Is It Love or Is It Addiction? Part IX

POWER PLAYS

When love is without power, it goes idle. When power is without love, it injures. 

 - Brenda Schaeffer, from Loving Me, Loving You

A common sign of love addiction and unhealthy relationships is the use of power plays. Power plays are manipulative behaviors that keep people relating on an unequal basis. The myth underlying power plays is that there is not enough power for two and is based on the belief that people with power have control and get what they want. Without such control, life seems tenuous and uncertain. And, of course, we all want to feel certain. Competition for the mysterious thing called “power” is often fierce, as is evident in wars.  Power players—aptly called “controllers”—mistakenly believe that other people provide or take away their personal potency or freedom. Where do such beliefs come from? The roots of adult power players’ behavior can be traced back into early childhood.

 The Beginnings of Power Plays

 As children, we started to fight for power at about age two, when we were told by the grown-ups in our world that it was time to grow up and learn to live cooperatively.  Because we could talk and remember, we must learn to wait, to share, and to act in socially cooperative ways.  Children have three options: rebel, over-adapt, or cooperate.  Rebels say, “No, I won’t, and you can’t make me,” and fight to have their own way by saying no, holding out, and throwing temper tantrums. Over-adapters often feel grief and fear because of the big change and withhold their power with people pleasing, withdrawing, avoiding anger. Children who learn there is no need to overpower parents or have parents who do not overpower them with loud voices, bribes, threats, demands, and physical punishment, learn to live cooperatively.  In sharing power, parents construct bridges of trust, support, and self-esteem.

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The transition from childish omnipotence to power sharing seems to be something we all struggle with in childhood, adolescence, and in adult life. Here are some of the power plays that sabotage adult love relationships.

 Twenty-Three Power Plays

      1.         Giving advice and difficulty accepting it.

      2.         Not reaching out or asking for support and love.

      3.         Giving orders, demanding and unrealistic expectations.

      4.         Getting even to diminish the self-esteem or power of others.

      5.         Being judgmental; using put-downs; faultfinding; persecuting; punishing.

      6.         Holding out on others; not giving what others want or need.

      7.         Making, then breaking, promises, betraying trust.

      8.         Smothering, over nurturing others; creating dependency, guilting.

      9.         Patronizing, condescending, intimidating.

      10.       Making decisions for others; discounting others’ abilities to solve problems.

      11.       Putting others in no-win situations.

      12.       Attempting to change others; focus on others bad behaviors.

      13.       Attacking others when they are most vulnerable.

      14.       Showing an anti-dependent attitude: “I don’t need you.”

      15.       Using bullying, bribing behavior; using threats.

      16.       Showing bitterness, self-righteous anger, holding grudges.

      17.       Abusing others verbally, emotionally, sexually, or physically.

      18.       Being aggressive and defining it as assertiveness.

      19.       Needing to win or be right.

      20.       Stubborn resistance or being set in one’s own way.

      21.       Having difficulty admitting mistakes or saying, “I’m sorry.”

      22.       Giving indirect, evasive answers to questions.

      23.       Defending any of the above behaviors 

Power plays are not easily given up.  In each incidence where I have explored the roots of a client’s need to control another person, I’ve found a traumatic experience or imagined threat that led him or her to interpret loss of control as a loss of self. 

A Personal Story

 Pete, a professional counselor who grew up with an abusive alcoholic father, who was seeking help for his well-hidden depression, low self-esteem, and relationship problems, wrote the following letter to himself from the side of him that felt a need to control the therapy.

“Pete, you’ve always had a strong ego and been so self-sufficient, and now you are thinking of turning all that over to Dr. Schaeffer who will cause you to lose control. You don’t really want this, do you? I’ve tried to protect you in a thousand ways. You forgot how I stuck with you and wouldn’t let others get close to you. I’ve kept you alone and in complete control. You are so intelligent and above others who try to help. You don’t need them because you can figure it out for yourself. It’s worked quite well all these years, right?

“Why you want to admit defeat or the need for help mystifies me. You can be in the driver’s seat. The powerful ones are the ones in control; this is where you want to be and stay. Most of your problems stem from others trying to thwart you. Push them out of the way and things will really start happening for you.”

Pete listed all the ways he would attempt to con me in therapy.

·         “Laugh or smile my hurt feelings away.”

·         “Dominate the conversation.”

·         “Get her to feel sorry for me.”

·         “Become defensive when things get touchy.”

·         “Convince her others are to blame.”

·         “Keep the sessions nonserious.”

·         “Intellectualize.”

·         “Appear flexible.

·         “Over cooperate.”

·         “Find her soft part and capitalize on it.”

·         “Find out what pain she has suffered and commiserate.”

·         “Try to become emotionally involved.”

·         “Try to induce self-doubt.”

·         “Question her motive for helping.”

·         “Talk around the subject at hand.”

Pete was using these cons to reinforce his need to control. With the help of therapy, he learned that his personal power did not come at another’s expense. There is no need to win control over another to express our personal power as it is our life force that comes from within.

 Options

Once we identify the power plays sabotaging our relationships, we have three options.

Option one:  cooperate and respond passively as a victim, agreeing to forfeit our own potency and to accept our one-down submissive position and end up with the feelings the other person is trying to avoid—shame, guilt, inadequacy, and fear. “She overpowered me,” “He took my power away,” and, “I’m powerless when it comes to her seductions” are delusions that suggest that personal power is a commodity controlled by others.

Option two:  seek the one-up power position and become snared in a competitive addictive relationship. In this case, two people vie for the power position, living in conflict as each tries to overwhelm the other with destructive power-play tactics. “I’m giving you back your power” and “I’m taking my power back” are statements that reinforce the belief that power is an item controlled by another.

Option three—respond from an affirmative position that acknowledges equal personal power. In this position a person is saying, “We are both okay and personally powerful.” Or acknowledge that, “I acted as though I gave her my power,” “I acted as though he owned me,” or, “She acted as though she had power over me.” Such ownership is empowering. *

Unfortunately, most relationships alternate between options one and two, seesawing through life. To get to power-sharing we must accept that power plays are real, recognize their destructiveness, do our personal inventory of power-plays, look at distorted beliefs that support them, believe we all have personal power, and detach when invited to power-play.

 *From Is It Love or Is It Addiction? and Power Plays.