Free Bag Diva

Possessive and Controlling
by Diva Rebecca

I wanted to send a warning out to all of my relationship-seeking friends concerning the nature of a potentially possessive and controlling new companion. It might seem that your new boyfriend or girlfriend has a small insecurity problem and you might even think it is cute when he or she sticks by your side, asks you all sorts of personal questions, wants all of the details of your past relationships and demands to know whom you talk to. You might even be flattered by all of the sudden attention. But I want you to stop and seriously assess your relationship if your new partner is coming on a bit too strong. There might be a very serious and negative drawback to this behavior.

When you first get involved with someone who is a bit pushy you may be so turned off you will end up walking away. But every so often you come across what seems to be the greatest person you have ever met, and even though he or she is a little bit "over the top", you don't care because you are falling in love with that person irregardless of his or her possessive nature. You can't help it, everyone falls in love from time to time. If that person is seriously falling in love with you too, that is why he/she is treating you in such a controlling manner. However, their feelings are coming out in a controlling form due to a much deeper philosophy.

Pretty soon that person is checking your email, demanding to know which ex-lover you still speak to, asking who you speak to at work who might be of the opposite sex and more. The attention flatters you and you might even fall deeper in love because you are convinced that this attention means that they are really serious about you! You get the good attention along with the bad. He or she talks about the future a lot, maybe even mentions marriage and says how obsessed and in love they are with you. Its a great feeling! You become entranced in the relationship and you might even become fused into one person as time goes on. Their reasons for why they are so worried about your affairs seem genuine. He or she is only concerned about your intent, right?

Then the relationship goes up a notch. Your obsessed and possessive partner asks you not to talk to certain people of the opposite sex, mainly your exes, you can't go out for a night with your girlfriends or guy friends, he or she calls you constantly, your phone calls, text messages and emails are continuously monitored and pretty soon it gets to the point where you are not even allowed to speak to someone of the opposite sex. At first you might resist. But after much persuasion by your lover, you begin to see his or her side of the situation, and the intentions start to look noble. He or she might tell you that it is a simple matter of respect for the relationship, and that he or she would do the exact same thing for you if only asked. You begin to believe that your behavior has been wrong this whole entire time and that you must change it. After that, it all goes downhill from there. You fall into a co-dependent state within the relationship. Pretty soon, all you know is your lover. You have been isolated from any and all of your friends and you begin to depend on your lover emotionally. That is when the floor drops right beneath your feet with the noose tight around your neck.

There is a main and fundamental reason why your loved one was acting so suspicious, controlling and possessive. The reason why, and I am sure you have heard this before, is because he or she is afraid you will treat them they way they are prone to behave. For example, if your man or woman is suspicious of you flirting with other people, that is because your lover is the real flirt. If they are afraid you are talking to exes, that is because they do it all the time. And trust me, if your lover tells you that he or she would do the same for you when asking you to cut off communications with a particular person, trust me....they won't. And of course the same goes for cheating. If your loved one is constantly worried or suspicious that you might cheat, guess why? Your lover is prone to cheating. You might think that this is different in your case. You might think that, "No, he or she only acts this way because my lover is crazy about me!". I hate to break it to you, but that is not the real reason why. It is true that this person might be, and probably is, crazy about you! But there are deeper reasons for this insane behavior. He or she is worried that you might cheat because that person holds the cheating heart.

What often happens next is that you find out about your partner's true lifestyle and behavior after he or she already has you in their grip. You have become emotionally dependent on them, and then you find out that you have been betrayed time and time again without you ever knowing it. When that happens, your world crumbles. You imagined that your lover would never ever hurt you or betray you, not after they preached about the importance of honesty and fidelity for so long! You will get hurt by even the smallest of betrayals because it hurts your ego. You have become so emotionally dependent on that person that you use that person to make you feel good about yourself. Therefore, they might not even intend to hurt you and you still get hurt! This is why emotional dependency is wrong. You, and only you, are the one person who should be making yourself happy about you, not your lover. To be honest, it gets worse from there. You feel betrayed and incredibly hurt and you end up taking it out on your lover. You become just as controlling as they were and start to ask them to do the same kind of things for you. It doesn't work because he or she will not comply and will even start to back away. This will infuriate you more because you are so emotionally involved and attached in the relationship. It is at this point where you need to seek help because it will only get worse if you do not. It could lead to depression and even deeper psychiatric problems. At the very least, it will leave you in a detached state of general unhappiness and bad feelings.

A person in this situation needs to break free. It does not mean you have to break free from the relationship. There are many things that can be overcome and if love is true, the relationship will prevail. But a person dealing with the loss of his or her control over the emotional life needs to work on restoring that independence and it can be as simple as making a conscious effort. No longer will you let him or her dominate your personal life, you will end up getting back your social life and you will make an effort to realize that you do not need that person to make you happy. You can do that all on your own.