Controlling people
Those who want to dominate and control others.
Some people need to be super-organized and control their environment to relieve feelings of anxiety and a fear of being out of control. And some people need to control those around them in order to feel powerful.
To be powerless is to have no impact on others. To be powerless is to feel unimportant, insignificant or even worthless—to other people and perhaps even to ourselves. To have power is to be able to influence or control other peoples’ opinions or behaviour, which helps dispel feelings of inferiority and protects against wounds to the ego.
To be ignored is to be irrelevant, which is a blow to our natural narcissism. So those high in narcissism are more likely to need to dominate and control others to increase their own importance.
Having power feels good. And power reinforces the grandiose self-image of highly egotistical and narcissistic individuals. Power helps such people fool themselves that they are exempt from the essential human condition of helplessness and dependency. Dominating and controlling others is a cover for our own weaknesses. It is easier and safer to control someone else than face our own faults or undertake the work of rectifying them.
There are many ways of gaining power over others. You can be dominant through aggression and intimidation or, like so many narcissists, you could use false self-representation as a tool to gain power. Narcissists often use charm and genial banter to lure admirers, to win people over and gain influence over them. Or they might tell lies or make false promises to get people to give them what they may not otherwise give or do what they may not otherwise do. Narcissistic people try to control others’ opinions of them by giving false information and presenting a false self. They need to control other people’s opinions so that they will not contradict the narcissist’s version of him or herself.
Narcissism in effect says, “If I am right, and of course I am, then anyone who disagrees with me must be wrong, so it is my duty and my right to direct and control such lesser, mistaken people”. Although he might pay lip service to, and pretend a belief in consensus, compromise and negotiation, he really believes the world is made up of winners and losers, and for him to win (and there is no other option) others must lose.
The Controller not only needs to feel powerful but also needs evidence of his power over others, evidence that at the very least he causes an emotional response in them. He expects to be thought about, talked about, and remembered. So, when he learns for example, that his girlfriend discusses his bad behaviour with her friends, he might well feel smugly pleased.
In healthy relationships, power is negotiated and swings back and forth. With their poor boundaries and sense of superiority, egotists and narcissists see controlling their partner, friends, colleagues or children as their right and duty. Egotists do not share authority. They take it all for themselves and give their partners all the responsibilities. Or, they may decide to abdicate everything to the partner, but whichever way the relationship functions, the choice will be theirs alone. They expect their partner to demonstrate love for them by total acquiescence to their will and they see any dissent as rebellion and betrayal.
They must always get their own way, must always “win”. They expect to be obeyed. They expect to be “the boss”. And if you dare not submit, or dare to challenge them you will suffer the consequences.
The narcissist uses a range of methods to control a partner and keep them in their place, varying from the silent treatment to abuse or violence, and a host of tactics in between. He might use seduction, blackmail, guilt or punishment as methods of control. His techniques may be obvious and aggressive or subtle and camouflaged. He might for example ring home to “chat” to his wife, which seems to be a loving gesture, but he is actually checking to see where she is and what she is doing.
He might enhance his sense of power by frustrating the efforts or sabotaging the plans of people who love him. He might keep the “upper hand” by refusing to let his partner have what she wants. His ways, whims, likes and dislikes, interests and time schedules rule the relationship. He is likely to thwart a partner’s efforts to excel at anything, or do or have anything that might take attention away from him. So, he sabotages her friendships, career, education, or hobbies, to keep her under control.
Hurting his partner may reassure him of his power over her, so he does it often. He might spoil her happiness just to prove he has the power to do so. He might go out of his way to build up expectations only to disappoint. Or he may play devious mind games, fool her and keep her at a disadvantage so that he is always in the one-up position.
He will do whatever is necessary, even use force, to get his own way and impose his will. But in general, he believes that any bad behaviour on his part is the result of his partner not doing as he wants. He uses bad behaviour to control her, “Do what I want,” his actions say, “or take the consequences.” And he doesn’t really care if his partner thinks he is unfair or cruel (unless he needs something) and so he feels no need to try to please her, which minimizes her influence over him and leaves her powerless.
He never makes requests because asking assumes his partner has the right to say no. He gives orders, issues instructions and makes demands. He might get pleasure out of refusing to comply with a partner’s smallest and most reasonable requests—out of spite, or just to prove he does as he pleases. He ignores her requests, or verbally agrees to them but never actually complies, because to give her what she asks for gives her power and gives the impression that she is an equal with an equal right to wants and needs of her own, separate from his. Which of course to him is not possible. No one is his equal.
He cannot tolerate his partner acting in spontaneous and unexpected ways. So he drags her down, disorients her, hurts her, to keep her immobile, to keep her exactly as he wants her. She is not allowed to be herself. She has to be what he wants her to be and she has to exist only in relation to him. He has assigned her a role to play and he is not interested in interacting with an authentic, spontaneous person. So he will do whatever it takes to keep her playing her part. He wants an ideal partner, and to stop her from becoming an ordinary woman, he will control her by correcting her, telling her what she should do, think, feel, and how and who she should be.
The greater his dependence on his partner the greater will be his control over her. He might even come to believe that he should have the same sort of control over her as he does over his own body. But although he craves power over others, he makes sure that no one, and particularly not his partner, has power over him, so he never fully commits and keeps an emotional distance so that no one ever really “has” him.
There is no reasoning with a Controller. You can never convince them that their behaviour and demands are unfair. There is no appeasing them because no matter how much you compromise or give in to them they will always demand more. They want you to be their puppet and doormat. And standing up to them might welll enrage them and bring down on you their favoured form of punishment—perhaps the “silent treatment”, teaching you a lesson, such as having an affair, verbal abuse, or even violence. Dealing with a Controller is exhausting, requiring you to constantly assert your right to be you.
You might also like to read our review of Patricia Evans’ book Controlling People.
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