Are You Compromising or Being Controlled?
Growing up the word that I always heard in reference to relationships was compromise. It was everywhere, out of the mouths of people around me offered as advice, in television shows and taught as an essential part of life as a child. Compromise is part of any relationship. It’s the continual negotiating between two people to maintain some sense of harmony and balance in the relationship. The thing about compromise is that it should go both ways. Both people should be happy with the compromise reached, and if one person compromises more this should be acknowledged with a healthy give and take in the relationship. Compromise can blur into control though when a relationship is unhealthy and one partner is not respected. That is what happened with me.
At first I thought I was compromising a lot in my relationship. Doing things I didn’t want to do to make him happy, allowing him to have the final say in activities and pushing aside my wants for him to have his. The thing I soon started to see though is that there was no compromise coming back my way. It was me who was always the one who had to bend. On the times it did seem that he bended he would then come at me over and over again until I was so tense that I would cave into what he wanted. This technique had been used on me by my ex husband as well and I loathed it, yet I still allowed it to happen because I thought…
