205. What he described as care and concern she described as feeling stangled by love

Seeing danger signals in a dating relationship can prevent a great deal of suffering in the future. I’ve met a number of men and women who have been hurt when the man or woman of their dreams turned out to be someone different from the person they thought they knew. When they discussed what happened virtually all of them said there were warning signs they should have heeded but ignored because they didn’t want to see them.

A few months ago Annie, a woman I know, was telling me about a man she’d been seeing recently. “He’s a really nice man,” she said, “but I feel strangled by love.” She could have said, “strangled by false love,” and we’ll see why. This man was a widower in his 70s and had lived a life of achievement and success, well-educated and accomplished – a strong Christian. Yet Annie felt constant pressure from him. Not pressure for sex but pressure to let him take care of her and be the partner and protector in her life. He wanted her to carry pepper spray when she walked, for instance, and even gave her some and asked if she was using it. She didn’t feel a need for it but he wanted her to use it anyway.

One day she was telling him of a volunteer job she had that caused her to drive a long distance on the freeway. He tried to dissuade her from making that drive. He pointed to statistics describing how driving more miles on the freeway leads to more risk of being in an accident, and eventually said to her, “You know, you owe it to the people who love you not to take risks like that.”

She was dismayed and immediately knew didn’t feel good in her gut, she said. The problem with a statement like that is that while it doesn’t feel good it can sound so much like love that it’s sometimes hard to figure out what’s really going on. The statement can feel like love because it seems to say, “Oh, look how much he cares, he doesn’t want me to be hurt.” But since it didn’t feel good to Annie let’s look behind the words and see what’s really being said.

A little inquiry can bring some clarity. The statement this man made was: “You owe it to the people who love you not to take risks like that.” First, he clearly puts himself in the group of “people who love you” so we can narrow his statement down to, “You owe it to me….” Now we can see he’s not really taking care of Annie’s friends and relatives, whom he doesn’t even know, he’s taking care of himself. So let’s just be clear about that first.

Next, his statement is actually saying, “You owe it to me not to live the life you want, but to live the way I want because, after all, I love you and I know what’s best for you.” That may sound like a harsh assessment of his statement but we’re here to look at reality not to whitewash it. We also don’t need to judge him or think he’s wrong. In a confused view of life this is what love may appear to look like. But why, then, doesn’t it feel good to someone like Annie to hear this?

When you consider his statement more thoroughly is it love or is it control? He’s really saying, “It’s up to you to take care of my feelings and I worry (my feelings) when you drive long distances and risk being in an accident so please stop it (take care of me).” Control is always nothing more than that – someone trying to get us to live their way so they can be happy. This man’s statement to Annie is a huge, neon sign flashing: “Control! Control! Control!” If there’s control in this aspect of life isn’t it likely – about 100% likely – that this man will also try to control in other ways? If he wants Annie to take care of his feelings in this instance he’ll surely want to make her responsible for his feelings in other areas. (“It’s your job to visit my adult children with me,” for example.) All this is in the name of love, of course.

Love isn’t controlling. Love is about freedom and care without control. It doesn’t say, “My love demands that you take care of me.” No, love says, “Because I love you I want you to live your way and if I’m worried that’s my problem, not yours, and I’m the one who needs to take care of it.”

In any relationship, where one or both people are dependent and needy, there will be obvious signs of trouble if we just pay attention. How do you see these danger signals? It’s easy – your body will tell you. Our deeper wisdom knows when something doesn’t feel right, even if we can’t put our finger on it consciously at first. A little deep inquiry will always show us the light.

Then all we need to do is move away from that controlling behavior, without judgment or condemnation. You may even feel compassion but you don’t get unwittingly sucked in with behavior that wears the mask of love and concern but is really manipulation and control when you peer under the mask. If you don’t see control early it’s a guarantee that you’ll pay the price later in a relationship, when the clinging, needy behavior begins to feel like being “strangled by love” – false love masquerading as real.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer