This is really interesting. I think this article clarifies some of the confusion around how people find themselves in coercive relationships, and how surprisingly difficult it is to identify them.
I’ve heard someone say that marriage is by its nature a controlling relationship, because you aren’t free to do exactly as you please. To a degree it’s true. You aren’t two completely independent individuals, and so what one of you does affects the other. If one of you gets a job, or takes up long distance running, or gets drunk every night, it affects the other person, and so there’s an element of checking in with that person to see how they feel about what you are doing. And/or that other person attempts to limit what you do to minimise the impact on them. So it’s not unusual to hear someone say “I’ll check with my partner”, or “I’d better not, I’ve been out every night this week”, or “my partner doesn’t really like it when…..”. I think for this reason it’s hard to notice the early warning signs, or to see how far the control has gone.
I expect that if someone said “my husband insists on oral sex or I can’t keep my pets” it would raise some eyebrows, but as she points out, it doesn’t start there, and by the time it gets to that place you probably want to keep that as much of a secret as he does.
I think it’s worth pointing out, too, that most people have some experience of controlling relationships, if they have ever been a child or gone to school. If a school or parent can tell you what to wear, what not to wear, how long to have your hair, what colour you can have your hair, whether or not you can pierce your body, what words you can and cannot use, what tone you can adopt, if they can restrain you, isolate you, and insist that you have swabs invasively taken from your body, it’s not entirely surprising that grown adults don’t always immediately recognise similar behaviours as unacceptable.
This last point that you make is interesting. When I run One In One workshops in schools they are often linked to issues being raised in PSHE classes regarding healthy relationships. So on one level schools attempt to cover this massively important subject usually in a few sessions before moving on. As you say though, the very process of control that the institutions- increasingly - insist on often mirror quite closely a very one sided and unhealthy relationship.
Perhaps it's the trickle down that the school itself gets from the educational authority and government - they bully the school, that pressures teachers who in turn force the kids to comply.
I've seen teachers use very aggressive and bullying communication with children which perhaps sets an example that this type of communication is ok from an authority figure. What subconscious effect this has on each particular child does not appear to be considered. A possible repeated trauma for some that expresses itself later in life through understanding of behaviour in relationships, both public and private?
Yes, I think the bullying and coercive communication that some teachers use with children may well come down from a prescriptive and constrictive national curriculum, and large class sizes and underfunding and a lot of unmet needs of both the students and the teachers. I don’t think many teachers in the state sector go there with the intention of being bullying and abusive (I expect they enter the private sector for that) but it would definitely be easier for the school and teachers if everyone was super compliant. Imposing very strict penalties for non compliance, including the use of isolation, is clearly one way of exerting some control.
Many parenting practises are around control rather than connection, too. I remember seeing a meme with a mother talking to her daughter and saying something along the lines of “Suzie, I want you to grow up into a strong, independent, free-thinking, confident woman, but for now I want you to shut up and do exactly as you are told”.
And that’s how I think it relates to finding yourself in an abusive relationship as an adult. Highly controlling environments at school and as a child at home must provide a baseline of familiarity, a sort of template, that it becomes easier to slip into.
And it’s a bit worrying when you think about how this disconnects and damages people. When you see a small person absolutely overwhelmed by their emotions and instead of being helped to regulate their extreme “loss of calm” they are punished and isolated instead… well, I for one don’t relish encountering that person when they aren’t so small anymore. The chap in journal entry 14, who is kicking the doors of the supermarket, is essentially having a “tantrum”, he looks like an overgrown toddler, and it would be funny if only it weren’t.
This is really interesting. I think this article clarifies some of the confusion around how people find themselves in coercive relationships, and how surprisingly difficult it is to identify them.
I’ve heard someone say that marriage is by its nature a controlling relationship, because you aren’t free to do exactly as you please. To a degree it’s true. You aren’t two completely independent individuals, and so what one of you does affects the other. If one of you gets a job, or takes up long distance running, or gets drunk every night, it affects the other person, and so there’s an element of checking in with that person to see how they feel about what you are doing. And/or that other person attempts to limit what you do to minimise the impact on them. So it’s not unusual to hear someone say “I’ll check with my partner”, or “I’d better not, I’ve been out every night this week”, or “my partner doesn’t really like it when…..”. I think for this reason it’s hard to notice the early warning signs, or to see how far the control has gone.
I expect that if someone said “my husband insists on oral sex or I can’t keep my pets” it would raise some eyebrows, but as she points out, it doesn’t start there, and by the time it gets to that place you probably want to keep that as much of a secret as he does.
I think it’s worth pointing out, too, that most people have some experience of controlling relationships, if they have ever been a child or gone to school. If a school or parent can tell you what to wear, what not to wear, how long to have your hair, what colour you can have your hair, whether or not you can pierce your body, what words you can and cannot use, what tone you can adopt, if they can restrain you, isolate you, and insist that you have swabs invasively taken from your body, it’s not entirely surprising that grown adults don’t always immediately recognise similar behaviours as unacceptable.
This last point that you make is interesting. When I run One In One workshops in schools they are often linked to issues being raised in PSHE classes regarding healthy relationships. So on one level schools attempt to cover this massively important subject usually in a few sessions before moving on. As you say though, the very process of control that the institutions- increasingly - insist on often mirror quite closely a very one sided and unhealthy relationship.
Perhaps it's the trickle down that the school itself gets from the educational authority and government - they bully the school, that pressures teachers who in turn force the kids to comply.
I've seen teachers use very aggressive and bullying communication with children which perhaps sets an example that this type of communication is ok from an authority figure. What subconscious effect this has on each particular child does not appear to be considered. A possible repeated trauma for some that expresses itself later in life through understanding of behaviour in relationships, both public and private?
Yes, I think the bullying and coercive communication that some teachers use with children may well come down from a prescriptive and constrictive national curriculum, and large class sizes and underfunding and a lot of unmet needs of both the students and the teachers. I don’t think many teachers in the state sector go there with the intention of being bullying and abusive (I expect they enter the private sector for that) but it would definitely be easier for the school and teachers if everyone was super compliant. Imposing very strict penalties for non compliance, including the use of isolation, is clearly one way of exerting some control.
Many parenting practises are around control rather than connection, too. I remember seeing a meme with a mother talking to her daughter and saying something along the lines of “Suzie, I want you to grow up into a strong, independent, free-thinking, confident woman, but for now I want you to shut up and do exactly as you are told”.
And that’s how I think it relates to finding yourself in an abusive relationship as an adult. Highly controlling environments at school and as a child at home must provide a baseline of familiarity, a sort of template, that it becomes easier to slip into.
And it’s a bit worrying when you think about how this disconnects and damages people. When you see a small person absolutely overwhelmed by their emotions and instead of being helped to regulate their extreme “loss of calm” they are punished and isolated instead… well, I for one don’t relish encountering that person when they aren’t so small anymore. The chap in journal entry 14, who is kicking the doors of the supermarket, is essentially having a “tantrum”, he looks like an overgrown toddler, and it would be funny if only it weren’t.