537 - Breaking the Cycle: Releasing the Grip of Control

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You know, like my sister and I both have this thing where if life is stressful. There's something we both kind of compulsively feel a need to bring chaos into order by it being like, OK, I'm going to drop everything and like organize this bookshelf right now. Right. Or I'm going to drop everything and I need to break down these cardboard boxes right now.

I remember that one time Jace got mad at me about because I did it like two minutes before we had to start recording. Yeah, I remember that vividly. Yeah, we're... Like, I was stressed out about something entirely different. I think it was when I was going through my bad breakup. Like, yeah, I think that's what it was going on. I just got to do these boxes. And it was just like, no, I have to. Jeez, I have to. I have to break down these boxes right now.

Yeah, so I think, of course, trauma baggage from family of origin or even just what sort of microculture you grew up in in your family of origin can really influence those behaviors later in life. Welcome to the Multiamory podcast. I'm Jace. I'm Emily. And I'm Dedeker. We believe in looking to the future of relationships, not maintaining the status quo of the past.

Whether you're monogamous, polyamorous, swinging, casually dating, or if you just do relationships differently, we see you and we're here for you. Forcing me

On this episode of the Multiamory podcast, we're talking again about control and power in relationships. But this week, we are coming at it from the perspective of the partner who wants to have more control or more power in the relationship and might be.

taking that too far. So last week, we talked about this from the other side. I definitely recommend listening to both of these because I think it's important to get an understanding of what's going on on both sides in order to best facilitate our relationships. This one we're focusing on the perspective of the person who's trying to control.

There are a variety of reasons why someone might want to control another individual, and today we're going to look at what some of those reasons are, what the science says about it, and how you can move away from that controlling behavior to a more loving and respectful relationship. relationship. You can find links to buy it.

So from the last episode, we discussed a lot of the ways in which our partners might exhibit controlling behaviors over us. But I want the two of you to maybe think back to a time in which perhaps you were the one who wanted to control your partner. Maybe their actions or their behaviors, their decisions, something along those lines.

even if it was small, subtle ways. But can you recall a time in which perhaps you did this? This is really hard to identify because I think when it's yourself doing it, at least the way my brain works. It's very easy to have all kinds of justifications. To rationalize it, yeah. Well, yeah, because they were about to go do something completely ridiculous.

I had to save them from themselves. And of course, you know, I've never done the thing of like, you know, trying to control how a partner dresses or stuff like that. But I don't know, I might be judgy about what they're spending their money on in a particular moment or something like that.

me directly trying to control what they're spending their money on like I don't think so but it's somewhere in that spectrum where it gets a little fuzzy yeah I think Thinking back, I think if anything, an area where I may have fallen into the controlling category would be in relationships where I just want more of their time.

You know, like trying to get more of that, even if it seemed like they were less interested in that or pulling back or something. I can't think of specific examples, but that feels like... an area where i could see myself yeah in the past having gone there of kind of like i just but i want to see them i want to hold on to this relationship i want to pursue this relationship in a way that then could feel like oh gosh i'm now i'm trying to like monopolize all their time

Even if, in my mind, that wasn't what I was going for. I've definitely done that one where... Again, here comes the justification that like I can think of a relationship where, yeah, I wanted more of their time. I didn't feel like I could trust this person to be proactive in scheduling with me. Right. And so I felt this constant need to like always be all up in their calendar.

several weeks out you know and making sure that we had all this time together and also kind of having a sense of like if i don't get the time they're going to go spend it with somebody else or they're not going to spend it with me or whatever right and so i think that would probably fall in that spectrum of like trying to control at least somebody's time to a certain extent.

Yeah, most recently with a partner that I'm dating now that, you know, we're doing more non-monogamous things, like sometimes he will go sleep with someone. Sometimes I might go to a party or something that results in me sleeping with someone, but I do often have this tendency to be like, oh, so what are you doing tonight? And I think it's just... Sometimes I wonder, like, if asking the question at all is a sort of controlling behavior.

Not that I'm like trying to tell him not to do something, but it's almost to like control how much I know about a situation in order to not have these feelings of, oh, God, I have no idea what's going on. And so my mind is thinking, oh. goodness you know what is he out doing who is he out having an experience with and then feeling really insecure about it so that's almost me sort of trying to control the situation internally by asking him

What is it that you're doing tonight? Or do you have plans? Are you going somewhere kind of thing? Okay. Like the keeping tabs thing? A little bit, yeah. I wonder sometimes I'm like, am I doing this for the right reasons? Am I doing it just because I feel insecure about the situation?

I think that that can also fall on a spectrum of being just curious or, oh, I want to know what you're doing so that I have an understanding of that at all times kind of thing. Yeah, for sure. And I think that's a good example of one where.

the same question of asking depending on like what is the history within your relationship of then how you react to the answer to that question can change whether that feels like I just want to know or so that i can say you know go go get them tiger or is it i want to know because i'm trying to keep tabs on you and because i want to control you and i think that can also be affected by their past experiences with that

that for you that might not be, but if they've had a history of people really trying to keep tabs on every little thing they do, that can come across. as controlling even if that's not what you're going for sure that's a good point yeah so that that's an interesting one too because it definitely is in that area where the behavior itself isn't necessarily the problem but it could be depending on the circumstances around it

I do think outside of relationships that are romantic, we might try to control other things in our life as well. We might be a little bit of a control freak in maybe our work life or with friends and family. or just outward situations in general, how our house looks, for example, just how perfect or perfectionistic our outside world needs to be in order for us to function well. I think that all of us have probably exhibited some control freak-like tendencies at times.

So I do want to give a little bit of validation to people who feel like, yeah, I definitely have a tendency to want to control more things in my life. I feel like I'm constantly telling people that I'm like, I'm not pleasant to live with. I mean, I guess Jace can give the review because he's the one who lives with me.

right now but like i really don't think i'm the best really will be yes because i i really want control of my living space very much so and control of like the cleanliness and the organization of it interesting

Jason Lindgren, your thoughts? Yeah, yeah. I think that we have found a good compromise on that. But yeah, sometimes it's been a little bit of a point of contention of just when there's differences in... what counts as messy versus what counts as not or like what not even not even mess exactly but like where things should be stored or like how

put away certain things should be but I think that we've at least been very good about proactively communicating about that and I think that for the most part I think I'm someone who's also willing to kind of compromise stand up well stand up for what i think too and have the discussion where i think if

I were someone who were less like that, it felt more like, well, this is an area where I don't, I don't feel like I have any leg to stand on here. Then yeah, I could see getting pushed around more in that regard. Yeah, for sure.

So to start off here, I wanted to just kind of see if we have a tendency towards more controlling behavior in general, or if we're not particularly controlling in most aspects of our life. So this is from a quiz on psychology today called How Controlling Are You? So we all took this quiz. I want us to discuss the results and just sort of if we agree with the result that we got and what we thought of the quiz in general.

I will say that there's a study that has a scale for control that is a much longer quiz that I just could not find at all. And so I had to... Yeah, I had to resort to finding a Psychology Today quiz. And this one at least was a little bit longer than some of the ones that were only about five questions. I'm like, well, that's not going to tell us much. So I decided upon this one.

You can look it up and take it yourself if you are interested. But what did you two find? Well, so first of all, the thing I was going to say is this seems like it could be a quiz that might be more accurate slash more. horrifying if you gave it to somebody else to fill out about you rather than evaluating yourself because yeah that's a really good point but also intriguing because you know there are questions like micromanage other people's activities.

and it's hard for me to evaluate sure i know sometimes i can but also sometimes i don't like i don't i guess i'm in the middle right and i think it's very different if someone else has a particular impression of you

and how much you micromanage somebody else's activities or not. Yeah, that actually would be really interesting. Now I feel like we should all go do that for each other, but maybe we'll do that off air in case the results are too... too shocking yeah actually i do feel like those results would skew more in one direction or another probably like you mean like more towards the extremes yeah maybe i don't know although i'm not sure what you what you all got

Mine was right in the middle. I got a 46 out of 100. Okay. I'm like a 57. So I'm also kind of right in the middle. Yeah. Mine was, you know, skewed a little bit on the less controlling side, even though I felt like some of them, I was like, Oh God, is this going to put me in the really controlling part? I have that same fear. Yeah. Like whether you would.

go along with something or whether you would need to state your disagreement about someone's decision yeah and you know i'm like well it depends if their decision was stupid or not right it's like it's hard to i mean put yourself in a neutral mindset of across all your experiences but that's why Do you think it'd be interesting to have someone else fill it out? Yeah, one of the questions was something like, I want people to follow the directions that I give them. And I'm like...

Yeah, I do, especially in a work situation. Is that a problem? I'm like, am I their boss or is this just like random people? Exactly. Yeah, it depends on the context a little bit. See, the one I was scared of is because question nine, I sometimes put people down.

when they get too big for their boots. I love doing that. I love doing that because I hate when people have grown out of their footwear. They need to be brought down a peg. No, that's actually, that's a part of myself I really don't like.

hmm but it still sticks around is yeah i do often have a compulsion to take people down a peg if i feel like their peg is just a little too peggy you know yeah i mean i get that sometimes but it's again it's the balance right if like is this in an appropriate way or is it too

Well, no surprise. I have the highest controlling score of the three of us. I got a 60. Not ridiculous. That's still middling. Yeah, the 37 to 63 range counts as the middle of the bell curve. Only three points away from controlling, though. So I think if I try hard enough.

I think you'll get there. On a good day, you could get there. Slash, if one of you filled it out, I might end up on that end of the bell curve. I figured you'd be the highest, but I think that that makes sense, you know, just by living with people. And sort of probably growing up a little bit, you know, you tend to have to rescind control over the course of your life in various ways.

So I don't know. Well, like now that I'm an adult, now I get to have control over everybody. No, I mean, like maybe you're maybe you're a little bit more likely to be like, oh, I'll let that one go. I don't have to worry about it as much or I don't need to control the situation as much. Maybe I'm wrong, but... Interesting. Yeah. I feel like I've been in a long sort of push-pull with that at work of like, how much do I want to try to control things and how much do I say...

not my circus, not my monkeys, you know, like, and that's, I think a tough balance. And I could see that in relationships too.

Especially when it comes to things that don't directly affect you. But if it's things about, like Dedeker, you mentioned their spending habits or, you know, maybe health habits, things like that, where it's kind of this like... is this my business or not? And it's kind of in this gray area of like, yeah, kind of, sort of, and I want to help. It's coming from a good place, but maybe it's too much. And I think there is a natural push-pull on those things about like...

I don't want to not care and just be like, whatever, do your thing. But then also caring too much can get into that controlling territory. Yeah, and there can be such a slippery slope. Right. Like, let's say with money or with health or mental health, that it can start from a place of genuine concern for a partner. Like, I don't like to see them suffer. I don't like to see them struggle. And.

I feel like I have a sense of what would be good for them or what they should do, or I really wish they would do X, Y, and Z. I wish they would go see a therapist, or I wish they would stop spending their money on silly things, or I wish they would do this, or I wish they would do that. And then it's very easy to slide into.

Hey, you should be doing these things. Hey, why aren't you doing these things? Hey, why aren't you essentially, why aren't you doing these things that I'm telling you to do, even though maybe somebody might not say it exactly that way. But yeah, and I think that's why it's hard for us, at least hard for me to identify my own.

controlling behavior is because you have a sense more of like the evolution of where it comes from right of you know it's very easy for us to enact maladaptive behaviors when we feel like it's for the greater good i think Well, and often our relationships, we feel as though they are a reflection of ourselves. So if our relationship is not looking as perfect as we want it to.

that can feel like, well, I'm not giving it enough, or this is somehow a reflection of me and what I'm doing, or this means that I'm dating someone who doesn't care about these things as much as I do. And there's just a... a whole host of reasons why somebody may want to control another person. And again, like you said, it may start and come from a place of good initially, but then it may evolve into, wow, this person doesn't really care about these things. Do I actually want to be with them?

And if I do want to be with them, then I've got to figure out a way for them to fall in line to get to a place where they are doing the things that I want them to do. And I think this is a super common impulse.

in a non-monogamous relationship because especially if you're practicing polyamory something that is inherent to being non-monogamous is accepting that rather than The two of you, like, let's say being a couple and being this unit, it's accepting that you're two individuals who have individual dating lives and individual sex lives and individual interests. Which means, you know, you're in a relationship with an individual who has a life that you do not have direct control over necessarily.

I mean, sometimes that can be really freeing. Like, I think the most functional non-monogamy, that fact is actually very freeing and produces a lot of joy. when there's any aspect that feels like this is out of my control, that often the knee-jerk reaction is I need to find ways to control it, right? And so that can look like any number of ways. It can look like...

You know, like all the classic newbie rules that a lot of people like to make fun of, sometimes for good reason, you know, of like you're not allowed to have sleepovers or you're only allowed to see this person once a week. Or if I feel like you're seeing this person too often, then...

I need to find ways to kind of claw you back or, you know, one penis policy. You're not allowed to date anyone who's of my same gender or your same gender or whatever. Right. Or we can only date together. And again, I don't. I don't think anybody enacts any of those behaviors thinking, perfect, this is how I'm going to control the situation. It all comes from...

I think knee-jerk reactions from fear, from feeling like, oh my God, there's something here that's out of control. And I'm worried that if it's out of control, it's going to hurt me or I'm going to be abandoned or neglected or something like that. And therefore I need to get all up in it to influence the outcome.

A couple other variations on that, because there's that feeling, like you mentioned, of I don't have power in this area. I think this can also show up if it's less about that feeling like, oh, I don't have control over this, but maybe just feeling...

frustrated or unhappy or dissatisfied and then trying to come up with some kind of very quote logical reason for that and that's how we can end up with people having like spreadsheets or lists or trying to really like quantify every little bit of effort or something that each person brings to a relationship to then try to justify asking for more.

You know, and I think it's good to get perspective on what both people are bringing, but we've often seen the dark side of that, where people go to this place of, well, I do all these things for the relationship, or I pay more for these things, so therefore... you can't complain about this or therefore you need to do these things and shouldn't complain about having to do more of those. And I think that can show up in very explicit.

literal ways like that and it can also show up in this kind of implied well but i do this and i do all these things so you know like more of a implied sense and i think that one is really

It's tricky, right? Because on the one hand, yeah, we often encourage people to really take inventory of the emotional labor and... things that each person's doing in a relationship but it's also such a hard thing to quantify because i think usually when people make these lists they're forgetting about all of the kind of invisible parts of effort that go into a relationship or like

The decisions that were made for the benefit of the other person that then affect them all the time, like living somewhere where one person has a much easier commute than another or, you know, making some decision that.

kind of puts this ongoing burden on one partner in the relationship can easily be overlooked right because it's then oh well that was just this one thing but look at all these other things that i do and so it's just when people try to get weirdly too specific about it they can end up using it as like leverage to try to control i did quickly want to tell a story of this bartender that i was working with the other day who

said oh i i am dating this new girl i really think she's great but she wants to spend all her time with me and i told her this weekend like hey i just kind of want a weekend alone like i'm gonna take a couple days off kind of thing And she ended up coming into the restaurant while we were working. And he was like, oh, boy, hey.

And he didn't know she was going to show up? No, no, she didn't. And it was really interesting to watch that dynamic because at the end, she was like, I'll wait around for you. And he's like, I'm going to go home. And I'm going to spend the night by myself tonight. And I'm going to not be with you for the rest of this weekend, like we said, because that's what I had told you that I needed.

And I asked him, are you getting good things out of this relationship? He's like, yeah, I love spending time with her. It's great. I just can't do it all the time. I need some time alone. And there is, I think, especially in the early part of a relationship, this feeling that I am entitled to my partner's time or they don't like me if they don't want to spend all their time with me.

Yeah. And trying to control that situation in various ways like that. You know, the fact that he had said to me hours earlier, oh, yeah, I'm just taking the weekend for myself. I'm excited. And then she shows up. It was really alarming for everyone. Yeah, it was just a fascinating thing to watch. And again, I'm sure she felt like it wasn't a big deal.

But I bet part of it was her insecurity and feeling like I need to control this part of the situation. And so I want to come in and say hi to this person. But yeah, I imagine if I put myself in her shoes, maybe trying to imagine her feeling the thing that she's feeling.

I don't think that I would have a conscious sense of this is me trying to control somebody's time. Probably not. Right, it wouldn't feel like that. I think from the outside. Yeah, from the outside, that's pretty obvious. Fascinating. But I agree. Yeah, it was fascinating. Well, I hope that all goes however it's supposed to go for the greatest good for everyone involved. Yeah. Now, power and control.

is not always a bad thing. We talked about that a little bit in the last episode. It can be really great at certain situations at work. It can help aid people who are less fortunate than you are if you have some power and can use it for good.

It can help create really effective leaders, help you have more confidence in yourself. All of those things are excellent. But there is this struggle in the push and pull between how much power and control is really necessary, especially in romantic relationships. And how much is overbearing and how much is potentially damaging to those relationships?

So we're going to get into some of the research about why we can feel this need to control our partners. I think a lot of us can relate to it, but we're going to dive a little bit more into that in part two here. But first, we're going to take a quick break to talk about our sponsors. They're awesome. Thank you for supporting us and please take a moment to check out the links in our show description.

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So we've danced around this a little bit in our conversation so far, but I do think it's interesting to dive into what are... What are the reasons why controlling behavior even exists in a relationship? You know, it doesn't necessarily just come out of nowhere. It's not like this person was just like born evil and controlling and manipulative. you know, most controlling behaviors are some sort of coping mechanism or they're serving some sort of purpose.

you know the the thing that because guess what my sister also has some controlling tendencies in her home and relationship interesting almost as if almost as if there's something there's some sort of environment that we grew up in in common Yeah, no, but actually my sister and I have had a lot of good conversations about that of, you know, the things that we identified in our family of origin. One of them being, you know, growing up in a fairly like authoritarian parenting.

environment, but combined with also there being a certain amount of instability, some unpredictability in our childhoods, which for both of us has resulted in really, really wanting to control. The sense of, yeah, like home and your like little retreat space and like your little nest that you fall into, like really wanting to make sure that that's orderly and predictable. You know, like my sister and I both have this thing where if life is stressful.

There's something we both kind of compulsively feel a need to bring chaos into order by it being like, OK, I'm going to drop everything and like organize this bookshelf right now. Right. Or I'm going to drop everything and I need to break down these cardboard boxes right now. Do you remember that one time Jace got mad at me about? Because I did it like two minutes before we had to start record. Yeah, I remember that vividly. Yeah, we're...

Like I was stressed out about something entirely different. I think I was, it was when I was going through my bad breakup. Like, yeah, I think that's what it was going on. I just got to do these boxes. And it was just like, no, I have to, geez, I have to, I have to break down these boxes right now. And you're like, but why?

Yeah. Goodness. Yeah. So I think, of course, like, you know, trauma baggage from family of origin or even just what sort of microculture you grew up in in your family of origin can really.

influence those behaviors later in life yeah absolutely so i found an article in psychology today basically asking the question does your partner really want to control you Why exactly are they trying to control you? What is underneath the surface there? Because like Dedeker said, it may be...

Just a huge history of baggage from family of origin, from past relationships, from just their life being disorganized in general, and them wanting to have some sense of control over multiple aspects of their life. They also may simply just have really poor self-esteem and be deeply insecure. This is something that I found was absolutely the case with my ex.

A lot of the behaviors that he had were coming from a deep sense of insecurity. Insecurity about things like, I think, the two of you, Jason Dedeker.

he was worried that i was going to eventually just want to try to get back together with the two of you or be non-monogamous and want to leave him for that life for example and i think that that insecurity had a tendency to want to maybe put me down in a variety of ways so that they feel like they have more personal validation or raise themselves up or just feel like they...

have more control of the situation in general yeah and i think something that we didn't get into as much in the first part but i think that often shows up in making little like jokes or teasing that crosses that line into being a little bit mean. That's like taking someone down a peg. Right, yeah, it's like the taking someone down a peg thing. I'm familiar. But within your relationship, right, of making little jabs.

that can end up being hurtful. I think often what causes them to cross that line is that feeling of low self-esteem. and i think that if you feel bad about yourself it's easy to think oh maybe this other person has too high an opinion of themselves or it could even be that you're the one who has the really high opinion of them

And you feel like they need to be taken down, even though that might not be their experience. They might be just as insecure as you. But I think I definitely see that one coming a lot from more insecure people tend to be the ones that make the meanest jokes. That's a good point.

tease and stuff like that yeah yeah yeah i mean i think a lot of it again comes down to some insecurity and it could be insecurity related to your own sense of self-worth But I also think it can be related to a sense of insecurity in the relationship or an insecurity around, I don't trust that I'm going to be able to communicate what it is that I want here, or...

Maybe I don't think it's okay for me to be vulnerable and communicate what I want here. Or if I do communicate what I want, I don't think it's going to be received. And therefore I need to resort to like all these different ways to manipulate and control my partner.

into getting them to do what I want. So maybe an example, again, to take the non-monogamy example, maybe it feels too vulnerable to say, hey, I actually have this really deep fear that if I let you have just unrestricted freedom of your time...

You're going to abandon me. You're going to find this, you know, this person that you're like way more into and just like only want to spend time with them. And then I'm going to be alone that that feels too vulnerable to say it's a little bit easier for me to.

ask you endless questions about what your plans are for the weekend or like make little jabs like gosh you're spending a lot of time with this person or what you know that that it becomes a little easier and ironically safer to be a little bit more of a dick about it

Yeah, I think that in kind of traditional like default monogamy approach to relationships, often that comes up in that pressure to put a ring on it, right? To like get that commitment. Kind of also I think coming from... deeper down this sense i mean if you like it then you should have put a ring on it exactly this idea of like if you don't do something to like claim it down and to make it harder for them to leave you

then they will. Like if you don't do something to make it hard, then they will leave you. I think ultimately that boils down to a self-esteem question and kind of the confidence that this person does still want to be with me. Yeah. I think a lot of people also just have really poor communication skills, like you were saying. And there can be things like gaslighting behavior that come from that.

or resorting to things like shouting or verbally berating a partner when you're in the midst of a heated conflict. That happened a ton with me, and that was really, really difficult to, you know, worry all the time is a conversation that we have going to erupt into that. And I think that...

Sometimes that just happens because they don't know how to express themselves well, and they don't know how to really say the thing that is more vulnerable and that is possibly going to cause them to have to kind of look inward and be like... shit, where is this coming from and how can I fix it? How can I actually move myself away from all this pain and into a place of healing? It's easier to just put your partner down or make them feel small.

or worse about themselves. And that is a way of like controlling a conversation and controlling conflict. Again, I have to be careful to clarify that like feeling angry or feeling sad or feeling frustrated, like that's not wrong if that comes up during conflict. But like for sure, when I work with, especially when I work with couples that big emotive displays, whether that's.

shouting or slamming doors or dissolving into sobbing. Again, maybe nobody actually goes into that with the intent of controlling, but that is the result. Right. That often is the impact is that now this person kind of has control of the topic of conversation or of the conflict. And often it is serving a again, it's serving to defend them from having to be like vulnerable or uncomfortable in some sort of way.

Absolutely. Dedeker, the discussion that we had at the beginning of this section about you... having challenges growing up and seeing some of those same challenges with your sister and the ways that she kind of wants to control her life and her kids and her relationship and stuff like that. And that sometimes you have a tendency to do those same behaviors. I wanted to discuss this specific study because it kind of relates to that a little bit.

This is a study called perceived psychological control in early adolescence predicts lower levels of adaptation into mid adulthood. Well, gosh, they just come right out and say it, don't they? It's all right there in the title. There it is. Done. That's the case. Yeah. This was a 2020 study by Loeb et al from the University of Virginia. And specifically.

I want to talk about the fact that this study distinguishes something called behavioral control versus psychological control and what they specifically mean as behavioral control. is having rules for kids, structure for kids. They believe that that kind of control is necessary for kids when they're growing up, that they are specifically... putting systems in place so that the kid has structure in their lives, for instance.

So the stuff that as a teenager that every teenager hates anyway and thinks is so controlling of their parents that they have to be back by 10 o'clock or whatever. So that counts as behavioral control. Yes. Right. Okay. And this researcher thinks like, yeah, that's a good thing. It's good to have rules and structure. Yes, which I think I would agree with, even though maybe as kids we didn't like that as much. Yeah. But then psychological control.

is doing something like refusing to look at your child if they upset you no no emily i know i'm sorry i figured that this might touch a nerve reminding them of all of the things that you've done for them Like, I've definitely heard of parents doing that. Okay, so as in it crosses the line outside of, I need to put some boundaries around your behavior and try to get you to be a functioning adult. It crosses the line into...

To me, okay, it does sound like it's like trying to manipulate, like making it about me or trying to manipulate your psychology or the way that you think about things in particular. They also talked about... withholding love if you don't perform in school as well as you should or something. Things along those lines. A little bit of mind fuckery in your parenting. Yes, absolutely. Not to put too fine a point on it or anything. Yeah. Yes, 100%.

So this was a longitudinal study. It was measured from 184 teens from various socioeconomic backgrounds from the time they were 13 years old until they were 32. And the researchers collected interviews. They had videos of the kids interacting with friends and then later romantic partners. They got educational records and they surveyed other teens at their school about how much time they would like to spend with those adolescents in the study.

Okay, so actually, also, how popular are you? How many friends do you know? A little bit, I know, which is a little scary, but... They found that, quote, teens whose parents used more psychological control developed less supportive romantic relationships by age 27 and were less likely to be in a relationship at all by age 32. In addition, these teens went on to achieve less education by age 32.

They found that the teens were struggling with being liked by their peers at ages 15 and 16. And they had a difficult time being able to think about like challenging social situations in a nuanced way. They were able to find this by those video. interviews that they had with their peers at the school and they would ask them questions like, do you want to spend time with this person on a Saturday night? And they found that those kids that had more psychological control placed on them.

These other kids didn't want to spend as much time with them. I know it's sad, but that's why I didn't have so many friends growing up. It all makes sense. But I do think that in looking back at like my partner, who also had a similar sort of not always predictable childhood, that being able to look at things rationally and nuance.

in terms of not just being super black and white about a situation when you're in conflict with a partner. That was a lot more difficult for him to do. That's interesting because I've got a streak of that too. I think I've gotten a lot better about it, but for sure. And that was actually even something that people commented on when I was a teen, specifically. Oh, fascinating. Oh, really? I had a pretty black and white streak in me. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. So the author suggested that their findings provide strong evidence that psychological control predicts long term difficulties. And this is after ruling out other potential explanations, just like. temperament or personality or things like that but that this psychological control that parents might have had on their kids over the course of their life caused them to not be able to handle certain things as well as they might have had they been brought up in a more

supportive, loving environment, which I think makes a lot of sense. But it's something for us all to look at if we are parents. None of us are. But I think those of you out there who are, it's something to be aware of. Absolutely.

And then if you grew up in an environment like this or you know that your partner grew up in an environment like this. To have some empathy and some understanding for the fact that it might be more challenging for them to interact with you in the way that the two of you need just simply because they didn't have the tools. that made them good at being able to do that when they were growing up. And so hopefully that knowledge can allow for healing to start and to happen.

I do think that it's something just for people to be aware of, that all of this so often comes from family of origin. And I think that what Dedeker mentioned briefly, that she feels like she's gotten better at less of that black and white thinking. I think that the bigger thing there to take away, though, is that with this sort of study, it's not to say, well, you're just screwed. If this is how you were brought up, oh well, it's too late. But that being aware of it.

is the thing that lets you realize, oh, okay, this is something that I could be better at. It's possible to be a different way about this, and it might take some extra effort and some time to learn that in adulthood, but that that's possible. like that's very possible and so i think that's that's an important thing to take away here too i like these ones about childhood stuff always concern me a little bit if they seem too much like they're just saying oh well if you have this tough

But Dedeker has seen change. I've even seen change in the time I've known Dedeker. And I think we've already been doing work before that. That's excellent, dear. Yeah. And I like to think that all of us have taken steps in the time we've known each other to continue to improve ourselves and make those steps to find what are the things that we did.

out of habit because of how we were brought up or what we learned from our earliest relationships, but to actually look at those and decide which are the aspects of that that I actually do want to continue forward.

Rather than I think if we don't do that work to examine it and understand where things are coming from, we can just end up thinking, oh, well, that's just how you do it. And I think a lot of people can go through life just never really questioning or even trying to evaluate because they just.

Maybe we're brought up in a sense of like, oh, we just do this because that's how we did it. And so I think it's great to just learn about these things because I think that can help free us from the control of things that we just aren't even aware of. It's much easier for them to... to drive the car if we're not aware of them. And as soon as we are, then it changes things.

So now we're going to go into some tools for letting go of control. But first, we're going to take a quick break to talk about some sponsors. Please take a moment, use the promo codes in our episode description or use the promo codes we say in the ads if they're interesting to you. That does really help us. And of course, if you would rather get ad-free episodes, you can do that by joining our amazing community at multiamory.com slash join. It's available on a sliding scale.

And you get ad free episodes, our monthly video processing groups and access to our amazing discord or Facebook groups. It's a fantastic place where I just really love seeing the ways that people show up and support each other every day. And we would love to have. So to help you explore this, we have a pair of journaling exercises here. So the first one is more focused on reflecting on a specific instance.

Perhaps during this episode, we told a story where you're like, oof, yeah, that does seem like something that I've done. Or maybe something comes up in the future. So this one will focus on... exploring a specific thing that happened and trying to learn from that, trying to understand yourself better. And then the second one is then taking that and applying it more generally to how you approach control in your relationships.

So here's the first one. As we've been mentioning, so much of our desire for control comes from pain in the past or just patterns and habits that we've had in the past. And it's important to get an understanding for that and also to work through.

our traumas whether those are lowercase t or uppercase t traumas in order to release some of our need to control others and as we talked about in the previous episode by being less controlling and giving your partners and your friends more influence and control actually will

also make them be more likely to admire you want to spend time with you have a more satisfying sex life with you all of these things right that if we can find how we can let go of more of these we'll actually get the results that we've been wanting all along which is pretty cool. So working with a therapist or a coach is, of course, a fantastic way to do this, but you're also going to need to give this some thought on your own. And so we have...

Another journaling exercise, kind of like the one we did in the last episode, but something that I think would be great for everyone to do as just a way to explore how you approach control, how you approach. decision making and influence in your relationships. So first thing to do is get out your journal and write about a recent interaction where you felt the need to control your partner. What happened and how did you react?

Yeah, an example of this for me is similar to what I was speaking about earlier in the episode where the guy's girlfriend came to work to kind of check out what it was that he was doing, even though he had said. hey i just want to sort of stay alone this weekend and that probably caused a lot of insecurity

So, you know, you decided to go do that thing. And maybe the reaction that you got from your partner was not one of, oh, I'm so excited to see you, but rather, what are you doing here? I thought that we were going to... This is my place of work. Yes, I thought that we were not going to hang out this weekend. So why aren't you abiding by those kind of boundaries that we had put in place this weekend? Maybe another example could be, I think this is a common one, especially common for me.

Because I'm like such a stickler around time and schedules, but maybe feeling the need to like really pin a partner down on, OK, when are you going to be back home from your date? Like what time or what time can I expect to hear from you? Like I need to know specifically what it is. And again. That's a behavior where asking for timing on something like I don't think inherently in itself is wrong, but it can definitely go down this much more controlling pathway.

Another one might be about their spending or how they're spending their time. Maybe if you did a little bit of a teasing kind of way of reminding them about that. So yeah, trying to think of a situation like that.

of you know what happened what did you do it was coming from a sense of like i'm worried about this i want to control this and then to ask how did these behaviors make you feel afterward so how did you feel after you did whatever it was and then ask the question how do you think that made your partner feel based on what you observed how did they tell you that it made them feel if if they did tell you and then

Dig a little deeper into the emotions behind that desire to control. Did it come from feeling insecure or anxious or fearful for yourself? Did it come from worrying about how their actions might reflect on you? What's behind this? What was underneath that desire to affect their behavior? And then explore, are there past experiences or patterns that might be contributing to those feelings?

And then are those patterns and experiences from this relationship or are they from something in the past? And then reflect on how these tendencies might impact your relationship overall.

What are you gaining from this and what might you be losing from this? And then write down answers to these questions. What are things that I can control in my life? And then what are things that I cannot control in my life or maybe should not control in my life and just take all of that down write this out really spend some time thinking about it

So now that you've hopefully gotten a little bit more insight into yourself and how you took, it can be good to do that first chunk of the exercise and then leave it for a few days and kind of let it process and let yourself reflect. And then come back and then we have a series of prompts for looking at how this plays out in your relationships. So sit down and spend some time describing what a healthy, balanced...

relationship looks like for you. Like what qualities are present? What behaviors are present? Next, try to make a list of two or three actionable steps that you can take to release the need for control. So the whole point of this is like, how can I actually turn my controlling impulses into actions that support getting the relationship that I want? So maybe an example of this could be when I feel this urge.

to like really pin my partner down on like you know what time are you going to be back tonight like to the minute maybe what i'm going to do in that situation is i'm actually going to take five minutes just to like cool down

and notice the sensations, of course, I'm going to go for the mindfulness option, right? Take five minutes, sit down, cool down, pay attention to what my feelings are trying to tell me, and then evaluate, do I really need to ask for this in this particular moment? That's just one example. Or when I notice this need to control my partner in this particular way, I have my best friend who knows that I'm struggling with this and they've given me permission to text them.

And just like rant about all the things I wish I could control right now. And I'm going to do that instead of trying to be domineering of my partner in this particular moment. Stuff like that. Now, if you really want bonus points on this exercise, we'd highly recommend that you... Also have your partner take some time to write out what they feel a healthy and balanced relationship would look like to them.

And then use that as a foundation for the two of you to sit down and actually have an open conversation. about this right so not just talking about like what the two of you envision as far as a healthy and balanced relationship but also just having a conversation about control and i know this can be vulnerable but it can also be very helpful to bring to a partner

hey, I know that I have these behaviors that drive you nuts because you feel like they're controlling. And these are my strategies that I'm going to try on in order to make this feel a little bit better for both of us. And we always encourage... making things like this a reiterative process. So as in, like, in a radar, come back to this periodically.

After you've done this exercise together, had this conversation, make sure that you also have time for a check-in in a few weeks or in a month or something like that to have a sense of, are things feeling better? you know, my strategies to kind of let go of control more. Are they actually working for me? Are they creating more ease? Are they creating more stress so that then you can adjust and tweak from there?

And we do want to remind you when communicating with your partner in a more vulnerable and honest way, just try to use some of the tools that we've discussed in our earlier episodes. And in our book, things like the Triforce of Communication to express what it is that each of you want and need in that moment or just in general. And maybe halt if the discussion gets too heated and you need to take a pause.

Also things like clean talk or nonviolent communication as a model of how to speak to a partner through observations about what happened, expressing personal feelings, stating what you need from a partner, and then making a request of your partner.

If you're somebody who has a really difficult time expressing what your feelings are, you can use something like a Pluchik wheel to help describe to your partner what your feelings are. Google wheel of emotion. You should be able to find a guide for that. Absolutely. That's also something that's in our book as well. And repair attempts.

Are any statement or action that prevents negativity from escalating out of control help get the conversation back on track and start reestablishing the connection between you and your partner? So look for these again in our book. You can Google them. for more information, or you can go to the specific episodes that talk about each of these. We don't have episodes for every single one of these. I think all of them are in our book, but you can definitely check out that for more information.

I don't think that I'm a particularly controlling person, but I do think that sometimes... I have behaviors that are controlling, and I've found that a little bit more recently, which is interesting. I think non-monogamy, for instance, adds a whole new level of complexity and not always knowing what's going to happen next.

And so you really have to, like, let go of control to be, I think, in a healthy, non-monogamous relationship, which is probably why it's something that's great for you, too, Dedeker, just because you can't be in control all the time. I've had my work cut out for me in this life. Indeed. Well, I guess many of us have. But yeah, I think also this episode helped me have a little bit more understanding and sympathy for people in my life who have exhibited controlling behaviors over me.

just because it's it's tough like we all have challenging situations in our lives and sometimes like family of origin situations are more difficult than others and so i at least have some sympathy for that Even if ideally I wish that my ex had these exercises, for instance, to kind of dig deeper and try to heal themselves along those lines to move away from these feelings of needing to control.

But it's something for us all to be aware of and to have some compassion about. And hopefully by having conversations, it's something you can work together to make your best relationship. If this isn't something where it's like, wow, this is... out of control and we need to end this relationship if it's not that by approaching it as a team i think that you'll get much better results than just one person trying to do this on their own because if it does come from places of insecurity or

challenges from their upbringing or patterns that they've been into by both people being able to discuss that and be aware of it. If this is a relationship where you can actually support each other in making those changes, I think that will make it a much more enjoyable process along the way as well. And take it from me, folks, you know, I'm the queen of control freaks, but with effort and with loving partnerships and a lot of compassion and understanding from...

my two best friends slash two podcast co-hosts, even you can learn to let go and live a life that's a little bit more useful. Love that. Beautiful. All right, everyone.

We want to hear from you. Our question of the week, which is going to be on our Instagram stories, is what are the small, innocuous ways in which you have tried to control a partner? It'll be good for all of us to just do a little bit of self-reflection this week, I think. Just a little bit. The best place to share your thoughts with other listeners is the episode discussion channel in our Discord server, or you can post in our private Facebook group.

You can get access to these groups and join our exclusive community by going to multiamory.com slash join. In addition, you can share with us publicly on Instagram at multiamory underscore podcast. Multiamory is created and produced by Jace Lindgren, Dedeker Winston, and...

me, Emily Matlack. Our production assistants are Rachel Schenewerk and Carson Collins. Our theme song is Swarms I Know I Did by Josh and Anand from the Fractal Cave EP. The full transcript is available on this episode's page on multiamory.com.