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Control Yourself
I’m selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I’m out of control, and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.
—MARILYN MONROE
If I’ve learned one thing in my life, it’s that I am controlling. I want to control my environment, my situation, and what other people around me are doing. I have ideas about how things should be, and I want reality to live up to my ideal. I try very hard to force this to happen. I always have. I want everything to be perfect. There are all kinds of deep psychological explanations for this, I’m sure. For me, part of the reason is that I had so little control over many of the factors in my childhood. I went to thirteen different schools, I witnessed abuse, I rarely lived in the same place two years in a row, I never knew where my belongings were, and I couldn’t predict any of the volatility in my surroundings. I’m no shrink, but the effect of this seems to have manifested itself in my need to control things.
This has come in many packages in my life: food and eating, money, organization, and especially relationships. For example, there was a time with a past boyfriend when I thought he wasn’t being a teammate. I felt like I was making all the plans and controlling everything, and I didn’t like it. Why wasn’t he showing any initiative? It took a very frank discussion and some shutting up and listening on my part for me to discover that this person thought he was being very supportive of me and everything I had to do. He didn’t want to impose himself because I seemed to have it all under control. Frankly, there is a lot that comes with having me as a girlfriend and I know that—the aftermath of my difficult divorce, for one thing. The guy I was with thought I was disrespecting all his efforts to support me, and all I saw was my idea that he wasn’t participating fully in the relationship. It was a complete misunderstanding. I wasn’t paying attention to the cues. I was just assuming I was right and that my worldview was the accurate one, without seeing things from his point of view.
We only see our own points of view clearly, which is why it is so important to pay attention to cues from your partner when you think something is off. It’s not about controlling and forcing the other person to comply with how you think things should be. It has to be about letting go of that and allowing space for someone else’s perspective in your master plan. This is really hard to do if you are like me, but it’s the only way to move forward and find real intimacy.
You might have different issues—we all have our stuff—but if you have trouble relinquishing control, then let’s talk. I know I’m not the only one. I know a lot of controlling women. It’s a problem with us. I think part of the reason is that we are juggling so many balls and wearing so many hats all the time that if we don’t exercise control, we could lose it all. We are mothers, friends, wives or girlfriends, homemakers, workers. We own businesses, run companies, or work our asses off to get whatever job we are in charge of done well and on time. To us, a loss of control can feel like an emergency. It can make us literally feel like we are going to die.
The problem with being too controlling and being a perfectionist is that life is not perfect. People are not perfect. Relationships are definitely not perfect. They are living, breathing creatures just like people, and they will never live up to the ideal of romantic movies, romance novels, or fairy tales. Trying to control them and perfect them will always lead to disappointment. Always. A big part of the reason why a relationship will never live up to the ideal is that a relationship by definition involves two people, and you cannot actually control someone else. You cannot make them act the way you think they should act. You cannot make them do and say romantic things at exactly the appropriate moment, or always know and feel exactly how you are feeling, or have even the slightest clue what you need.
You can influence someone in your relationship, but you can’t control what they do, let alone what they think. If you think you can, you are wrong, or you are a bully (and also wrong). If the other person in your relationship acts, talks, or thinks in a way you don’t like, there’s not a lot you can do about it beyond deciding what you are going to do about it—discuss it, be hurt or pleased by it, leave. That’s because there is one thing you can always control in this life: yourself.
There is nothing wrong with being in control of yourself and the way you live your life, but there is also such a thing as being overcontrolling to the point of personal misery. We have to harness control and use it for good, not evil. But that means giving up a certain amount of control (or what we think is control). Giving up control and not always knowing what’s going to happen every second, or not always having a handle on every situation, isn’t the same as being out of control. “Out of control” sounds scary and slightly insane. As often as we all know deep down that we can get that way, most of us try desperately to avoid at least the appearance of being out of control. The truth is, it’s actually liberating to let go of things a little. When you really think about what you can control and what you can’t control, your list of things to control gets a lot shorter and less intimidating.
Control Equality
Ideally, control should be equal. Most of the time, you make your own decisions but make mutual decisions when they impact you as a couple. However, control is rarely fifty-fifty at any given moment in the real world. Sometimes you are in a more powerful place than your partner, or vice versa. Sometimes you are in a vulnerable place and you need someone to step up and take care of things.
For example, maybe you are pregnant or you lost your job or something happened in your family and you are going through a thing and losing it a little. If your partner can step up and take control in certain areas for a while as a way to protect and care for you, then that’s a kind of control you want. If you had a bad day at work or you have raging PMS, you may be a little more out of control than usual, and if your partner can step in calmly as the voice of reason, that’s also the kind of control you want. Sometimes you feel a little insecure or vulnerable or emotional, and your partner can reassure you and guide the relationship temporarily.
At other times, your partner may be feeling insecure. Maybe he was reprimanded at work, or failed at something important, or is having a career crisis or family problems. At those times, you may be the one to step up and take the helm.
On an even more subtle level, control changes throughout the day. You might have it in the mornings when your partner is grumpy or not inclined to interact. Your partner might have it in the evenings when you are dead tired and your brain has turned off. Control is a wave. It’s always changing. It changes with each person’s feelings. Sometimes, women want to feel strong, powerful, and in charge of their own lives. Sometimes, we want to feel soft, feminine, delicate, rescued. Sometimes, men want to feel like little boys who have someone to nurture and take care of them. Other times, they want to feel big, strong, invincible. Women want a man who can handle them and be in charge, but they also don’t want to be bossed around or controlled. Men want to be manhandled in just the right way, so they feel secure, but they don’t ever want to feel weak or emasculated.
Part of the beauty of a truly intimate relationship is that people can do these things for each other—they can make each other feel strong and empowered but also vulnerable and sensitive. We all have all those things inside of us, and we look for people who can understand them and with whom we can share them without feeling in peril or betrayed.
Ideally, in terms of control, what you want is to balance these waves of hard and soft, strong and delicate, over the course of the relationship. This is a zero-sum game because if somebody wins, somebody else loses. It should be less of a contest and more like banter or cat-and-mouse. No one person should always be in charge, always call the shots, always tell the other what to do. There should not be manipulation, because with manipulation, there can’t be real trust or intimacy. If one person is always in charge, the relationship will degrade, I guarantee it. Being in control 24/7 is often necessary when you’re parenting little kids, but it should never be a part of an adult relationship. We think men are so tough, but they can actually be sensitive, even oversensitive. It’s deceiving. Controlling behavior may make them give in to you, but it certainly won’t be a partnership. It goes the other way too, of course. If someone else is constantly trying to control you, it feels like a dictatorship, not a relationship.
So what we’re really going for here is control equality. This can go wrong in two ways: You might be a control freak and try to control everything all the time, either causing constant fights or causing your partner to give up and check out, at least emotionally, from the relationship. Or your partner might be the control freak who is always trying to tell you what to do and how to live your life, maybe because he makes more money or has a more advanced degree or a more prestigious job, or just has a more dominant personality.
Let’s talk about both scenarios and what you can do to get control back in balance.
When You Are the Control Freak
If you are the one who always has to be in control and you literally freak out when you feel like you are not running the show, it’s important for the health of your relationship to chill out a little and let some things go. This is harder than it sounds. I know because this is me. So how do you do it? How do you let go?
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DR. AMADOR SAYS . . .
Letting go of control becomes easier when you recognize that control is an illusion. If you’ve tried to change someone, if you’ve told him how you want things to be different and it’s been weeks or even months of stalemate, it’s time to let go. Otherwise, you are letting the relationship drag you along and you are making yourself miserable thinking about it. (He’s not.)
Bethenny uses a sailing analogy in this section—one I like. Here’s another: You can’t change the direction of the wind, but you can adjust your sails. How do you do that? How do you let go, let your sails out so you don’t get blown over and sink your ship? Write down those things you believe you can and cannot control or change about him. Then, every morning, meditate, or if you pray do that, and use a personalized form of the traditional Irish blessing to help you: Ask for the serenity to let go of the things you cannot control. Name them out loud during your meditation/prayer. Try it. It works if you do it every day and it works better if you do it throughout the day every time you feel angry and wanting to be in control. “Please give me the serenity to accept those things about him I cannot change, and the courage to change those things about myself that I can.”
—XAVIER AMADOR, PH.D., PRESIDENT, LEAP INSTITUTE, WWW.LEAPINSTITUTE.ORG
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I don’t know about you, but I’m no good at just sitting with my hands in my lap waiting for something to happen. I need something to do, something to replace my control urges with. This is like finding something to do rather than binge-eat cookies. You might learn to have an apple or go on a walk or do some yoga. Here are some of the things I have discovered make great stand-ins and much more appropriate strategies than the constant quest to control the universe.
• Observe. In a relationship, I have found that observation is more important than control. If you stop talking and telling people what they should be doing, and start listening to what other people say and especially watching what they do, you will be amazed at what you learn about what’s really going on. I’ve been in situations where I thought I knew exactly what a guy I was dating was thinking or feeling, and it wasn’t until I shut up and started paying attention to his nonverbal cues that I realized I was completely wrong. Observing your partner—and yourself—can really teach you things about yourself and how you operate in relationships. It’s all about perspective. You can be in your own head, thinking about what’s going on with the relationship from your internal point of view, or you can look more objectively at what’s happening externally. You can think about all the negatives, about how your guy never picks up the garbage or didn’t ask you about your day or isn’t compassionate, or you can focus on the positives, like how he was there every day when your mom was sick or how he makes you laugh or how you have great sex or how he’s always willing to go to whatever restaurant you want and doesn’t care if you take off at a moment’s notice to exercise at the gym for two hours. Think about your perspective and see if you can shift it. Sometimes, I’ll look at someone I am dating and think, “I can’t believe he just did that. What an asshole.” But then I’ll stop myself and think, “Hey, you know what, wait a minute—he is dealing with my divorce and he is amazing with my daughter and he doesn’t mind that I’m essentially homeless right now and although he doesn’t love that I’m on reality TV, he totally tolerates it.” That’s a much nicer picture.
• Trust. Trusting is very hard for control freaks. We want all the information all the time and we don’t really believe anybody else will handle anything correctly. A girlfriend of mine once told me that her husband accused her of not trusting him because every time he told her something, she had to look it up to see if it was true, and every time he said he would do something, she had to check up on him to make sure he really did it. She totally copped to it. She said, “I don’t trust you, but don’t take it personally—I don’t trust anybody!” Yet trust is extremely important in a relationship. You might have your trust betrayed now and then, but when your trust is rewarded, it’s worth a few disappointments along the way. It might not feel like that now, but just try it. Try trusting. Try believing. Try letting your partner handle some things. You can’t learn to trust if you never give anybody the opportunity to be trusted.
• Go with the flow. Sometimes, the path will guide you. You don’t have to have a map. This is similar to trusting. Just go with what’s happening and see where it ends up. Maybe it will end up somewhere better than where you would have forced it to go, or maybe you will avoid the disastrous results of being overcontrolling. I like to use this strategy when I feel like a relationship has gotten ahold of me, and I want to get ahold of it. There is something very peaceful about just letting it go, not forcing it, not white-knuckling. Just seeing what is true and going with it and accepting it. When you can do that, then, in that moment, everything feels okay. It is what it is. Try letting that be true for a while and see what happens to your perception.
• Don’t let the future control your reality. Once I was dating a guy and it was going really well, but it just so happened that our leases were both ending within a few months and we were both considering buying apartments. I got it in my head that if we were both going to buy, then we should just buy an apartment together and move in. He wasn’t ready to move in together. I took this really personally, even though in truth, it was too early for us to live together. It was also too late for us to choose to live separately. It was a weird situation. I began to battle, even though somewhere deep down I knew I wasn’t ready to move in with him, either. I latched on to this idea of moving in together like a dog on a bone, and I wouldn’t let it go. Emotionally, I was scared. Intellectually, I got it, but my control issues wouldn’t let me be rational. I wanted to know what it meant for our futures if we were investing in separate properties, even though it wasn’t the right time to combine our resources. I kept wanting to talk about it until it became a very sore topic, but I wasn’t recognizing his level of unreadiness. Men need to feel like they are financially established (if they are real men, not still boys). They need to have an identity when it comes to money. They want to be self-sufficient and capable of being providers, and he wasn’t in this place yet. But all I could see was my perception of his rejection of me. I tried so hard to control the situation with constant harping and unproductive, angry conversations that I was doing damage to the relationship to the point where no one would want to live with me anyway. I could barely live with myself. Finally, I realized what I was doing. The future cannot govern the present. Relationship shifts have to be right for both of you right now, not in some nebulous “someday.” When I let it go and let it breathe, we both calmed down and we could come together again. We didn’t end up moving in together, and that was right for us. Rushing it would have been a mistake. Sometimes you just need to leave it alone.
• Try vulnerability. Being vulnerable can be even scarier than trusting for people with control issues. Vulnerability can feel like standing naked in the street. However, vulnerability can result in leaps forward for a relationship that is stuck. A friend of mine once said to me, “Shared intimacy equals shared vulnerability.” Sometimes when you are both battling for control, going head to head, and your egos are clashing, a moment of vulnerability can stop the runaway train. What if you just said, “Hey, the truth is, I miss you every day when we aren’t together and right now I’m feeling a little needy and insecure that you might not feel the same way.” Maybe you say, “I’m worried that because you make more money than I do, you are better than me.” Maybe you say, “I’m feeling really alone because we haven’t physically connected in a while, and I need that.” Maybe you say, “I’m worried about aging and the fact that I’m older than you.” Maybe you say, “I’m worried that because I don’t have a job, you’ll get bored of me.” Maybe you say, “This baby weight makes me feel fat and insecure. I need you to tell me I’m still sexy to you.” Ultimately, being willing to show your vulnerability is a sign of security, not in your own power but in the power of the relationship.
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DR. AMADOR SAYS . . .
Expressing vulnerability works almost every time. Pardon the dog analogy, but do you want to be the snarling dog baring her teeth, or the one on her back showing her underbelly, completely vulnerable but clearly asking to have her belly scratched? Studies of self-disclosure of vulnerability find that the person being trusted with the display of vulnerability nearly always returns the same level of trust and vulnerability. The payoff is usually within moments, not days or weeks. That’s a good return on your vulnerability investment.
—XAVIER AMADOR, PH.D., PRESIDENT, LEAP INSTITUTE, WWW.LEAPINSTITUTE.ORG
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• Step off. Sometimes you just need to back up and get out of the way. Other people aren’t always willing to deal with an issue the second that you are. People can be moody. Sometimes they just don’t want to deal with something difficult. A guy I once dated could be in a bad mood for a week and I wouldn’t see him for days at a time. I had to learn to just have a glass of wine and chill out and call my girlfriends instead of badgering him. I had to realize that 1) it wasn’t about me and 2) he wasn’t right for me. His stuff, his retreats, his moods had nothing to do with me. They were his. When women get scared, many of us tend to go into battle mode. If we aren’t getting exactly what we need at that moment, we decide that we are gone. Then our men panic. It’s like poking a bear in its cave. We are standing in front of the cave badgering the bear: “What’s going on?” “What’s happening with us?” “How do I need to think about this now?” And the men just want to roar at us. It doesn’t work because when a man is in his cave, he needs to be there, and we need to see that and leave him alone and wait until he comes back out into the light. Sometimes you just have to let that happen and recognize that you can’t control it, and furthermore, that it has nothing to do with you.
• Recognize that oftentimes, things have nothing to do with you. Yes, it’s true. Sometimes people will snap at you, yell at you, ignore you, or not pick up the phone when you call, for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with you or anything you said or did. This is really hard for a lot of women to understand, myself included, but it’s true. Your partner not only isn’t necessarily thinking about you at every moment, but isn’t always going to be on the same page with whatever you are going through. He is not a mind reader. He is not in your brain. He has his own shit. How often have you thought or even said out loud something like, “I had a really bad day yesterday, and you didn’t even care. You weren’t even compassionate!” He had his own day, and it might have been crappy, too. He wasn’t at your job with you. He didn’t see what that person said to you or feel how it made you feel. He was probably too busy dealing with whatever was happening to him (like we all are). Just like you can’t assume somebody else’s bad mood is about you, you also have to take ownership for your own feelings and recognize that your bad mood is about you, not about somebody else’s failure to perceive it. If you need support, you need to ask for it. Directly. When you realize that it’s not all about you, you also realize that there is no point in controlling every single thing in the universe. It suddenly becomes much easier to give some of that up.
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GIRL TALK
Women and men both get emotional in different ways, but what I find curious is that even though women are so smart and we always know what to do, in relationships, we let our emotions get the best of us and all that goes out the window. We overthink everything and convince ourselves that what we have concocted in our brains is true. Meanwhile, men just act. It’s more instinctual. We should try this more often.
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• Recognize your significant attention requirements. We all do it—we want attention. Even people who say they are shy or introverted have roundabout ways of getting the attention they need. Humans are social creatures and we want to know that other people know we are here. That’s fine unless we take it too far, and I know a lot of women, myself included, who take it too far on a daily basis. Here’s what I’ve figured out: The universe will not implode if nobody is paying attention to you for two seconds. A lot of women need a fairly significant amount of attention and they expect to get it all from their relationships, but that’s just not realistic. Spread the wonder that is you around to multiple friends and willing family members as well as your partner, so you can get what you need without putting too much of the burden on one person. Because yes, despite how wonderful we are, our needs can be a burden when we pile them all in one spot.
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CELEBS SPEAK OUT
I had the rapper Ice Cube on my talk show once, and when he answered my question about who has the control or “runs the show” in his twenty-plus-year marriage, he said: “It’s a partnership, you know? It’s a true partnership. I respect my wife and she respects me.” I had never thought about trying to control someone else as a sign of disrespect, but that’s exactly what it is.
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Control Yourself
Ironically, if you learn to control your own actions, words, and even thoughts, you will end up having more control over the actions, words, and even thoughts of other people because we are all connected and we respond to each other’s energy. To step back and look at the big picture, controlling yourself is also really important for getting along with a partner. If you are constantly out of control or trying to control others but not control yourself, then you aren’t really in the right mental space for the give-and-take of a healthy relationship. You know that saying about the blind leading the blind? Figure out your own issues first before you start jumping all over everybody else to get them to change and adhere to your standards.
I have a guy friend who has this problem. He feels like his own issues are so complicated and so intimidating that he can’t possibly tackle them, so instead, he focuses all his energy on his wife and how she can best live her life. He says he can see so clearly what her problems are and how to fix them, but he has no idea how to fix his own, so he goes with what is easier. Sometimes his wife appreciates the constant attention, and sometimes she resents it because he gets too controlling. It really can be unpleasant to be the total focus of someone else because they can’t focus on themselves. It’s a lot of pressure.
So get your shit together first. Nobody is ever totally together and you don’t have to be perfect to be in a relationship, obviously, but you should at least know your issues and be working on them. You have to know yourself and be self-conscious in this way. Know that you tend to control or manipulate. Know that you tend to cave and be a doormat. Know that you tend to drop everything for your man or refuse to admit for one second that you need anybody. When you know yourself, only then can you really know someone else.
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DR. AMADOR SAYS . . .
A few words about controlling yourself: Pain is never an option. Misery always is. What I mean is that you cannot control what you feel. Expect to feel unwanted, unexpected, and painful feelings. What you do with your feelings determines if you choose happiness versus misery.
Letting go of those things you’re angry or sad about that you cannot change is one important technique we’ve already discussed. The other is simple acceptance. You’re going to feel a lot when you’re in a relationship. You can’t help what you feel, but you can change your thought about it. The irony is that by changing your thoughts (letting go of things you cannot control, deciding not to rent him space between your ears, going over and over how he hurt or disappointed you, etc.), your emotions can calm down all on their own. More importantly, by knowing your emotional life well, you can make better decisions about how you act or don’t act based on your emotions. This looks and feels a lot like having control without actually being controlling.
—XAVIER AMADOR, PH.D., PRESIDENT, LEAP INSTITUTE, WWW.LEAPINSTITUTE.ORG
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Here’s how this could work in real life. If you’re having an argument, or feeling like somebody else is doing something wrong or something you don’t like, or if you are just angry or frustrated, stop for a minute. What is making you upset? Pinpoint it. Really nail it down. Is it because your partner isn’t doing something the way you think it should be done? Is it because your partner isn’t acting the way you think someone should act? Is it because anybody else did anything? This is the time to turn the ship around. Forget what the other person is doing and look at yourself. Why does that behavior make you angry? Is it because of how it looks to others? Is it because you feel it’s not “good enough” for you? Is it because you feel neglected or unimportant? These are things you can do something about because they involve your attitude. How will you choose to view this situation? What is the best way to get a good result? Nagging and forcing and threatening obviously don’t get good results, so why are you doing that? Really break this down logically. How will you respond? What will you say? How will you feel?
When you turn it around to focus on your own reactions, everything looks different, like the world in a mirror. You can even take this further. What specifically bothers you? See if, in actuality, the thing that bothers you in somebody else is what really bothers you about yourself. Let’s say your partner doesn’t help out around the house enough. What if you ask yourself, “Do I help out around the house enough?” Maybe your first answer is, “Yes! I do everything and he does nothing!” But take it further. Do you help around the house too much? Do you let anyone help, or do you criticize whenever anybody does something differently than you would? Do you honestly think you would like it if your partner did more around the house? What if he started cleaning everything and making the dinner plans and telling you what to do all the time? Sometimes it’s nice to be the Mom everybody needs. What if he started doing all the playdates and making all the snacks and getting all the snuggles? How would you feel about that? When it comes to housework, what if he didn’t do it the way you think it should be done? Or do you actually not do that much and you think someone else should because you work so hard? Ask yourself all these questions, focusing on you.
Your partner may have serious issues about helping out around the house, or maybe they are actually your issues. Or both. If you talk about it, focus on your issues, and your partner will feel less attacked and more able to bring up his own issues in an intimate and vulnerable way.
Here’s another example. Maybe you think your partner doesn’t earn enough money, or has a job that isn’t prestigious enough, or just isn’t good enough at something, in your opinion. Why do you care so much what somebody else does for a living? What is it about money that triggers you? (See chapter 8.) What are your preconceptions about, for example, how a husband is supposed to be? Would you really honestly like it if your husband made all the money, or would you feel weak and threatened? Would you really honestly like it if your husband’s job was so prestigious that everybody gave him respect and treated you like arm candy? What if he had a big job but no more free time to spend with you? If you were both in high-powered careers, would you butt heads and compete too much?
If you are better or more competent at something, you may have to lower your standards about that one thing a little bit, or you will make the other person feel useless. Instead, think about what he is doing that you don’t do very well. We are all good at some things and bad at some things. In your more irritable moments you might think that you are better at everything, but I bet if you really think about it, you’ll realize that’s not true. Women with power can be just as judgmental and holier-than-thou as men with power. Give credit where credit is due, and recognize that it is unreasonable to demand perfection. Don’t punish people for being less good at something than you are, like making money or keeping an organized house or whatever it is. And don’t forget to take a look in the mirror. What bothers you about others is very likely to be what bothers you about yourself.
Maybe your partner just did something stupid, like got too drunk and acted ridiculous. Think about whether you get too drunk and act ridiculous sometimes, and are you really angry at yourself? Or have you stopped yourself from doing this now so you think he should, too? Or do you do something else ridiculous? Are you taking out feelings you have about yourself on your partner?
Maybe you want more public displays of affection and he doesn’t. Why do you want that? Do you doubt his love for you, or are you just needy or insecure so you want everybody else to see how much he loves you?
There are a lot of ways to do this, but I find there is almost always something I’m actually angry at myself about, and I’m taking it out on somebody else. Your issues are almost always about you. It’s extremely difficult, but try not to project yourself onto your partner. But even if that’s not the case, try asking yourself the questions. What is it about you that makes you have a problem with what anybody else is doing, and how can you work on this for yourself? Again, when you discuss the issue with your partner, say how you feel about yourself, not about what anybody else should be doing. Be vulnerable. Say, “I don’t know why I get so weird about these conventional roles when I love having a power career and that isn’t as important to you. I don’t know why I get distracted by this and why I don’t just focus on all the great things you do in your life.” Say, “I know logically that we have enough money and money isn’t that important, but I still have this issue, which is something I need to work on, where I cave in to this stereotype that the man is supposed to make more money.” Whatever it is that you are feeling about yourself and your own problems dealing with something, say that. Think about that. Work on that, and suddenly you are controlling yourself. Because maybe it’s your noise, not his.
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GIRL TALK
Sometimes the best way to control yourself is to get back in touch with yourself. Maybe you are feeling too emotional, PMS-y, unattractive, insecure, and you don’t like your own behavior but you can’t seem to snap out of it. When this happens, the answer isn’t necessarily to let your partner take control. This is a time to take care of yourself. Do some yoga or go for a walk. Move. Breathe fresh air. Buy a new dress or some lingerie. Get your hair blown out. Have a spa day. Meditate. Replenish your stores so you feel like yourself again, and remind yourself that you are capable of giving yourself exactly what you need.
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Regaining Control
What about the opposite situation? If you have a controlling partner, life can be miserable, or it can be incredibly easy but totally unfulfilling. Women tend to respond in one of two ways to a controlling partner: They either cave and allow their partners to run the show, feeling lucky sometimes but totally worthless at other times, or they fight and try to control right back.
Ironically, the worst way to try to regain control from a controlling person is to be a controlling person. When you get strict, harsh, lecture-y, condescending, or parental with your partner, you might feel strong for a minute, but you will actually lose even more control. You might win battles but you are losing the war. Don’t confuse put-downs and criticism with having the reins. I’ve had times in relationships where I got irritable or annoyed and became abrasive or demanding, and it usually had the effect of either driving the person away from me or beating the person down. You might sometimes get someone to do what you want with this method, but it won’t feel like a victory. It’s a zero-sum game. If somebody wins, somebody loses.
On the other side are the men who just walk away from controlling behavior. They’re not having it. Suddenly it becomes a good day to play golf or go out with the guys—in other words, a good day to get away from you because you aren’t being nice and they don’t want to be around someone who is acting that way. This is just a further way to control you, by ceding control. They might give in to you in the moment, but either they are just humoring you or the relationship will deteriorate.
When your partner is acting controlling because he’s feeling like he isn’t getting enough attention, focus, or affection from you, the best way to handle the controlling behavior is to give your partner exactly what he needs. This can be difficult if you are more inclined to punish bad behavior, but in this case, controlling behavior is a cry for help. When you recognize that bad behavior comes from a lack of attention, swallow your pride and give your partner what he needs. Lavish attention. Soften. Say things like, “I’m there for you,” “I love you so much,” “What do you need from me right now?” Give your partner a massage or oral sex or cook a really nice dinner, and you will quickly regain control. This kind of behavior simultaneously makes your partner feel acknowledged, which is often what controlling behavior seeks. Remember, all men really want is to have a good day. Most men are really just little boys inside, and this kind of behavior also makes them feel like you are taking care of them. I once gave my boyfriend breakfast in bed, and it made his life. That puts you back in charge.
If this doesn’t work, the controlling behavior might be coming from a place of stress or oversaturation. Introverted people often need to withdraw, and controlling behavior might be a way to try to push you way. When you suspect this is the case, you can regain control by relinquishing control. Nothing will drive an introverted person away like controlling behavior. Remember that the least interested party always wins. If you let go and stop trying to manhandle a situation, if you detach yourself, then the other person might recognize your retreat, feel relieved, replenish his energy, and then try to regain your interest. By doing nothing, you end up controlling the situation instead of suffocating it.
You can also shake things up. Just like with diets or shampoos, sometimes you need to change what you are doing to get a good result. Suggest your partner spend some time with his other friends. Say, “Let’s go out next weekend. This weekend, go ahead and have your guy time,” or whatever you think your partner needs. This shakes the other person up and puts you back in control because if you’ve been particularly needy and suddenly you aren’t, the game changes.
The exception to all of this is people who are abusively controlling. When there is continual physical, verbal, or emotional abuse, nothing you can do will change that situation because it is a defect in the other person. You cannot achieve control equality with an abuser. The behavior of that person is not your fault and has nothing to do with you, aside from the fact that you are being targeted. In this kind of situation, you need to step away from the relationship. Seek help from friends and professionals if you can’t do it on your own. All the strategies in the world won’t help you. It’s a losing battle and you need to get out before you get hurt any further.
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HOW TO LOSE CONTROL |
HOW TO GAIN CONTROL |
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You will lose control when you act like this: Controlling Insulting Demanding Condescending Aggressive Passive-aggressive Irritated Mean Petty Crazy Annoyed Annoying Insecure Critical Bossy Negative |
You will gain control when you act like this: Willing to share control Complimentary (sincerely) Easygoing Encouraging Straightforward Patient Kind, compassionate Supportive Laid-back Confident Empathetic Soft Loving Calm Attentive Positive |
Control-Issue Red Flags
Maybe your relationship pattern is so ingrained that you aren’t really sure whether the control dynamic is natural or dysfunctional. You might suspect it’s dysfunctional but you might not be exactly sure how. Is it you? Is it your partner? Is it a mutual battle? These are things some people who tend to be controlling do. Watch out for these and get control over the other person’s attempts at control. Here are the issues I’ve personally witnessed and heard about that are major control red flags.
The Manager
Does your partner always determine what you will do in your free time together? Or is it you? Does one person always make the reservations, choose the restaurants, plan the vacations, dictate the hobbies, decide on the fitness activities, choose the dinner menu? This can lead to resentment, so find a way to shake it up. Ask the other person to take the opposite role at least some of the time. Say, “Can you choose the restaurant tonight?” or “Let me surprise you with dinner this time,” or “Let’s brainstorm the best plan for our next vacation.” If one person is good at making plans and the other person usually genuinely doesn’t care what they do, where they go, or what they eat, then that’s okay, but it’s still a good idea to tip the balance once in a while. When you’re the one who decides everything all the time, if your boyfriend makes you dinner or your husband buys you flowers, that can make a huge difference in how you feel about always having to make plans.
This can become an even more extreme situation when one person always decides how the other person will dress, look, and talk. One person might decide how to parent, what sports the kids will play, and who your friends are. This is an even more controlling person than the one who makes all the plans. If someone determines all the aspects of your life, or if you do that to someone else, that can be dangerously controlling behavior. Or it might just be the way your relationship dynamic has evolved (dysfunctionally). Maybe one person is passive and lets the other person determine everything, while the other person tends to have strong opinions and likes it that way. If one person is only happy when the other person is doing what they want, that’s a problem.
If this is the case and you recognize it, shake things up. Take ownership of the things that really matter to you, and delegate the other ones to your partner. Maybe you can agree to dress and present yourselves according to certain mutually agreed-upon standards but with individual freedom. Maybe your husband will agree not to look like a homeless person when he goes out in public, or you’ll agree to wear something sexier than sweatpants and a ratty T-shirt once in a while. If this can be about a mutual attempt to help each other be better and help the marriage rather than one person’s megamaniacal attempt to control the other, then it could work. Maybe you handle kid activities like playdates and your partner agrees to handle social plans, within reason—but you should still get to see your friends and he should still spend time with the kids. Maybe you agree on a set of mutual friends, but you each reserve the right to have one day every week, two weeks, or month when you each make your own plans. Living with a very controlling person can require a bit of bravery, and there aren’t clear lines between assertiveness, aggressiveness, and abusiveness. It’s a spectrum, so be careful. If the control isn’t malicious, then the controlling partner might actually be relieved to have the other person step up and take on some of the responsibility. Maybe the control comes from defensiveness, or a competitive spirit, or even fear. If you find yourself completely unable to take any control back, then seek professional help. You might be in an abusive situation and you need to get out.
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JUST THE TIP
A lot of times when people get divorced, women report that their ex-husband has suddenly become Super Dad, doing everything. Maybe he never took care of the kids before and now he’s doing it all—picking them up, taking them to activities, playing with them. This can make some women really upset. Why is he such an amazing dad now? Why couldn’t he have done those things before? Some women assume this is because he is trying to get back at them or prove he’s a good father in a custody case, but part of the reason might be that in a troubled marriage, husbands and wives don’t always let each other function to the best of their potential. If this has happened to you, consider whether you might not have given your ex-husband the freedom and confidence to be the dad he had the potential to be. Maybe you emasculated him and controlled him so much that he couldn’t be his own version of a dad. Now he’s free to do that. It’s one of those sad realizations about divorce, and a good lesson to learn for next time.
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Do you steal your partner’s phone to check the texts and e-mails? Does your new love interest stalk you on the computer or monitor your computer activity when you’re in the bathroom? This is a sign of someone who not only is controlling but also has serious trust issues. Are they deserved or not? If they are (one of you has cheated), then you need to work through the problem and slowly regain trust. Trust is the foundation of a relationship and distrust is a cancer that will destroy a relationship. If the suspicious behavior is totally unwarranted, then you need to get it out in the open and either cut it off or get out of the relationship before it gets worse. And if this is you? Stop it. No stalking. No checking his phone when he goes to get a beer. Don’t be that girl.
The Know-It-All
Some people have a very high opinion of their own intelligence, and this can result in control issues when that person never lets the other person talk, always has to be right, undermines the other person’s confidence by questioning his intelligence, puts the other person down in front of other people, and always has to be right. You cannot win an argument with somebody who is in this mode, and what it signals is a basic lack of respect. People who know everything seek out relationships (consciously or not) with people who lack the confidence that they know enough. These people are easy to control. If you are in a relationship with a know-it-all, you need to either grow some balls and stand up for yourself or set some ground rules. Or just ignore it, realize it’s based on insecurity, and let them ramble. If your partner really does seem to know it all, well then, it’s nice to have a brilliant and intelligent partner, but you also deserve someone who makes you feel special, not less-than. Some people don’t want an equal in a relationship. They want someone they can boss around, and if you find yourself in this situation (on either side of it), you might need to make some changes. You might need counseling, or you might need to leave. If it’s you, you might need to practice holding your tongue and learning how to respect your partner more. Most people deserve it.
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One of the most challenging situations for controlling women is to have a husband or boyfriend who is a stay-at-home dad or househusband. Theoretically, I think this is an honorable thing to do, and I know it makes sense for many couples when the mom has a better and/or more lucrative job than the dad. What I’m going to say might be controversial, but I have never met a woman who truly embraces her husband being a stay-at-home dad in its entirety. They feel compelled to justify it. For one thing, men have enough trouble as it is dealing with making less money than a woman. It is fundamentally contradictory to who and what a man is. When they become entirely financially dependent on a woman and spend the day cleaning house and taking care of the kids, it does something to them. It saps confidence and self-esteem and it is emasculating. As for the woman, it’s great to have a job and make money and I know many women wish their husbands would do more kid stuff, but the fact is that when a man is doing all the child care and the woman is making all the money, it can become a turnoff. The woman becomes too hard and resentful and the man becomes too soft and resentful, and all that will show up in the bedroom. All the moms think it’s so sweet to have the dad at the playdate, but I don’t think most women ultimately want a husband who is doing this. Of course there are exceptions to every rule and I might end up seeing lots of examples of families doing this successfully, but I think that if it does work, it is unusual and difficult, and it would take two very confident and unique people.
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The Jealous Lover
A little jealousy can energize a relationship, but chronic jealousy can tear it apart. If you or your partner is always jealous, first consider: Is the jealousy warranted? This can be linked to trust issues if one person has cheated, and you’ll need to work that out or end the relationship if you can’t.
A dash of jealousy can be nice, a fun way to keep things exciting. You can say cute things like, “Hey, that hot girl better not come near my man!” but if you or your partner gets obsessive about it, your relationship will stall. Jealousy is a dangerous game. If you try to invoke it, it could work to rekindle things (like the toy on the playground a child doesn’t want until another kid picks it up), but you have to be very careful with it because it can easily backfire.
If your man glances at another woman, no big deal. What girl doesn’t notice a good-looking man? But if your guy turns his head and looks her up and down like a dog eyeing a juicy steak, that’s a problem. When the person you’re with is slobbering over or monopolizing the attention of another woman, it will probably make you feel jealous, but not in a good way. You won’t feel motivated to win your man back. You’ll just be pissed off at him.
If you want to make your guy jealous, a little goes a long way, and be careful because it can backfire. Men don’t want to hear about the guys you’ve been with before. They don’t want to know the details. They don’t want to know anything. Let them figure it out for themselves. They will notice if a guy is flirting with you and will respect that somebody else wants you but that you walked away from it, rather than getting engaged in the flirtation. If you are obviously coveted but respond by moving closer to your guy, that makes him feel not just better but a stronger sense of loyalty to you. Be extra nice to your guy when other guys are trying to flirt with you. If he knows everybody wants you but you choose him, the dividends will be huge.
If, however, jealousy is just a random constant problem in your relationship, that is a serious red flag. You need to either stop it by distracting yourself until you get out of the habit or call out your guy about it before it turns ugly (because it often does). An unreasonably jealous person can turn into an extremely controlling person, and an extremely controlling person can turn into a violent person. If the jealousy is incurable, get out now.
One final point about jealousy: If you are married or if you’ve been with someone for a long time and you are not habitually a jealous person, and you suddenly feel like something is off and you have strange feelings of jealousy about someone your partner knows, listen to that intuition. Women have a sixth sense about these things. You probably have it for a reason. Your partner might not have actually done anything yet, but people who know each other well can sense when something changes. Trust it and say something. Don’t be jealous solely based on suspicion due to past behavior. People who cheated aren’t always going to do it again. Is Tiger Woods going to cheat again? Maybe not. An isolated incident could be the result of a particular relationship dynamic. But habitual cheaters cheat in every relationship they’ve been in. Think about whether your suspicion is based on assumptions or on a real feeling that something has changed and something is off. If it’s the latter, then trust it.
Years ago I was lying in bed with a former boyfriend and the phone rang at three a.m. Some girl said, “Can I speak to my boyfriend?” Alarmed, I hung up the phone and then lay awake for two hours. Finally at five a.m., I *69ed the number (that’s old-fashioned caller ID—shows you how old I am!) and she and I had a long conversation. It turns out he was having an affair with her. Hey, it happens to the best of us.
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JUST THE TIP
Another mistake some women make when playing the jealousy game is remaining friends with their exes. This might seem harmless to you. You might not even realize you are playing a game, but you are. This is incredibly threatening to most men, and a lot of women, too. If you get along so well now, they wonder, then why did you break up? We see the complexity of our past relationships and we know exactly why they didn’t work. We might think, He was a horrible husband/boyfriend, but he’s a great friend.
That’s all fine for you, but for your current relationship, it’s a disaster. You don’t have to pretend to hate your ex if you legitimately like him now that you aren’t together. However, minimize the contact and don’t talk about him all the time. Disengage. You ended that relationship for a reason, so stop hanging on in ways that aren’t necessary, for example, parenting your kids. Also consider whether there is still some small part of you that longs for that past relationship. You might never act on it, but if there is still a tiny torch there somewhere, your current guy can sense it. If you have kids, there will be necessary contact, but it shouldn’t appear enjoyable to you. Whether you think this is idiotic or not, and whether you think your past relationship should be irrelevant to your current one, it isn’t irrelevant. It matters, and if you really want to invest in your current relationship, you need to let the past one go. You should not be emotionally invested in that person anymore. Every now and then you will meet a couple who still socialize with one or both of their exes, but this is extremely rare and you shouldn’t expect your guy to be cool with it. If he is, you got lucky. If he’s not, he’s normal. Respect him enough to understand this.
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The Textual Person
If your partner only likes to communicate via text, recognize that this is a bad habit, even addictive, and also a way to control you. You might prefer texts too, just because they feel safer. A text doesn’t come with facial expressions (emoticons or emojis or whatever we call them now don’t count). It doesn’t come with intonation, and there are many ways to subtly manipulate a person just by the way you do or do not answer a text, or how long you take to answer a text. The problem with texts is that they don’t give you a real sense of the other person. They delay and even destroy real intimacy. When a relationship is new, you have the opportunity to establish good habits and lay down the ground rules, and texting is one very common area where this will be necessary since people communicate this way so often now. Things always end up the way they started. If it starts with texting, that’s probably how the breakup will happen. And nobody wants to be broken up with by text.
Personally, I think texting sucks in many ways. Sure, it has its uses. Sometimes it’s convenient, I know. You can exchange information quickly. But for relationship growth, the text zone is a dead zone. When you are in the text zone, you are always like a fish with a hook in its lip. You are being pulled along, waiting for a response to your text, trying to evaluate and analyze what somebody really meant by a text, what the tone was supposed to be, whether those CAPS meant the person was yelling at you or had the CAPS LOCK key stuck on or was just excited. When I am texting, I feel a lot of anxiety. When I stop texting, I feel calm.
This also goes for e-mail and Facetime or Skype or other forms of video chatting and anything technological beyond an actual telephone. I have found that the people who are obsessed with texting or other forms of technology for human communication tend to have intimacy issues. For a disconnected person, texting is a dream. In a text, you don’t have to look someone in the eye or deal with the immediate reaction to what you say. There is a safe zone that happens between texts, for those who fear a real connection. They can get the immediate gratification of a relationship without the accountability for their behavior or having to try very hard to make contact (they don’t even have to get dressed).
I have a girlfriend who met a guy at a party, and they connected over a bottle of wine. The next day, he video-chatted with her from his bedroom, and almost without her realizing it, this became their main method of communication. At first, this seemed novel and fun. He got her all set up with the video-chat program, which she had never used before. However, the more she tried to get him to call or go out with her, the more she realized that he never wanted to leave his house or socialize with people he didn’t know. She didn’t realize the full extent of the situation until it was very difficult to extricate herself.
Be a sexual person, but don’t be a textual person. Here are my simple rules for a healthy textual relationship:
1. At the beginning of a relationship, if you give someone your number, just say something simple, like “Give me a call.” If you get a text, you could text back briefly a few times but don’t let it go too far. Text back: “Why don’t you give me a call?” This sets a precedent right up front. If it continues, shut it down. Start ignoring the texts completely. Once, a guy who was interested in me wanted to text all the time. When I told him I wasn’t a “texting person” and wanted to speak to him on the phone, he fell off the grid. I could have wasted six months sending him texts and hoping it would turn into something more. I’m glad I shut it down early. At the beginning of a more recent relationship, I admitted I wasn’t a great texter. I did that in the beginning because, later, I knew I could fall back on that if he started texting me too much. He could always say, “You’re not really great at this texting thing,” and I could say, “I told you!”
2. Once you’ve received a phone call, only use texting for the exchange of brief information, like confirming details or locations. “See you at 8, I drive a Volvo,” or “In the corner booth wearing the blue shirt.”
3. Once you’ve been out on an actual date, texting is okay for brief flirtation or anticipation. “Had a great time.” “You looked so sexy last night.” “Really looking forward to tonight!” But be sure the anchor of your communication remains in-person or phone conversations. Don’t get sucked into an hours-long textual exchange, as romantic as that may seem to you. Keep it brief. Save the intimate exchanges and playful banter for in person or at least on the telephone, where you can hear each other’s voices.
4. Once you are in a long-term relationship, you don’t have to be quite so careful, unless you start to get lazy and sloppy and you stop connecting in person. If you share a life together, especially if you live together, texting does become convenient. “Can you pick up something for dinner?” “This meeting is boring! Thinking of you.” “I have a surprise for tonight . . . ;-).” The goal is to eventually have more but briefer texts and fewer but longer phone calls. It’s texting with a side of phone. This is also convenient when either or both of you are at work. Unlike a phone call, a text can be read when it’s convenient.
5. Never, ever, ever have emotional conversations, arguments, or important discussions by text. The potential for misunderstanding is just too great. Don’t be one of those people who never looks up from her phone. Connect with real people. It feels so much better.
6. Cheaters use text. Just know that. His wife could be in the room while he’s texting you.
If you find yourself in the text zone, you need a text-ervention. Just stop texting back. Or wait to text back for a while. Instant responses mean you’re too available anyway. Answer a basic question like “When are we meeting?” but don’t answer questions like “Hey, what are you doing?” or even worse, “Hey . . .” (Translation: booty call.) Refusal to live in the text zone will separate you from the booty-call girls.
If texting has become an ingrained habit for both of you, you might also consider doing a cleanse. Agree to do it so you each know the other isn’t ignoring you. Even one day of not texting each other at all can make the biggest difference in the world, if that is how you have become used to communicating.
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JUST THE TIP
If you’ve been in a relationship for a while, there is nothing wrong with a little harmless sexting (sex over text, in case you didn’t figure that out). It’s like phone sex but with more typing. With Facetime, e-foreplay can get even more interesting. However, sexting should be about foreplay or connecting in a fun way when you are far apart and can’t meet. If you start sexting more than actually having sex, things are going in the wrong direction. Turn off the phone and have a real date.
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Control is complex, ever changing, frustrating, exhilarating, and a natural unavoidable part of any relationship, but never forget that control is, above all, about self-control. A girlfriend once told me, “Don’t annihilate your relationship.” This is what control can do. When something bothers you, sometimes you have to be vulnerable. Sometimes you have to talk about it. Sometimes you have to step back and let it breathe, or you’ll cause damage. Sometimes this is extremely difficult, but it will never be as difficult as trying to control somebody else. When it comes to control, it’s all about you.