WHO IS THE CONTROLLING ONE?

            Has your partner ever said to you, “You’re the controlling one! You are always trying to control me! You’re a controlling bitch!”

            These accusations can create confusion for the woman. So let’s clarify a few points.

            It is not control when you:

• Demand that someone treat you properly, insisting that your rights be respected (including demanding that you be spoken to with respect)
• Challenge someone about the work they are creating for you (such as by leaving messes around the house)
• Press someone to meet responsibilities that they aren’t meeting (and if you have to keep asking them over and over again, that doesn’t make you controlling, it makes them irresponsible)
• Challenge someone about behaviors of theirs that have large implications for the couple (and for the family if you have children), such as abusing alcohol, gambling, ignoring the children, or being mean to the children
• Call the police because someone is hurting you or threatening to hurt you

            It is control when you:

• Ridicule someone, make them feel stupid, or call them demeaning names, especially when you are doing so in order to force them do something or to silence them
• Physically or sexually intimidate someone
• Get revenge on someone for not doing what you told them to do or for standing up for their own opinions
• Impose double standards (make different rules for yourself than for the other person)
• Pressure or manipulate someone into sexual contact that they don’t want

            I’m willing to bet that when he calls you controlling, he is referring to things you do from the first list, and that when you call him controlling, you’re referring to things he does from the second list. He's the one getting it all backwards.

            Another useful, though tricky, concept:  It’s control when you are trying to take someone’s rights away, and it’s self-defense when you are trying to keep someone else from taking your rights away. (The reason this gets tricky is because the controlling man will often say that you are trying to take his rights away, because he thinks he has the right to abuse you.)

            And a last concept:  The abusive man will call you “controlling” for resisting his control. Noticing when this is happening will be a huge help to you.

HE WANTS SEX AT THE WRONG TIMES

            Verbal abuse is not sexy. Intimidation is not sexy. Public humiliation is not sexy. Ruining the day is not sexy. So why does he think that a short period of time – say a couple of hours -- after he’s been treating you terribly could somehow be a good time for sex? He really thinks that this is when you are going to be in the mood?

            Not exactly. The problem, as is so often true with abusive men, is that he isn’t thinking about you at all; he’s thinking only about himself. He wants sex to reassure himself that he hasn’t driven you away, and that he still has access to your body. He thinks that if he can get you to have sex, that also means he has erased from history the destructive acts he did earlier. And he wants to have sex because in some twisted way his ugly behavior made him feel close, even though it had the opposite effect on you.

            And because of the ways he’s been tearing you down, it gets hard for you to say no to sex that you don’t want; you can end up feeling like giving him what he wants is the only way to settle him down so that he doesn’t launch into more abuse, or even violence.

            He is the one whose reactions are unhealthy, not yours. The feelings you are going through are completely natural for a woman who has been demeaned and bullied. When he has sex with you following one of his incidents, that is a form of sexual abuse, even if you don’t – or can’t – fight him on it. Keep reminding yourself that the sickness is in him, not in you. Sex after abuse is just more abuse.

"HOW MUCH SHOULD I STAND UP TO HIM?"

One of the common contradictions that women hear goes like this:

“Well, it’s your own fault because you let him get away with treating you like that. You have to stand up to him.”

    while other people say

“If you’re going to get right up in his face and push his buttons like that, what do you expect? You already knew how he’d react if you said that to him, because of what has happened before, but you said it anyhow.”

            So what’s the correct way to handle him? Should you stand up to him or shouldn’t you?

            The answer is that no one has any business telling you what to do, because there are so many factors involved in the decision in each specific situation. You are the expert on your partner. You know which issues you can (usually) get away with challenging him about. And you know that there are others where he will punish you if you stand up to him. Some days you will choose to hold your ground despite the pain his retaliation will cost you; you’ll do that because the issue that you’re arguing about means that much to you, or because you can’t take being bullied anymore, or because your soul and dignity need to see you resist his dictates from time to time.

            Most people don’t understand how payback-oriented controlling and abusive men are. They don’t understand what a high price you may pay for calling him on how wrong his statements and actions are. How can someone else know when it’s worth it to you and when it isn’t?

            And as for people who are telling you not to challenge him, they too have no idea what they are talking about. While it’s true that confronting him can cost you a lot, failing to fight back eats away at your soul over time. These people are saying, in effect, that you should consent to be oppressed because it will make life look a little more peaceful, a little less overtly injurious, a little less scary. It’s the same thing as saying to someone, “You should let the invaders take your children one at a time, because otherwise they might take them all at once.”

            There are no simple solutions in dealing with a partner who bullies you, and you deserve respect and understanding about that fact from the people in your life.

WHEN YOU KNOW YOU NEED A GOOD CRY

                I wrote a previous post about the powerful healing role that crying can play, especially if you can train yourself to cry hard and long. Many women who have heard me speak about this subject have said to me, “There are times when I can tell that I need to cry, because I've built up so much pent-up emotions, but I can’t do it. How do I get that cry to come out of me when it’s stuck?”

                There are several techniques to use to get that dam to break:

•  Make a crying date with yourself, where you actually set aside time and find a way to be alone. Tears are much more likely to come when you know you won’t have to choke them right back off again.
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• Collect some of the music that has brought you to tears before. Listening to your favorite sad or touching song can be a great way to get your crying started; and once the ice breaks, you’ll move on soon to crying about issues that have been weighing on you.
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• Spend some time thinking about memories from long ago. It’s usually easier to start crying about sadnesses from far in the past. 
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• Let your crying take you where it wants to go. Sometimes you will be sad about an old loss, and suddenly you’ll find that instead you’re crying about an event from yesterday. The opposite will happen also, where tears about a recent emotional wound carry you into deep sobbing about a much earlier period in your life. Don’t fight this process; your soul knows exactly which piece it needs to grieve today. 
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• Photographs can be powerful for evoking emotion. So can certain passages from books, pieces of poetry, or scenes from movies. Draw on whatever gets you going.
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• If you have a trusted friend, see if she would sit with your or hold you while you cry. Similarly, you can imagine your best friend or closest relative sitting with you even if you are actually crying by yourself, and that image can help the tears flow.
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• Anger can help to unlock crying. Yell into a pillow or pound on couch cushions, and keep at it for a long time, ten or fifteen minutes or more. Try to make yourself feel powerful; the more your rage comes from a place of power, the more likely it is to unleash your tears.

                Almost anyone can cry (especially among women), but not many people can cry deeply and at length except by training themselves to do so. In other words, learning to cry is a skill, like studying an instrument or developing your athletic abilities. The more effort you put in the deeper the rewards.

AVOIDING PEOPLE WHEN YOU GO BACK TO HIM

                Today I am going to describe a pattern that sometimes plays out with when a woman is struggling with a partner who doesn’t treat her right. If it sounds familiar, you’ll find it helpful to recognize it and not let it happen again. And if you haven’t lived this one, you can think ahead about how to make sure you never do.

 

                It goes like this: First, you find yourself mired in one of those periods when he is just being rotten to you day after day, and you feel like you just can’t take it anymore. You rant to some of your closest people about what a jerk he is, and they are right behind you on it. You say you’re done with him, and they cheer you on to give him the boot, helping you to plan how you’ll do it. You’re all a team.

  

              But over a period of days or weeks you are feeling less and less sure. The thought of ending your relationship starts to feel overwhelming, and the loss seems too great. He senses that you are leaning toward the door – or you tell him outright – and he improves his behavior some and promises to make bigger changes. The upshot is that you are going to give it another try.

  

              Now comes the tricky part. You’ve been bonding with loved ones about how awful he is, so how do you explain to them that you’re staying?

  

              And something else starts to happen, which is that the crisis of your relationship almost coming apart makes you and your partner feel closer. He’s being sweet, and you’re feeling a little resentful towards people around you for being so negative about him. You tell yourself that they don’t really understand him, or you for that matter; in fact, you feel like he’s the only person who really gets you.

  

              So now you and he have become a secret society, a special team together against that hostile, non-comprehending world out there. You have a deep connection with each other that they just can’t grasp.

  

              In short, you have two reasons to keep them all away; you are a little ashamed in front of them, but at the same time you are feeling that you and your partner are a little bit above them.

  

              But what is really happening is that you are growing more traumatized and more isolated. Your partner is drawing you into a traumatic bond, and leading you away from your support system. Your secret society is not a healthy place to be. It’s an illusion, and a destructive one.

  

               Your people love you. Don’t cut them out. Whatever you decide about how to handle your relationship, keep reaching back toward the hands that are reaching out to you.

“I can’t ever let my partner come between me and my people. I have to see this for what it is.”

GOOD PEOPLE ABOUND

              You may feel quite shaken up in your view of the human race. Any woman who suffers serious mistreatment from a partner she had loved and trusted struggles with feelings of betrayal. And betrayal can knock you off your foundation at a core level, so that:

·           the world starts to feel like an unsafe place.

·           everyone’s motives start to be suspect

·           you start to question your sense of what is real

            If your partner were terrible all the time, it would actually be easier to deal with in many ways; you would tell yourself, “Well, he turned out to be a jerk.” But when someone you love goes back and forth between kindness and cruelty, generosity and selfishness, tenderness and intimidation, loving you and cheating on you, you can come to feel that it’s impossible to understand people. Your feelings for the primary person in your life tend to carry over into how you view everyone.

              Your partner may further feed the problem by encouraging you to think badly of others. He may tell you that people are lying to you or taking advantage of you; that your friends have hidden motives; that you are naïve in your dealings with people; that “everyone is just out for themselves.” He’s talking about himself, though he probably doesn’t know it. 

              And yes, there are sharks out there. But the world is also full of so many thoughtful, caring, honest individuals. Most people don’t use other people, or trick them, or threaten them. In fact, most people are doing their best to live ethical lives and to be decent and responsible for other people.

              So don’t let your partner (or ex-partner) distort your outlook on your species. Look for the good in people, and notice their efforts to make human connection. Be smart, yes, but don’t harden your heart. You will find many gems in the human race.

“I will stay open to people and give them a chance. I’m keeping my heart alive.”