Every Relationship is Full of Control – Understanding Passive Control

Passive Control

In relationships, no one likes control, and I’ve come to realize through my own experience that there may exist something called passive control.

If Active Control can be defined as a person in a relationship setting rules and boundaries as to what the other person can or cannot do by direct order or by direct obstruction to try and prevent that other person from doing what they want, then passive control is the opposite.

Passive control can simply be defined as decisions an individual will make for themselves based on what they like, dislike, want, and don’t want in a relationship. While you are not directly controlling or trying to control another person, the end result is usually control at some level. The other person is forced to make a decision that benefits them the greatest, which unfortunately, is normally based off what decisions you will make when they act or behave in ways that you don’t generally appreciate.

Sound confusing? I’ll clear it up with an example and then I want you to think about control in general and these two forms of control, I guarantee you that control exists in every relationship. Most people are against Active Control but I bet they still succumb to passive control without even realizing it which can sometimes be worse.

While, I myself, may consider passive control just a form of me taking charge of my life, getting what I want, and doing what’s best for me; the person on the receiving end will view it as control. If that is true, then it’s really not going to work. Eventually the other person will choose, and they are in their right to do so, to do something that doesn’t conform to what you want in your life and the relationship will end. This isn’t bad and it’s not really a true form of control, in fact, the longer you avoid making these type of decisions the more tension and conflict you will go through. If you find yourself in any forms of passive control, just end it and move on. Passive control is subtle. Here’s an example using both active control and passive control.

Active Control

Shirley wants to go out with her girlfriends on Friday night, John says absolutely not, your friends are all assholes and last time you went out with them you ended up kissing some guy. You’re not going, that’s final.

Passive Control

Shirley is considering going out with her girlfriends on Friday night. The last time she went out she ended up getting hammered and kissing another guy. When John found out about this he was irate. If she goes out again she knows John will not like this and it will cause conflict in the relationship. He has stated that if she ever does anything like that again he will break up with her as he doesn’t want his significant other involved in such shenanigans.

Shirley has a choice. She can either not do what she really wants to do and preserve her relationship or she can gamble and go out and possibly lose her relationship.

The decision in this scenario is based on valuation and risk. How much she values the relationship verse how much she values going out with her friends and how much risk is associated with going out and not going out. From there she will do or not do something. In the instance Shirley decides not to go out, she is now in a form of passive control or rather, as I like to view it, she made a decision based on what was best for her.

You see you can’t always get what you want and you won’t always get what you want, that’s life. So throughout life you will make decisions that will benefit you the most, at least most of the time that’s what you aim to do. Throughout life you will make decisions that have a greater net negative effect rather than a positive effect, these are called “bad decisions”.

The reality is, you cannot escape control entirely, you can only escape control actively, but you are always passively controlled on this earth. I believe it to be human nature and down to the most basic and core example, you will find that you cannot escape this form of passive control.

Whether it’s really wanting to tell your boss to fuck off and that you hate your job or instead being quiet and keeping your job. Whether it’s a primal decision at a tribal level of whether or not you’re going to go hunt or gather berries that day so you and your family can eat, it matters not. You are automatically entered into a form of passive control, no matter what you do, each decision you make has consequences. If you don’t gather berries and hunt, you and your family will starve and die. If you decide to go hunt and you don’t want to, then you feel like you have to. And that’s life…sorry, but there’s no way to get away from passive control. You make the best decisions with what you want in life and live with it.

But if you can’t live with your decisions on a relationship level, then it’s not going to work. If the man goes out and hunts to provide for his family and bitches about it, it causes unnecessary drama and stress on his family. Eventually the woman may decide to go find herself another caveman. So before you open your mouth realize there are consequences to every action always.

You may identify with passive control in this article and have experienced it but do not get me wrong, the person you are with is not controlling you. They are simply telling you what they don’t want and want in a relationship. If you are running into problems with that, then obviously, they do not want you.

If what you want to do interferes or creates conflict or you’d feel guilty doing it because of how your other person might react. You’re not in a controlled relationship, you’re in an incompatible one. It’s probably not going to work. Respect that everyone has boundaries, desires, and dreams of their own. If the things you do interfere with what they want in their person, then accept it. Also accept that if it’s that big of an issue and you feel like you’re really being controlled and cannot do what you want, that your relationship probably isn’t going to work.

It is completely natural to compromise and sacrifice for a greater good. If you’re with a person whom you adore and want to spend the rest of your life with and they have a problem with you drinking, you get a choice. Life is full of choose your own adventures. You can choose to stop drinking and stay in a happy relationship or you can choose to keep drinking and probably destroy your relationship. At the end of the day it comes down to a very simple thing, “which do you want more?”

But don’t jump on the other person because they are no different than you. You want to drink and they don’t want to be with someone who drinks like you do. It’s a simple stated fact, not a form of control, if you choose to sacrifice, then you subject yourself to passive control. But at any point and time where you being able to drink is worth more to you then your person, then by all means, call the entire relationship off and go get your drink on, but again, whatever you do, don’t blame the other person because they don’t want something in their life. It’s their right, just like it’s yours to do what you want, they deserve to have whatever they want. Respect it, life’s full of touch decisions.