How I stopped trying to control my partner and took responsibility for my own happiness.
Have you been attempting to control your partner without realizing it? Are you justifying taking on your partner’s emotional, relational, financial, or logistical responsibilities by saying:
“I can do it better and/or more quickly, so I might as well just do it myself.”
“They aren’t making it a priority, so I have to do the legwork for them.”
“They won’t do it themselves, so I have to do it instead.”
“If they don’t do it, they’ll have to face the consequences. I don’t want them to have to deal with that.”
“I want to save the relationship but they don’t want to participate, so I’ll do the work for both of us.”
Controlling behavior is a hallmark of codependency and people-pleasing, but the first time we come across the idea that we’re controlling, we sputter with indignation. Whether we’re “helping,” “generous,” “saving them from themselves,” or “doing it for our relationships,” many of us don’t realize that we use various tactics to influence our partners’ behaviors and manipulate the outcomes of situations.
Control is How We Protect Ourselves from Pain
I share the following story of control in my book STOP People Pleasing and Find Your Power:
"Over brunch one Sunday morning, Jared’s partner of three years, William, says that he isn’t happy in their relationship, and hasn’t been for a while.
Time stops for Jared. The sound of clinking silverware feels miles away as his heart races in his chest.
“Okay,” Jared says slowly. “Let’s talk about how we can work on it. I’ve mentioned it before, but I think couples therapy could be helpful for us.”
“I don’t want couples therapy, and I don’t want to work on it,” William responds, shrugging.
These days, apathy is William’s response whenever they speak about their relationship. Throughout their three years together, they’ve had countless arguments lasting from midnight to sunrise. William used to engage in these conflicts and seek solutions, but over the last year, he has become painfully detached. Meanwhile, Jared has thrown his whole self into their relationship, desperately trying to break through William’s stony silence and urging him to care.
Jared realizes that he has a choice. He can finally take William’s words at face value and accept his unwillingness to find a path forward—or he can keep trying to fix their broken relationship single-handedly. Jared’s fear of loss is so strong that he chooses the latter.
From that night on, he falls asleep with a stack of relationship books on his bedside table. He buys William lavish gifts and treats him to elegant dinners. In therapy, Jared discusses William’s family history and William’s fears of intimacy, hoping to learn how to make him care again. Despite William’s chilly distance, Jared doesn’t express any of his frustrations, attempting to create a perfectly peaceful environment in which William will learn to love him again.
Jared spends two long months trying to play God, certain that his methods will reignite love in William’s heart. But when William finally ends their relationship for good, Jared realizes that his sense of control has been an illusion all along.
If someone had asked Jared what he’d been doing, the answer would have been simple: ‘I’m trying to save my relationship.’ But in truth, Jared was trying to protect himself from pain by trying to control things that were out of his control: William’s actions, feelings, and willingness to change.”
As this anecdote illustrates, many of us try to control others into meeting our own needs. This is especially true if we grapple with codependency or have an anxious attachment style. Marriage and family therapist and codependency expert Darlene Lancer explains:
“Instead of taking responsibility for their own happiness, which would be empowering, codependents’ focus is external. Rather than attend to their needs directly, they try to exercise power over others and control others to make themselves feel okay on the inside. They think, ‘I’ll change him (or her) to do what I want, and then I’ll be happy.’ This behavior is based on the erroneous belief that we can change others.”
Evaluating Your Controlling Behaviors
You might be subconsciously trying to control your partner if you do any of the following:
Doing for others what they can and should do for themselves
As independent adults, we are each responsible for our own physical, emotional, social, and financial well-being:
Maintaining physical health.
Sticking to routines.
Staying in touch with friends and family.
Taking financial responsibility for purchases.
If you find yourself regularly taking on responsibility for your partner’s relationships, wellness, finances, or otherwise, ask yourself: Why am I doing this? What’s my motive here?
Are you hoping your partner feels dependent on you so that they’ll never leave? Are you trying to protect your partner from facing the consequences of his or her behaviors? Are you trying to make up for what you believe to be your partner’s deficits?
Helping others avoid the negative consequences of their behaviors
When we try to mitigate the negative consequences of others’ irresponsible actions, we rob them of opportunities for growth and learning. Have you ever tried to mitigate the consequences when your partner acted out in addiction, in a temper tantrum, or in some other irresponsible behavior? If so, you may think you’re being “helpful” or “kind,” but in reality, you are enabling your partner’s irresponsibility. Without experiencing negative consequences, folks who engage in destructive patterns are far less likely to change.
We also help our partners avoid negative consequences when we refuse to express justified anger, sadness, or discomfort with their actions. When we avoid sharing our feelings for fear of hurting their feelings, we’re really just managing their feelings — and that’s not our work to do.
One of my favorite counselors, Jordan Pickell, puts it this way: “When setting a boundary, you don’t need to smooth over the tension. You don’t need to protect people from feeling uncomfortable. It makes sense for people to feel bad and weird when they have crossed a line.”
Making empty threats disguised as boundaries
Boundaries are statements of what we will or will not tolerate. The goal of a boundary isn’t to change another’s behavior, but to create safety and integrity for ourselves. In order for a boundary to be genuine, you must be ready to enforce the boundary when it is not respected. Otherwise, it’s just an empty threat: an attempt to get someone else to act your way on your terms.
For example, you say to your partner, “If you don’t start treating me more kindly, I’m going to leave you.” If your partner continues to treat you poorly, you need to be ready to leave that relationship — because, if you don’t, your “boundary” was just a tactic to change your partner under false pretenses.
Attempting to “heal” or change others when they have no desire to change themselves
Change is an inside job. We can support or hinder others’ healing journeys, but we cannot take the journey for them. In order to heal, one must be willing to heal.
If someone is not willing to quit an addiction, we cannot educate them into quitting. If someone is not ready to address their trauma, we cannot force them to heal. If someone carries heavy baggage from their past, we cannot pry that baggage from their hands.
We can support their journey and assist along the way if they have the willingness to grow. But we cannot plant a seed of willingness for someone else.
Engaging in protest behavior
When our partner is unable or unwilling to give us the depth of connection we seek, we may resort to protest behavior. Protest behaviors are attempts to get reactions from our partner—reactions which, if only momentarily, will create a feeling of connection. Protest behaviors include things like intentionally withholding communication, attempting to make a partner jealous, or threatening to end the relationship.
Protest behaviors are not driven by a genuine desire: we don’t genuinely desire not to be in touch, we don’t genuinely desire to end the relationship, we don’t genuinely want to engage with another person outside of the relationship. What we want is our partner to change how they interact with us, and we believe that these behaviors will facilitate that change.
Making others singularly responsible for your emotional state
When I was deeply entrenched in my codependency, I became inconsolable when my then-partner and I fought. At the conclusion of every argument, I felt certain he would leave me. He needed time and space to re-center, but my anxiety was so strong that I refused to give him that space. With guttural sobs and fearful pleas, I demanded his reassurance, which he begrudgingly gave.
In hindsight, it’s clear to see how I used my emotional outbursts to secure attention from my partner when he was unwilling to voluntarily give it. Instead of understanding that we were both responsible for meeting our own needs in that moment — him taking space, me self-soothing — I created conditions in which he felt pressured to abandon his own needs to prioritize mine.
The Solution Lies Within You
If you’ve used the above tactics consciously or unconsciously, you’re not alone. Many of us have had to release our toxic illusions of control. As we move forward, we must learn what actually lies in our sphere of control — and learn to live strictly within that sphere.
To release my illusion of control and take responsibility for my own happiness, practicing the following five habits in my relationships gave me the most relief:
#1. Make a list of the things that are in your control and a list of the things that are not.
In your “I Can Control” list, be sure to include your actions, your reactions, the words you say, the boundaries you set, and the amount of time you spend. In your “I Cannot Control” list, be sure to include others’ actions and reactions, others’ feelings, others’ relationships, and so on.
I found it particularly helpful to include these on my list:
I can control whether or not I express my needs and how I express them. I cannot control whether or not others meet my needs.
I can control whether or not I set and enforce boundaries around intolerable behavior. I cannot control others’ intolerable behavior.
I can control the extent to which I choose to heal from my past. I cannot control others’ willingness or ability to heal and grow.
At first, releasing the illusion of control feels terrifying. After all, control has been our way of managing the world around us and creating a sense of safety for ourselves. When I first reviewed my list, I wondered, What will happen if I’m not controlling this? Will everything collapse around me?
Behind that fear, though, was a freedom I hadn’t predicted. I looked at the column of items I could not control and realized how much time I spent, each and every day, attempting to manage, manipulate, and influence others. I put incredible effort into making others happy when they were sad. I used endless lines of reasoning to alleviate others’ guilt for things they’d said and done. I got blue in the face spouting instructions for how to properly pay a bill, how to stop getting drunk, and how to mend broken relationships with family members. I was utterly convinced that if I just said my piece in a perfectly convincing manner, I could get others to act my way.
When I let go of these fruitless attempts at control, I reclaimed hours of my time. With this newfound time, I was able to…
#2. Refocus on your own needs, desires, and passions.
When in doubt, return home to yourself. By taking responsibility for meeting your own needs and pursuing your own passions, you will find yourself much less likely to attempt to control others.
Not sure where to begin? For every item on your “I Cannot Control” list, come up with an alternative way to spend that energy that centers your own desires and passions. Here are some of the ways my priorities shifted over time, from things that I should not be attempting to control to things that I could:
Helping my partner advance his career → advancing my career
Trying to get my partner to go to therapy for his baggage → going to therapy for codependency
Helping my partner mend his relationship with family members → mending my own relationships with family members
Begging my partner to soothe and reassure me → learning cognitive and somatic techniques for soothing myself
As a result of these changes, my career advanced, my resilience grew, my relationships with family members improved, and I accumulated an arsenal of coping mechanisms that I use to this day. It was incredible how much time, space, and energy became available to me when I was no longer spending it trying to change someone else.
(The Self-Advocacy School teaches you how to release controlling behaviors and reclaim your own needs, desires, and boundaries. With 22 hands-on coaching courses like “Grief, Boundaries, and Getting Clear on What You Can’t Control” and “The Self-Advocacy Toolbox: Finding Your Boundaries in Difficult Relationships with Friends & Family,” the Self-Advocacy School teaches you to find your voice and build a life you love. Learn more and enroll here. Sliding scale enrollment available to those in need.)
#3. Ask before offering help — and accept the answer the first time.
Help can be useful if it is freely given with no strings attached. If you have a tendency toward over-control, though, you may have a history of offering help in order to engender someone’s favor, to get someone to act a certain way, or to manipulate a situation to achieve your desired outcome.
Begin asking before offering help. Keep it simple: “Would you like help with that?” If they don’t want your help, don’t give it. If your offer is rejected, avoid the compulsion to ask, “Are you sure?” Once the question has been asked and answered, it’s time to move on.
It was very hard for me to stop offering my loved ones “help” in the emotional sphere. It might not surprise you to learn that I read a lot of books about psychology and relationships. Historically, when loved ones embodied a behavior that I’d come across in a recent reading, I jumped at the opportunity to psychoanalyze them, dissect their family history, and offer suggestions for healing.
Now, instead of playing therapist without their consent, I say, “What you’re describing sounds like something I’ve been reading about lately. Do you want to hear the connection?” or “I found an article that describes the type of family you grew up in. Do you want me to send it to you?”
To my surprise (the psychology geek that I am), more often than not, the response is either a halfhearted “maybe” or a simple “no.” As it turns out, few folks enjoy being therapized outside the safe confines of a legitimate therapist’s office.
At first, their refusal baffled and insulted me. They have no idea how much this information could help them! I’d fume silently. They must not care about their healing or personal growth. They must not trust that I know what I’m talking about.
This way of thinking imposed my personal value system upon others. I expected them to react the way I would react, and when they didn’t, out poureth my judgments!
Over time, I realized that what to me felt like a fascinating intellectual exercise might have felt overwhelming, painfully vulnerable, or intrusive to my loved ones. Ultimately, accepting others’ refusal of my help meant trusting their own decision-making process and honoring their own autonomy — something that it is notoriously challenging for recovering codependent folks to do.
#4. When in distress, focus on how you can self-soothe.
As my earlier story demonstrated, I tried to control my partner because I made him responsible for my happiness and for soothing my distress. A critical step in breaking the over-control pattern was learning to self-soothe and take responsibility for my own emotional state.
Now when I feel distressed, instead of immediately reaching out to my partner for help, I practice the following self-soothing techniques:
When I feel myself teetering on the edge of a powerful emotional reaction, I give myself permission to sit quietly with the feeling. I put my hand directly on my heart, notice where the feeling lives in my body, and wait for my pulse to slow down. For more self-soothing resources, watch my Self-Soothing Survival Guide for Courageous Self-Advocacy workshop.
If I’m in the presence of others when a strong emotion comes forth, I take a few minutes or more to be entirely alone. If I need more space — say, a night to myself — I take it.
Should I need support from someone else, I have a shortlist of trusted friends and family I can call. I know that there are many folks available who can tug me out of a dark emotional place. My partner is not the only one capable of helping me.
These techniques not only decreased my dependence on my partner, but also instilled in me a profound sense of resilience. Instead of feeling like a victim in the face of an emotional typhoon, I knew I had the internal resources I needed to ride out the storm.
#5. When someone tells you that they’re unwilling to work on an issue, believe them.
As Maya Angelou famously said: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Had I accepted my ex-partner’s statement that he was unwilling to work on our relationship, I would have saved myself two long months of fruitlessly attempting to change his mind — and two long months of heartache.
I eventually learned that in order for a pair to solve a relationship issue, both parties must be willing to do their part. This requires that both parties acknowledge the role they play in the dysfunction and take concrete steps to change their habits.
Unless a person is adamant that they are willing to change, assume that how they are now is how they will be. That being the case, consider: If this person does not change, is this a relationship I will be happy in?
Remember: You cannot heal another person’s woundedness. You cannot carry another person’s baggage. Your efforts cannot transform an emotionally unavailable person into an emotionally available one.
I have found it helpful to construct a list of non-negotiables that serve as a rubric when I’m debating whether a relationship is healthy enough for me to maintain. My non-negotiables are qualities and behaviors that absolutely must, or absolutely must not, be present in my partner.
Mine include the obvious — no physical violence, no emotional abuse, and no sexual coercion — as well as willingness to work through tough moments, a sense of humor, and regular expressions of love and affection.
At first, the tactics I’ve suggested in this article may feel like heavy burdens. I know they did for me. When I first began recovery from codependency, I was so accustomed to getting my sense of power from controlling others that the idea of taking responsibility for myself felt overwhelming.
In her book The Language of Letting Go, Melody Beattie offers four powerful questions that gave me the inspiration and motivation I needed to get started. I will leave you with them:
“If we weren’t trying to control whether a person liked us or her reaction to us, what would we do differently?
If we weren’t trying to control the course of a relationship, what would we do differently?
If we weren’t trying to control another person’s behavior, how would we think, feel, speak, and behave differently than we do now?
What haven’t we been letting ourselves do while hoping that self-denial would influence a particular situation or person?”
To learn how to release controlling behaviors and reclaim your own needs, desires, and boundaries, enroll in The-Self Advocacy School, where you’ll learn how to:
⚡️ Set empowered boundaries in your relationships with family, friends, partners, and colleagues
⚡️ Discover and advocate for your own needs and desires
⚡️ Develop emotional boundaries that help you stop taking responsibility for others’ feelings
⚡️ Learn the art of internal validation so you can stop depending on others’ approval
⚡️ Navigate conflicts and compromises in your relationships without sacrificing your non-negotiable needs
⚡️ Strengthen your resilience to guilt and fear so you can speak up for yourself with confidence
⚡️ Take decisive action steps toward your own desires and dreams