When One Partner Feels Controlled; And the Other Feels Abandoned

Every day the same argument unfolds, perhaps four or five million times, in different places around the planet, grinding hours of our lives into primitive despair (even as we fly around in our jet planes and rely on our space age technologies). One partner feels abandoned; the other feels controlled. And the script, from Taipei to Portland, Basingstoke to Algiers, goes something like this:

A: You said you were going to call me and you didn’t. For three hours I had no idea where you were. Do you think that’s fun for me? It’s inconsiderate – and rude. I am being taken advantage of. And not for the first time.

B: I was busy; why do you always criticise me and fly off the handle so fast? I haven’t got any  space, I can’t breathe. Nothing I do is good enough. I’m fed up with you.

A thread has come out of the seam of the relationship. If it keeps being pulled, a whole hem may unspool. 

This is how one sets about repairing. Firstly, we need to host a very unlikely thought. The person in front of us is not evil. They obviously seem evil, that much is clear. They are evidently out to get us and have the very worst intentions. But really they don’t. They are our partner. They have made big sacrifices to be with us. We were happy once. They are, in different moods, ‘sweetie’ or ‘little bun.’ A while ago, we danced around the kitchen together. We patted their childhood soft toy. They held us when we had a fever. However unlikely it seems, they are in fact on our side. They want this to work.

Next, we need to stop attacking and do that far more courageous and exhausting thing: explain our hurt. We have to lose our pride and patiently and systematically take the person into our tender, vast fears – presently hidden behind outward sternness and rage:

A: When you don’t call me, I feel so lonely and bereft.

B: When I fail to call and you criticise me, I feel hounded and insecure; like I can’t ever get anything right.

We might want to add some backstory, to show how we ended up as the challenging people we are today – who are in need of so much mercy from others:

A: This reminds me of all the times I’ve had to wait and no one came, like I did endlessly after school when mum was having chemo.

B: This reminds me of being shouted at by dad and feeling I could never win him over.

In other words, there are two children inside, they are not in a good way and they need to see one another’s distress if this is ever to be mended. 

A: The child in me feels humiliated.

B: The child in me feels condemned.

Were the couple to reach this place, the angels of love would quietly sing their hosannas. Advanced practitioners might conclude by replaying their lessons to one another:

A: When I go in too hard, I realise you feel like you can never please me; even though you can – and do. 

B: When I let you down with my messaging, I can see it hurts you somewhere very deep. I’m going to try so much harder.

If all this sounds silly, it’s vastly sillier still when the shouting goes on all night, when the divorce lawyers are called, when the savings are lost and when small children have to commute across the country to see their parents. We think of love as an emotion; it’s made up of a sequence of hugely basic skills, many of them around explanation, diplomacy and reassurance. And these can be learnt, at a school a bit like this, modestly, without resentment or mockery, piece by infinitely glorious and redemptive piece.