nagging At and About Our Mates is Almost a Way of Life

We build up a case against the person that we love the most and then wonder why they are unhappy with us.  When couples come in for therapy they inevitably have a long list of complaints about their spouse. They have been unhappy with their spouse for years for one reason or another. They don’t like this. They don’t like that.  By the time the come into see me they are convinced that their partner has been doing everything wrong and what they really want (though they won’t always admit this) is for me to tell their partner what is wrong with them and to help them fix their partners problems.

It is a rare event to have someone come in for therapy who understands that they, as a couple, have a problem and that it’s not one or the other’s fault.

The first few sessions are generally spent with both partners laying out their case against their partner and looking to me for validation. Then I begin explaining to them that they are each responsible for what has become a laundry list.  Rather than spending all of their resources and energy pointing out each other’s flaws, they need to focus instead on what the other is doing right.  I don’t know what it is about our culture that makes us focus on the problems rather than the blessings in our lives, but we do.

Is Your Partner Really That Terrible

Letting ourselves focus on the blessings our mates bring to us helps us to encourage the very traits we most want to build upon.  We want our partners to listen to us, to support us, to care about what we care about. We want them to show us they love us through the things they say and do.  How do we get that when our partners seem so far from being able to provide it?  We start with “catching them being good”.  We notice aloud the things they do that we appreciate and value. We refrain from nagging about the things we don’t like and we praise and celebrate the things that we appreciate about our partners.  The more we share our positive feelings with them about what we like, the more likely it is those behaviors will be repeated.  They will feel loved and appreciated and we get what we want.

Why is that so hard for us?

For one… We often don’t believe that we deserve the things we really want so we don’t do the things that will give us what we want.  Then we blame our partners for not providing it, even though we have not done our part in providing an environment conducive to their being loving!

When we protest, “Why of course I want my partner to be more loving!” Yet we refuse to do the very things that will create the space for them to give us what we want.  We demand, we nag, we criticize and we berate.  We try to make them be what we want.

NEWS FLASH: You can’t make your partner do anything!

Help Your Partner Help You

Instead, create an environment that invites them to be what you want them to be.  If you want your partner to be more loving, be more loving to them and verbally appreciate the things they do that make you feel good. Notice the things they do that are attempts to be loving, even if it’s not exactly what you wanted.

My husband hates it when I leave town.  He is unhappy and for years he acted angry and distant when I was getting ready to leave town.  Yet, he always, without fail, checked my auto fluids and tires before I got on the road.  I saw this as a supremely loving act, in spite of his decidedly unloving angry behaviors.  I let him know how much I appreciated his doing this for me and hugged him. I verbalized it to my friends when they were around to let him know that I was proud of his being so loving toward me.  Now, while he still hates it when I leave town, he is never angry and distant.

Loving behaviors come in all sorts of forms, and we don’t always have the same idea of what it is to be loving.  When we can notice what our partner is doing in an attempt to show us their love, even if it’s not in the form we want, we can encourage the loving behavior and then ask for what it is we do want.

Stop Criticizing and Start Praising

Criticizing focus’s on the negative behavior and leaves the other person feeling unappreciated and devalued.  Praise creates an environment of joy and a desire to please.  When we tell our partners, “I loved it when you did the laundry for me.  It makes me feel so cared for to have someone in my life help me with those kinds of details” it creates a bond of appreciation.

I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t tell our partners about the things they have done that displease us, I am just saying that the messages should, on balance be more positive than negative.  Letting our partners know what pleases us is positive feedback that creates more of what we want.  Negative feedback (criticism), when it is more frequent than positive feedback (praise) creates the very things we don’t want. It creates an unhappy partner who feels unappreciated and undervalued.

Share the joy with the people around you who know you and you grow the impact of the praise exponentially.  Let your partner hear you bragging on them to your friends. Tell your partner how your friends reacted to things that you tell them about your fantastic partner.  I guarantee you will get more of what you want through praise and “super praise” (bragging in front of others) than you will ever get through criticism.

When Fairy Tale Romance Goes Bad…

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Here we are in the 21st Century.

We have cell phones, Internet, microwaves and electric cars.

We have more information than we can possibly absorb about everything from digging holes to brain surgery.

But we often still think in 15thCentury terms when it comes to romance…

Fairy Tale Romance – The White Knight and the Damsel in Distress

One young couple I worked with had been madly in love. They met when she was 20 and he was 30. Gary was an established salesman making six figures and Lisa was a social worker, working nights in a coffee shop to make ends meet. When he walked in she said to her co-worker, “There’s the man I’m going to marry.”

Lisa says she said it jokingly, but this is what she had been hoping for: a strapping 6’3’ elegant man with a quick smile and loose with his money. She wrangled a meeting with him and they were quickly swept into a whirlwind romance. She moved into Gary’s 3,000 square foot home and quit her night job. He bought her flowers, jewelry, spa treatments and other thoughtful gifts. Lisa was enraptured with him, and he with her.

Gary admired what Lisa did and wanted to take her away from the stress of living on little money while doing good works. When they married the congregation was in tears, they had never seen a couple so in love.

When the Fairy Tale Turn Into a Nightmare

But less than a year after they married the relationship was in ruins. Lisa had an affair and Gary discovered her indiscretion. Furious, Gary insisted she go to therapy and work things out. Lisa was so depressed by the failure of their marriage and the depth of his rage that she was afraid to break off with the man she had been seeing and couldn’t agree to stop seeing him. Gary’s was bitter and angry. He filed for divorce and started seeing other women. He still went out with Lisa and they occasionally talked of working things out.

Lisa became distraught when he filed for divorce and dropped the relationship with the man she had been seeing. She begged Gary to take her back.

Gary continued to see other women, but after the divorce was final, he was ready to consider reconciliation. They came into therapy hurt, angry and confused. She thought he was mean and irresponsible with money. He thought she was a liar and disrespectful to him.

What Went Wrong…

After setting some ground rules for how they should manage their relationship while they were in therapy, I began asking them about how their relationship had begun.

They both admitted to being completely in love very fast, too fast, really. Lisa talked about how he had bought her things and spent money on her and how she saw him as her “White knight”. Gary talked about how he had not been looking for a relationship when they met, but they had just clicked. He said he wanted someone to take care of and saw that she was someone who, because of her work, was worthy of his care taking.

They then realized that most of their resentment and the distrust that had begun shortly after they married had started with this White Knight/Damsel in Distress relationship.

I completely related with her. I remembered that when I married my second husband I had secretly hoped he would rescue me. I was, on the surface a very independent woman. I had graduated from college with little family assistance, was taking care of my little girl on my own, with little support from my ex-husband or family. But the bottom line is that I had been struggling for so long I secretly hoped for someone to take me away from all my struggle.

Lisa was no different. She was independent in that she had a career and place of her own, but money was tight and she couldn’t afford those extra things that make a woman feel good about herself: jewelry, nice clothes, acrylic nails, spa days, and a beautiful home.

Gary had been raised with money and was being groomed to take over his family business. Money had never been difficult for him and he had never denied himself anything. But it seemed meaningless in away, until he had someone worthwhile to spend it on. Of course, this did not mean he was willing to deny himself his toys and indulgences.

Lisa soon realized that after they married his wanton ways with money were not as attractive a trait in a husband as they had been as a beau.

His lack of real respect for her became evident as he failed to pay any attention to the things she asked of him in regard to managing “his” money.

It didn’t take long for the marriage to spiral out of control at that point.

How To Avoid the Nightmare and Keep Your Happy Ending

When we marry to have someone to “take care of” we are not respecting that person. We don’t see them as capable of really taking care of themselves, we see them as less than complete and we expect them to appreciate what we do for them and not require more from us than the things that we are already so generously bestowing upon them.

When we marry to have someone “take care of us” we are not fully appreciating our own abilities and we expect them to be able to “make us happy”. Then we are full of furry when they do not fulfill our expectation of them.

This is an extremely common set up in our society. Many movies and novels feed into our cultural dream of the White Knight/ Damsel in Distress storyline. But the fairytale does not end as it does in the movies with us living “happily ever after.”

This is not because one of us is wrong or bad for having had the dream. After all; it’s what we are taught from birth!

But the White Knight is a shallow human being. He doesn’t have a full spectrum of emotions, dreams, flaws and vulnerabilities. He is not capable of intimacy, because he is not even aware of what is inside of himself.

The Damsel in Distress is equally limited. She is only allowed to be needy and receptive. Having an opinion and needs that go beyond the expectations of the White Knight destroys any hope “happily ever after.”

In order to create the “happily ever after” we have to be willing to be fully human and to allow our partner to be fully human. That means recognizing for ourselves that we are both wonderful and flawed, as is our partner. We have to be willing to negotiate our needs with respect and empathy as we own responsibility for our own happiness and don’t expect our significant other to provide that for us.

Lisa and Gary are lucky.They came to see me before their loved died.They were open to understanding how they had gone so far astray and willing to set aside the need for blame in order to get to that understanding.

They have a hope of a “happily ever after” yet. Do you?

Empathizing With a Wife Beater?

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Jim was a thirty-something man who was involved in a violent relationship. He was not proud of his part in the violence and had been attending an anger management group.

He felt to blame for what had happened and was clearly confused and ashamed that he had behaved this way toward the woman he loves. And worst of all, he had done it in front of his children.

He went on to tell of how he had completely lost his cool with his new wife and attempted to strangle her. She had called the police and now he is facing charges for domestic battery.

Understanding Domestic Violence

Most of us hear this story and feel aghast that someone could behave this way.  How could someone react so violently toward someone they love?

A while back I remember seeing Oprah struggle to fathom how a wife batterer could take a frying pan to his wife’s head.  She was understandably horrified at such a behavior.  Most of us are.  But what if we could understand it?

As I talked to Jim I listened to his story.  He told of being verbally battered by his wife for everything from house cleaning to not having enough education to suit her.  She couldn’t accept his not having a college degree and she couldn’t accept his relationship with his son.  The night of the strangling event, she had squeezed his family jewels with her fingernails digging into his skin.  Because he reacted in a self-defense measure to her intimate violence, he was arrested and will, no doubt have a record that follows him for the rest of his life.

When we feel that we are being attacked we will respond with whatever self-defensive measure we have at our disposal.  When our communication skills are limited, as they are for many men, the only resource we have is to resort to some kind of self-protective measure.  Now, he could and should have just left the scene.  But honestly, how many of us can think that clearly when we are under attack?

Fight, Flight, or Freeze

Our brains are wired to respond to threat in certain ways.  We have all heard of the “fight, flight, freeze” pattern because it is true of all mammals (yes, we humans are mammals).  Our primitive brains are wired for our survival and chemicals are released in our brains that tell us to respond in a automatic pre-programmed ways when faced with threat.

Not all threat as is obvious as what occurred to Jim.  Sometimes it’s “merely” verbal attacks.  Funny, I heard a heavy metal song yesterday “You hurt me with your mouth”.  How many times have we seen the public service commercial spot about words hurting as much as a fist?

Yet we expect men to react to the violence of language calmly and without anger.  I am not justifying violence.  What I am saying is that verbal violence is just as damaging to our loved ones as physical violence.

We forget that in the middle of a fight, don’t we?  We are so bent on our own need for a sense of power and control that we will say and do almost anything to regain control.  We have to feel on top, we have to feel that we are “winning” the argument.

Then we get angry and tell our friends how mistreated we are when our partners respond with angry, hurtful words or actions.  We can always justify our own behaviors but rarely look at our partners’ reactions with empathy.

Understanding Our Partner’s Reactions

What if we understood that our partner is fighting for their life (or sense of well being) with the same intensity that we are in the midst of a conflict? What if we stepped aside our own defenses just long enough to see the pain the other person feels when they are behaving badly? How would that change how we interpret their behavior?

On the day of the Oprah show when she was listening to the men talk about their violent behavior, I saw her suddenly “get it”.   She heard the pain in the man’s voice as he spoke of how desperate he was to get relief from the pain he was in at the moment he hit his wife over the head with a frying pan.  At that moment it was the only tool he had to stop the pain.  She related to it as she knew that for her, food was the only thing that, at times, could stop her pain.  She began to have empathy for the unthinkable behavior of hitting your wife over the head with a frying pan.

When we can take the risk of checking out how our partner is feeling in the midst of a fight, we might just find that we can understand their “crazy” behavior. If we stop and view what they are doing as an attempt to survive what, to them, feels like a threat, then we can perhaps begin to have empathy for them.  We can then stop whatever it is we are doing to cause them to feel afraid.

Sometimes it’s a simple thing that we don’t realize is happening.  Sometimes, it’s as simple as they are afraid that our behavior means we don’t love them.  Maybe we forgot to call when we said we would and they go off on us in a rage.  We feel attacked and their behavior seems irrational.  But what if we could recognize that, perhaps they are afraid that our not calling means that we don’t love them?  Wouldn’t that change how we respond?

Threat takes many forms and it isn’t always obvious.  But if someone is behaving in a defensive, irrational manner, you can rest assured they feel afraid and hurt.  Responding empathetically to their hurt can transform our relationship with them, in the moment, and forever.

Satisfaction or Frustration – How Would You Describe Your Sex Life?

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A while back I sat with a beautiful older woman who had been struggling with depression for most of her life.  She and her husband have been married close to 40 years, and their relationship has become distant, though they still report to love each other.

I was shocked to learn that in 40 years she had never experienced a climax with her husband. She didn’t even know what it was until her body did it spontaneously during a dream.

My grandmother was 65 before she had ever experienced one either. She had been married to my grandfather for 50 years. After he died a man she had known in high school contacted her and eventually they married.  Only then, at 65 did she discover what sex was all about. That was 20 years ago.

I foolishly have thought that women today are not in that same boat; that with all the sexual education there is out there today, women couldn’t possibly not know about climaxing. Obviously, I was wrong. As I sat looking at my client who had opened up about this for the first time in her life I realized that there must be other women out there like her. I am sure she is not the only one.

It would be easy to blame the husbands for not being sensitive to their wives needs, but that would be wrong. The reality is that these men know as little about sex as their wives. I cannot imagine that men who love their wives would knowingly not want their wives to enjoy their sexual relationship. But they are obviously unaware of what is happening with their wives and have never really enjoyed true physical intimacy with their partner.  How terribly sad this is for both partners.

Society teaches men that they are supposed to somehow innately know how to please their wives, and that if they don’t, they are not real men. How many men out there don’t even know that they don’t know? Men, believing that they should know, are forced to act as if they know. Women without any awareness of sexuality or their own bodies don’t know what or how to tell their man any different.

Talking about sex, whether you are a man or a woman is touchy. How do you tell your husband, “Honey I love you but the sex is terrible.”

How do you tell your wife, “I don’t know if I am pleasing you.”

Both situations leave us feeling inadequate and fearful. But if we don’t find a way to breach the subject we run the risk of living 40 or 50 years without the joy of true sexual intimacy.

If you are a husband and haven’t talked with your wife about her sexual satisfaction, you are limiting not only her joy, but also yours. Having a sexually satisfied wife will make your life better; trust me. Her overall sense of well being will increase, her satisfaction with you as a mate will increase, her mood will be more stable and she will be more attentive to your needs. No matter how anxious you are about it, just asking will help her know that you love her and care for her.

Likewise women, ask your husband about how you can make love in a way that is more pleasing to him, and this will open the door to talking about what he can do to make lovemaking more fun for you. Then, take a breath and tell him what feels good to you. Our bodies were designed to give us pleasure and the act of making love is designed increase our sense of intimacy with our partners.

One important caveat: Start this discussion during a quiet afternoon or morning with your partner outside of the bedroom. Bring it up when you are not in the process or about to be in the process of making love.  That time is too sacred, too fueled with insecurities and vulnerabilities to be optimum.

When we can allow ourselves to take the risk of asking for what we want, we have the potential for having not only a more satisfying sexual relationship, but a deeper intimate connection with our loved one.