Control Issue?!?

Long-term intimate relationships are created through a healthy balance of two committed people. Throw a control freak or controlling behavior into the mix and the possibility for lasting intimacy in a relationship vanishes. What is the difference between control freaks and the rest of us?Most of us will admit that we like being right and getting our way. Many of us will confess that being right and getting our way are so important to us that we will even make special efforts by reinforcing our point with ‘facts’ and debate. But then there are those folks who go over the top with being right and aggressively pursue getting their way. Their self-worth and sense of security seem to ride on it. They say they are not controlling, but right. Control-focused folks may insist and persist until others cave (to shut them up) or acknowledge their way as right. Blind to appropriate limits on pushing, they travel too far into others’ boundaries. These individuals are the control freaks.

Despite jumping over personal boundaries, control freaks do not cross all lines with others. Many control freaks are likable and lovable with good intentions. Some controlling people are not easily dismissed from our lives due to specific circumstances, like family or job. There are also controlling people who seem impossible to leave behind because of the toxic power they possess.These are the people who are dangerous to us because they escalate their controlling behavior with powerful threats, verbal abuse, or physical violence. This discussion does not describe these relationships. Aggressive and dominating people who cause harm or create the fear that they may do so are not control freaks.

Intimacy or closeness is severely affected in a relationship dominated by controlling behavior. Typically, the controlling person smothers the other one who becomes emotionally absent, numb, defensively passive, or simply withdraws. Over time, emotions deaden due to repeated criticism, ridicule, disagreement, and simple aggravation with the controlling partner. How can anyone continue to feel intimate or close under those circumstances?If your spouse or significant other is a control freak (or you are), ignoring, tolerating, or accepting the controlling behavior has a serious side effect: discouraging or eliminating intimacy. Too much of these passive behaviors toward a partner, especially a control freak, creates lopsidedness in the relationship. This imbalance will not satisfy the relationship needs of the tolerant, accepting, or laid-back person very well or for very long. Distance and dissatisfaction grow silently. The controlling person may not recognize it.

Moral of the story: Control freaks and their partners, who over-tolerate long-term controlling behavior from them, conspire together and can easily wipe out loving intimacy in their relationships.