Power and Control in Relationships

By Mary Rose

Power is embedded in our society and makes its way into relationships through control. Hidden in everyday interactions, control is one of the major contributors to disagreements, arguments and conflicts in interpersonal relationships.

Our sense of self is the most precious thing we have. Controllers may target someone's emotional, social, financial or physical well-being, but their most effective target is a person's self- identity. That is why control is so debilitating. When our autonomy is damaged our self-worth is damaged.

But control is not simple â if someone tries to use power over another, that person will resist. Resistance in turn can become controlling. This book unravels the tangled web to show how control can take over; what is and what is not controlling behaviour; what is control and what is resistance; the effects of the power struggle; the harm it causes and how to deal with it.

While the book's focus is on romantic relationships the material applies to many types of relationship such as student/teacher, parent/child, co-workers or employee/employer. The explanations provide a framework for understanding bullying and domestic violence.

The personal strategies are helpful for many different situations in which we find we lack the skills to achieve a good outcome. By understanding how control works people can stand back and see the inner workings of their relationships and how they operate.

Chapters:

1: "Five Stages of Relationships" -Relationships can be divided into five stages: honeymoon; power struggle; parallel lives; synergy; end (by death or breakup). This chapter describes the transition from honeymoon to power struggle, where many relationships become stuck.
2: "Power Struggle" -There are differences in why people hurt others. Some want to get their own way and hurt others in the process. Some hurt others because they like seeing their pain.
3: "Why People Control" -People control to enact their beliefs. Thirteen different beliefs are investigated.
4: "Macro Control" -There are different levels of control. The most control one person can have over another is to define their reality.
5: "Social Methods of Control" -A common method of social control is to alienate a partner from their friends and family. Another is to diminish the partner in public.
6: "Resistance and Counter-Control" -People resist being controlled. Their resistance behaviours can become self-destructive. Sometimes they resist to the point that they become controlling in return.
7: "Manipulative Methods of Control" -Manipulative control can be the hardest to pin down what it is.
8: "Manipulative Arguments" -Sometimes we know the other person's argument is not right but we can't exactly say why. Common fallacious arguments y controllers use are presented.
9: "Who is Resisting and Who is Controlling?" -It can be very hard to tease out what is happening with control. The levels of control provide a clue.
10: "Covert Methods of Control" -These diminish a partner but are hidden in everyday behaviours.
11: "Overt Methods of Control" -Controllers who use overt methods believe they have the right to dominate the other person.
12: "Physical Methods of Control" -Include domestic violence where the controller uses any means to subdue their partner.
13. "Effect of the Power Struggle on the Self" -Power struggles deplete people. Continual diminishment can lead to depression. Continual criticism or attack leads to anxiety.
14. "History of Control" -Shows how values and beliefs are passed down the generations.
15 "Power of the Environment" -From our inherited behaviours to modern day social expectations our environment influences what we do and how we think.
16. "Power Over Ourselves" - looks at how people can rebuild themselves using a healthier paradigm.
17. "Does it Have to be a Power Struggle?" -The book concludes that the power to influence is

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9780987380814

Mary Rose

Mary Rose is a small town girl that was born and raised in Woodland, California. Coming from a simple town like Woodland helped her to have an overactive imagination from a young age. Spending time commuting to and from work in the beautiful valley, set the stage for God's tapestry and music to magnify her imagination. In the midst of her own battles Mary completed a Bachelor's Degree in Digital Film from Grand Canyon University. She hopes to bring her imagination to life for others to see. A mother of four strong willed kids. Two girls and two boys. Life for Mary has been a journey that's roots are in the small town of Woodland still.

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ENDNOTES

INTRODUCTION

I was once co-facilitating a helping group session when an attractive young woman asked: My partner says he loves me, but I don’t believe him. What’s wrong with me? At the time, circumstances prevented deep consideration of the question, but it stayed with me. I did not understand what lay behind such a question. I had the emerging idea that there must have been a discrepancy between his actions and his words. What I did not know was why such a discrepancy would exist.

Having a question in our mind is a bit like needing something new, like a handbag. Most of the time I take little notice of handbags – until I need a new one. Then when I pass shops, it is handbags I see in the windows; when I sit on the train I look at other people’s handbags; and I notice handbag sales when I read the paper. Like the focus on handbags, the young woman’s question stayed with me. More recently, I have taken particular notice of any information, reading, or observation that could help answer her question. While I may not have the correct explanation for her, I have found an answer to the question in a generic sense and, along the way, some clarity about similar dilemmas.

As I was formulating these ideas it became apparent that knowledge about power relations, on a personal level at least, is scarce, even in the psychotherapy world; and what knowledge there is appears to be theoretical rather than applied. The topic of power relations is encyclopaedic in size, and, in this book, I have only scratched the surface. I liken it to a whole river basin system with tributaries and rivers flowing into a major waterway. I have attempted to keep to the main flow albeit with some deviations into backwaters and creeks. It will take much more examination and research to survey and understand the full role of power in everyday social interaction.

This book is written from the perspective of intimate romantic relationships. However, the concepts can apply to any relationship where people make an emotional investment. Examples could be parent–child, boss–worker, carer–dependant and sibling or friend relationships.

Romantic relationships can be divided into five stages:¹

The beginning or honeymoon stage

Power struggle stage

Parallel lives stage

Synergy stage

End of the relationship (which may be death).

This book concentrates on the power struggle stage because it is here where many relationships become stuck (or unstuck) and fail to progress through the following stages: except to shortcut to the end.

Naturally I have written from a female perspective and because of my experience, I have included more descriptions of male-controlling behaviour than female-controlling behaviour. I am aware of the role women play in power relations and do address this, but men may well perceive a bias in my reporting. To benefit from this work it would be helpful if both men and women could imagine how the descriptions could apply to the other gender. Whilst I have attempted to be even-handed, I am essentially relying on my own research and observations, hoping they strike a chord with readers. A number of the examples I have used are fictitious, others are stories that have been related to me or an amalgam of observations, many of which have been changed slightly to protect the people involved.

My best claim to expertise in the area of power struggle is of having engaged in controlling behaviour myself. Please do not think I sit in judgement, superior to all the behaviours in this book. I have exercised control to the point that when I considered marking my own past practices with an asterisk, I was afraid the text would resemble an astronomy guide. The theme for this book could be ‘it takes one to know one’. Moreover, I have no wish to tell anyone what to do. Rather, I have described much of the learning I have achieved through making mistakes and engaging in unhelpful behaviour myself. (In counsellor language you never get to do anything bad – just unhelpful.) Awareness is the first step to change.

Since becoming aware of the negative power of power, I have tried to reduce my own controlling behaviour as much as I can. According to philosopher R G Collingwood, a hypothesis about the behaviour of an inanimate material such as coal cannot change the way the coal behaves under given conditions; however, our hypotheses about human behaviour affect the way people act as soon as they become aware of them. I hope to introduce some ideas which lead to that awareness.

The simple model of the power struggle is one of power and resistance – that is, power is exerted, and the object upon which it is exerted resists. In this case the object is a person. People will always resist power being exerted over them in order to defend their autonomy (having control over their own lives). Sometimes their behaviour is not recognised as resistance, and sometimes it is self-defeating, but there will always be resistance.

The first section of this book deals with the power struggle, why people control and resist, and the vexed problem of who is controlling and who is resisting. The mechanics of how power is wielded and its effect on people is then considered. Next some ideas about how people can gain power over themselves to obviate the need to control others are discussed. Lastly, some alternatives to the power struggle are canvassed.

Our understanding of power and how it works owes a great debt to French philosopher Michel Foucault and his writings on power, particularly the difference between power over someone and power with someone. I attempt to build on that distinction in the realm of personal interactions. Whilst power can be explained as ‘a mode of action upon the actions of others’,² it affects far more than just the actions of others. The exercise of power affects people’s feelings, thoughts and beliefs as well as their behaviours. It is these feelings, thoughts and beliefs which form the core of an individual and collectively the foundation of our society.

In our everyday lives it is easy to become caught up in the content of incidents and events. However, to understand the bigger picture we need to be able to distinguish between this content and process. For example, if we have a disagreement with another person, it is the content that usually derails us. We concentrate on what was said, the tone of voice and our feelings. We may have an uneasy, or gut, feeling that something about the interaction was not right, which directs our concentration even more to the content. All the while, however, our unconscious is aware that underlying the disagreement there is a process, and it is this which really troubles us. A process could be a system of interaction that leads to constant conflict; a series of steps that always result in us feeling bad about ourselves; or a flow of emotion that rises and crashes leaving us emotionally drained.

Content is the day-to-day matter we deal with at face value, like responding to requests, arguing the point or reacting to other’s feelings. Over time content adds up to make a pattern that we may begin to see. The pattern is only the visible part of the process. For example one bubble in a glass of wine is insignificant but more and more bubbles make champagne. We see the pattern, which is the champagne, and if we look closely we see the individual content which is each bubble. But what we do not see is the process, which in the case of champagne is fermentation.

In the case of power in relationships, firstly we may see individual instances of controlling behaviour. These instances can aggregate to make a pattern of behaviour which we perceive. What we often do not recognise though are the social forces at work that allow, or are a catalyst for, such behaviour. These forces are part of the process that generates controlling behaviour.

To divine the process from the pattern we need to be able to take both the bird’s eye view, which shows the patterns the aggregated details make, and the magnified view which shows the detail of interactions. Even then allotting motive, cause, and effect can be difficult.

In this book I try to describe content as part of processes. These processes help form and sustain larger frameworks upon which people construct their lives. In doing so they affect how we feel about life, how we behave and how we react.

Control over anyone other than ourselves is, (in counselling speak) unhelpful. It diverts our focus away from control over ourselves and can breed troublesome states of mind such as arrogance and a sense of omnipotence. These reduce our ability to develop. To develop we need the desire to improve, and arrogance makes us feel we have no need to.

Sometimes people are forced into decision making on someone else’s behalf because of their intransigence, vacillation or refusal to take responsibility. Or people may be invited by another to take charge. In their own way both the invitation and the helplessness are controlling. Oscar Wilde wrote about ‘the tyranny of the weak over the strong’.³ The thing to keep in mind is that control over others not only diminishes them, but diminishes us in doing so. Being in a position where we have to make decisions for others can be an imposition; it is a burden we should not have to carry for another (except in the case of children, the aged, and the disabled).

Our social environment heavily influences how we behave and live. The overwhelming message we receive in Western countries is of the pre-eminence of the individual. Our folklore shows the individual as a pioneer, entrepreneur, or explorer struggling against the odds to achieve success. Yet it is the quality of their relationships with others that determines people’s satisfaction with life. In fact, we are more dependent on other people than folklore tells us. Our social environment sets our expectations of how our relationships will be. It informs us how they work and provides the criteria to judge their quality. It provides behavioural standards that form boundaries on what we can think and do by stipulating what is acceptable and what is not. It is our social environment that provides the frameworks within which we operate, and as such, shapes even what we may know. We cannot examine relationships without examining the social environment within which they are formed and exist.

Throughout the text I refer to ‘the controller’ and ‘the partner’. These refer to who is doing the controlling, and who is ‘receiving’, in that particular situation. It does not imply that there is one overall controller and one receiver. In each interaction there may be a controller and a receiver or there may be two controllers. For clarity’s sake, each interaction has been pared down to the one controlling behaviour, so that behaviours can be inspected individually.

So going back to the beginning and the question: My partner says he loves me but I don’t believe him. What’s wrong with me?; the short answer is: nothing. Most likely there is a difference between what he is telling you verbally and what his behaviour is telling you. Go with your gut feeling – it is a reaction to his unspoken message. He may be saying what he thinks he is supposed to feel, or he may be indulging in a power game. His idea of love may be different from yours or he may be confusing ownership with love.

CHAPTER 1

FIVE STAGES OF RELATIONSHIPS

NEED TO KNOW

For those who do not like reading introductions here are the things you missed:

The concepts explored ahead can be applied to any relationship, not just romantic ones.

Relationships can be divided into five stages: honeymoon, power struggle, parallel lives, synergy and the end (death or dissolution).

Many relationships become stuck at the power struggle stage.

There is power and there is resistance to power.

The content of our interactions add up to make a pattern which is the result of a process.

Control over others is unhelpful for them and for us.

We are strongly influenced by our social environment.

‘The controller’ refers to the person doing the controlling in that particular situation, and ‘the partner’ to the person being subjected to that power.

FIVE STAGES

HONEYMOON TIME

We all know about the honeymoon stage; it is where a couple decide to live happily-ever-after, just like in movies and books. They are in love. They have bright eyes, tingly feelings and cannot wait to see their loved one again. In their euphoria their feelings insulate them from some of the hardness of reality and they become soft and affectionate. They experience what most people seek in a relationship: intense feelings of validation, the opportunity to say goodbye to loneliness, a shared future, the start of a dream. They believe these feelings will never die.

When people in love focus on their similarities and think they have found somebody who really understands them, the sense of closeness can lead them to believe their happiness is dependent on the other. Couples can become enmeshed when their individual boundaries blur and they merge into an entanglement where they cannot function independently.⁴ The reality is that a person needs space to be an individual; without it they lose their sense of self and cannot express their individuality.

They also need other relationships to avoid isolation. Eventually people’s sense of self re-emerges, but by that time the rules and rituals that are in place can make re-assertion difficult. Enmeshment cannot last forever and the untangling can be a hurtful process.

The honeymoon period is a truly great reinforcer of behaviour: oxytocin flows, love abounds and everything feels great. If poor interactions develop during this period, one of the strongest reinforcers the world has to offer – love – supports them. This makes behaviour difficult to change after the honeymoon stage because it is associated with the glorious feelings of that time. So, it is best if people start as they mean to go on. If they ignore transgressions or minimise disturbing behaviour in the flush of love, those actions are very difficult to address later.

The seeds of destruction can be sown when the relationship is little more than an initial attraction. People have expectations of how their relationship will be, and what their partner will be like, perhaps even how they will act and what they will say. They can project desirable characteristics on to their intended and, thanks to hormones, fail to verify whether that person really has those characteristics.

Even before a relationship really starts people are influenced by their expectations. Someone expecting a phone call after a first meeting may decide to stay home, just in case, when normally they would go out. Their expectation puts them in a heightened emotional state – anticipation, so if the call does not come they become distressed. Expectations also influence our perceptions; what would generally be considered an ordinary call becomes significant. We take our expectations into a relationship.

The more troubles a couple have to overcome to get together, the more valuable their relationship seems. After all, no-one goes to that much effort if a relationship is not worth it – so theirs must be really precious and if it is that precious, then it is meant to last. Assumptions like these come into play. It is a Western notion that love/lust translates into a life-long commitment. It may have been invented to protect families and provide for the children who were inevitably conceived. Now the idea has been adopted throughout society. It has been embellished by the idea that for everyone there is one right person who will be our soul-mate. Once we find them our problems will disappear. Our weaknesses will be complemented by our partner’s strengths; everything will be rosy. These are the assumptions we take into a relationship.

Perhaps the biggest assumption people make is that their partner shares their own values and beliefs and has the same ideas of how the relationship will be. Clearly this is unrealistic, and so the period of adjustment to reality begins. People are let down when their partner does not behave as expected. Injuries result as each pushes for their own needs and they suffer pain when their beliefs clash.

Couples may lack a framework for creating a deeper union. They fall for the fable that their initial fervour will be enough to see them through, but have no joint direction or understanding for building a relationship.

People want to hang on to their heightened feelings, so they ignore or underestimate difficulties and instead try to transform their partner into the person they want them to be. It does not work. What do people do when something is not working? They try harder and they try the same. The harder they try the more disillusioned they become, so a cycle of striving and frustration sets in. Trying to revive those early intense feelings leads people into the power struggle stage. They use control in an endeavour to make their partner show their former loving behaviour.

At the start of a relationship people generally do not try to control a partner. But if control is part of their nature they may begin when they are sure of their partner’s commitment. As control sets in the relationship suffers. The honeymoon is replaced with a controlling nightmare rather than a continuing, warm, constructive relationship. Partners move from acting by choice to acting through obligation.

Couples could transition straight from the honeymoon stage to the synergy stage if boundaries had been set, realistic expectations hammered out, communication skills cultivated, and if both parties were willing to cooperate and be supportive. Unfortunately, it is not usually until after the first flush of love that these things are addressed.

Those who are unable to move to a constructive stage move into the power struggle stage of their relationship.

POWER STRUGGLE

A power struggle occurs when each partner tries to dominate the other, or when one dominates and the other resists. They can attempt to dominate in one or more areas, or they can attempt a globalised domination of the other person, and even their whole world. In this stage, instead of focusing on similarities as they do in the honeymoon stage, partners focus on their differences. Because they were happy when they seemed similar, people try to regain their sense of sameness. Each party thinks they are right and if their partner would go back to how they were, they could regain the honeymoon. In actuality their partner was never exactly like they seemed in the beginning. People put their best foot forward at the start of a relationship; not revealing their spots and blemishes. Their partner’s careful demeanour was enhanced by their own generous assessment. There are always differences, but they seemed small and insignificant at the time. Now they take on a frightening reality. The person with whom they are trying to forge a relationship has flaws, and so they try to remould those imperfections. A power struggle is born.

There is more to the power struggle than trying to reclaim the dream. Everybody wants their own self-determination, the ability to make their life in their own image. Opportunities for independence are more restricted in a relationship. Trying to cram two lives into one relationship can be difficult and requires compromise. The power struggle develops over who gets to use what resources, whose quest for individuality takes precedence and who is more important.

It can be passion alone that keeps up-and-down relationships going, and sometimes that passion is fed by conflict. Would such a relationship survive without the passion? Probably not, as it would be overwhelmed by the conflict. Generally a long term, satisfying relationship requires more than passion alone.

The power struggle escalates if one or both parties try to dominate the other. This is very common and the subject of the next chapter. It is a tragedy seeing people try harder and harder, doing the same futile things over and over. Some couples move on from the power struggle stage, but many do not. They remain trapped in a destructive dynamic which makes them unhappy for the rest of the relationship.

PARALLEL LIVES

If the relationship moves on to the parallel lives stage, it is generally because people tire of the power struggle. They settle into two camps with a demilitarised zone between. Peace ensues because partners lose interest and leave each other alone. There is little emotional connection; most is on a practical level. While they may wish for a closer relationship, the partners want to avoid the hurts and betrayals of the power struggle. Trust has diminished.

Many of the relationships that have made it this far reach a standstill at this stage; some believe it is the best they can achieve and it is at least an improvement on the power struggle. Most of the battling has been removed by avoiding sources of conflict. As they relinquish hopes of emotional fulfilment from the relationship partners forgo their controlling behaviour. They learn to avoid issues that lead to conflict, which can cause them to retreat into gender roles. They move on emotionally, even if they physically stay in the relationship.

However, maintaining a demilitarised zone does require a certain amount of cooperation: the pre-requisite for the synergy stage. The parallel lives phase can be a launching pad for a move to the synergy stage. If people build on their cooperation and learn relationship skills, if they can recognise and accept their differences and learn how to deal with their conflicts, they can move toward synergy.

Unfortunately there are few active role models around who can help people envisage what the synergy stage would be like. What people do not know, they cannot create.

SYNERGY

A relationship with synergy looks like the parallel lives stage – both partners have their own lives for which they take responsibility. In addition, however, there is a lot in the middle that holds them together. They have mutual trust and a shared commitment to a common goal. The idea behind the synergetic relationship is that the sum is greater than the parts. By acting together the partners have more power and resources than they would if each were operating independently. This is not just economic power but empowerment of each other. They enjoy greater life satisfaction and emotional support created by the relationship. The relationship has its own entity which the partners nurture. With synergy good things and good times are amplified.

An example of the sum of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts is the human body. It consists of organs, which are made up of cells, which, in turn, are mostly made up of a lot of water, carbon and some other elements. The unique arrangement of the human body parts promotes cooperation between its components, allowing the body to have a separate existence, over and above what the individual cells have. It is not the sum of the cells which make the body operational; it is both their arrangement and their cooperation that make the body what it is.

Most people are intuitively aware of synergy as an invisible glue that holds individual parts together. In a relationship they behave differently than they would alone. We see synergy operating in strong families and in successful teams. The strength of synergy comes from the interaction between the components.

A synergistic relationship requires space and nurturing, and in return it provides benefits to the individuals. This level of interaction is only possible with the cooperation of both partners and a mutual recognition of what the relationship needs and provides. People who operate at the synergy level recognise their own needs, their partner’s needs, and also the needs of the relationship. If the relationship is to provide comfort and intimacy for a couple, it behoves each individual to ensure that their interactions are consistent with that goal.

Synergetic relationships are close and powerful. To succeed they need to be open to the world; a closed synergetic relationship can be destructive. As in ‘group think’ where members egg each other on to positions further and further away from reality and their individual starting positions, synergistic relationships can depart from a healthy interaction with the world. Just as too many people marching in time can bring down a bridge, the power of a synergistic relationship can be unintentionally harmful.

Synergy is not a blessed state, where everyone can relax and take it easy. Synergy needs to be maintained. If one party starts to take the other for granted, synergy can wane. Life throws up unpredictable challenges which, if not met, can threaten the synergy. What may work well during one life phase, may not work so well in the next. To maintain quality, partners need to continually work on their relationship as well as on their individual lives.

RELATIONSHIP END

All relationships end, mainly through death or break-up. These days around 40 percent of marriages end in divorce.⁵ While it may be only one partner’s choice to end the relationship there is usually a measure of grief for both; not necessarily for what was lost, but for the end of a dream; the loss of hope that the relationship would change, or have a future. Like all grief, it needs to be acknowledged and lived through. Pushing it into another consciousness or ignoring what happened only contaminates the future. There are no rights or wrongs about grief, there is no template and very strong feelings are normal.

TRANSITION FROM HONEYMOON TO POWER STRUGGLE

In new relationships people are generally very sensitive to the other person. They sense their mood and may kid themselves they can tell what their partner is thinking. Unfortunately, that level of sensitivity is hard to sustain. People not only become desensitised, but their attention is diverted by everyday living. Other things require their concentration which blunts awareness of their partner.

People can become blasé about their good fortune. A marketing teacher informed me of a thing called flavour fatigue. He said that if you take one flavour of muesli bar on a two-hundred kilometre bike ride, it doesn’t matter how hungry you are, after a while you cannot eat another bar. If you take a variety of flavours though, you can eat the lot. You can see how flavour fatigue applies to love. After a while, what was once exciting and longed for can become pedestrian. We take things for granted.

As a relationship ages people begin to separate from their partner. Instead of seeing most of their identity as being part of a couple, their individuality re-emerges. Gradually their need for autonomy reasserts itself. When they start a new relationship people who find creating and maintaining connections difficult may invest all of their relatedness needs in their partner. For them the growing individualisation of their partner can be threatening.

And, horror of horrors, people find that sometimes other things are more interesting than spending the evening looking soulfully into their partner’s eyes. As sensitivity declines they move to a more automatic way of relating. Unfortunately that automatic way is most likely to be a reflection of how their parents related, or how their social environment dictates people should relate, with learned ways of relating, like role playing. People can move automatically into the role of husband or wife.

Most socially sanctioned roles prescribe the power relations associated with that role. Whilst they have changed somewhat over the last half century, there are still strong residual patterns of interaction that are supported, both surreptitiously and openly, through social modelling. The most stereotypical pattern is of the man demanding what he wants, and the woman manipulating to get what she wants. The man believes he has the entitlement to get what he wants – that is why he asks. The woman lacks the sense of entitlement – that is why she manipulates instead of asking. If she asks and is rejected, her self-esteem is damaged, so she works toward what she wants in a round-about way. Whilst many people reject these ways of behaving, the underlying social assumptions still remain in some form.

People sometimes feel a contribution is devalued if they have had to ask for it – that is, things given spontaneously have a higher value; things requested have a lower value. Some believe that if their partner cares enough about them they will know what they want without