Original content by Ashley Berges
Has your significant other ever told you that you are irritating, no one will ever love you, and that people talk behind your back? Do you understand how these types of comments are designed to make you feel? Do you understand the manipulation and the control behind these types of comments?
If you are in a relationship where you question your value and feel guilt and shame often, then you need to continue to read this blog.
Derogatory statements from a significant other are used to manipulate and control us. They are used to keep us in relationships that are most likely not very healthy. For example, comments such as, “They are the only one that will ever love you,” “Other people lie to you and tell you what you want to hear but they do not like you,” and “You are irritating.”
These statements that are repeated have an impact on our lives. The reason they impact our lives is that we begin to believe them. This is why the other person is using these types of statements. They are using them to manipulate and control us to stay in the relationship and not leave them.
When these statements are used they do several things. First, when they begin to use these statements, we are surprised. We do not expect someone that we care about to be saying these things to us. Over time with consistency, we begin to believe what they are saying to us. As a result, we begin to retreat and see our significant other as our savior. We see them as the only person that is going to love us.
What happens next is that we begin to be more co-dependent with that person. The exact opposite of what we should be doing happens. We believe the negative narrative that they have told us.
Let’s look at why people use these types of tactics in the first place.
The first thing is that they say these things to break you down. They want you to question yourself and your value. When we start questioning ourselves, we lose our power. We are giving them the control. Over time they will add more little comments, and repeat what they have said, especially when you are not expecting it. Next, this same person saves you in a situation which offsets your mind and you think they are there for you even though you feel bad about yourself.
In the process of the other person not wanting you to leave them, they make you feel submissive to them. They tell us how bad we are but we “need” them. We stay in the relationship, but, we do not need to be in a relationship where we are shamed and guilted into feeling like a bad person.
How do we respond to this type of manipulation and control?
These comments make us feel afraid to leave the relationship. If we believe that everyone feels a certain way about us because that is what our significant other is telling us, then we believe that if we leave this relationship, we will never have another relationship again. No one else will ever see our value and we need to stick in this relationship.
The second thing is that it makes us cling to our significant other. When we become more clingy, we tend to listen to what they are saying even more. We accept what they say as the gospel truth. This is the programming that causes us to feel out of control and look to them for answers to who we are.
The third thing is that we begin to do more and more things for them. We give and do more. This makes us even more co-dependent. What is interesting is that the more we do for them, the more they cut us down. They like feeling in control and will do what they need to stay in control. In a healthy relationship, both people are always giving. When you are constantly giving and coming up short, this should be a wake-up call.
Last but not least, when we are being told these negative things we still feel that they are the only person that is going to be there for us. We feel insecure and powerless. Often loosing our identity.The reason these types of comments work is that we do not know who we truly are.
We need to be able to get into our programming and figure out what has been preventing us from seeing our truth or value.
When we are in a relationship where someone is consistently bringing us down, we need to remember, we as humans tend to believe the negative over the positive. We need to begin to understand if we are in a relationship that the other person is using negative statements to control us.
Are you able to realize how this has impacted your life? Once we can see this happening, then we can see how manipulation and control are being used against us. One of the most confusing things is that if we are not returning these negative comments to them, why are they giving us these types of comments in the first place unless it is only manipulation and control.
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