2024-08-22

Control Is Not Sustainable In Love

• We control others because we feel unsafe. We seek to create predictability so that we don’t get hurt but people, like life, is meant to be unpredictable. In this sense, control is a misuse of agency.
• Control can be quite disguised even for the one doing the controlling. If one partner lets the other make all the choices but ultimately retains the final approval, it may seem like one is free to make choices but it is in the framework of the controller.
• For the one being controlled, the constriction on life may reach such a point where they feel like they are living only within the world of their controller. They may either accept this fate and disavow their personhood or rebel in the ways they can: hiding, running and cheating.
• Esther Perel says that cheating may be a final desperate reach for freedom. Whether this is fair or even effective is questionable but the intention is clear.