October 1, 2011
Control vs. Helpful

Clients come in with concerns about being controlled by their partner. The questions that are constant might be: Who is that on the phone? Where are you going? Why are you going there? Why are you dressed up? Why are you wearing that outfit? Why haven’t you polished the counter top? Or statements: I don’t want you to be on facebook. I don’t want you to wear that garment. I don’t want you to see those friends. They are a bad influence upon you. I expect you to have the house in order when I come home. I do not want you to be friendly with or see your relatives because I do not like who they are.

Do you get the idea? A controller interferes with your relationships, your choices of how you order your work and family life, insists on every aspect of your choices to include what you wear, who you see, what you do and how you do it.

Relationships need some compatibility, but those that are invasive often end in mental or physical abuse.

This article is written for those who want to determine which relationships to pursue and which to quickly dump before they become lethal.

Often in the beginning of a relationship there are very few advert occurrences. One needs to be alert to the “none of your business” references that happen. For example, Why did you purchase that (item)? You could have gotten it cheaper elsewhere. Therefore, explore it further or put the situation on hold until other references may or may not be forth coming. If there are not any more situations, it can be forgotten. Or if the person really does validly know and can prove to you that the item or others like it may be purchased less expensively, then the person may be considered being helpful not controlling.

However, if that example is followed by another intrusion into the manner in which you clean, or how you cook, or how you dress or the time sequence of how you decide to do these things, then that is a controller.

Usually a controller is an insecure individual. The decision to remain with a moderately insecure individual should be aided by a counselor, so that the relationship can be free from future abuse. Non-professionals might miss the danger zones.

Helpful people are often labelled as controllers because they want to aide their loved one as much as possible. Since men tend to try to fix things by factual suggestions and often prefer not to hear emotional complaints, they are often listed as controllers because they may get insulted or frustrated when their advice is not followed. Think about the help offered. Is it sincere? Does it make sense? Would your life or events in your life improve if you adhered to the suggestions? If you do not always follow the suggestions even if valuable, does the partner become irate or does the partner say something like, well let me know when you are open to my suggestions in the future.

Be concerned if there is rage instead of a mild disappointment. Rage is a signature of a controller.