Let go of controlling your partner

Do you find yourself wanting to control your partner in the day to day tasks & conversations? 

Me too.

The good news is you DON'T need to change your partner in order to feel better. 

In this episode, I get personal and tell you where I'm struggling in my relationship - and what I'm doing about it. 

Learn the communication skills that will level-up your marraige in my 90 minute Masterclass: The Formula for Effective Communication for only $37

FREE: 21 Questions That Will Bring You & Your Partner Closer

IG:  @partnershipaligned
Elana@partnershipaligned.com
Interested in private coaching? Book your free consult and start improving your relationship today!

Transcript

Season Theme: Spiritual Traits In Love

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hey everybody, welcome back to Partnership Aligned Podcast. So in this season, we are going through different spiritual characteristics that, when you bring them into your relationship, create the intimacy and connection that you're looking for. But just as important really changes your relationship with yourself. So today I want to talk about a spiritual characteristic that I personally have been just honing in on and training and praying about and failing at and then succeeding at and then failing at again. And that is surrender. Now, surrender can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. So I want to get really clear. Surrender doesn't mean that I like give up and turn into like some little girl that can't do anything. That's not what surrender is. Surrender is the opposite of control, okay? I know that if you're listening to this, you tend to want to control your partner. Why do I know that? Because you're human, okay? And because you're probably in a relationship if you're listening to Partnership Aligned Podcast. And if you're not, power to you for being here. I love when people start listening before their next relationship. But anyway, back to what I was saying. So I have been working on surrender. I'm gonna get a little personal with you guys. When I started this podcast, started my coaching business, I was getting out of a marriage and I was taking all of the knowledge and the wisdom that I had gained in that marriage and then helping people. I've always had a knack for relationships. I was a therapist for years. I was already qualified. But in that marriage, I learned how to be in complete control of myself and within peace and surrender, even though the man was on drugs and sleeping with other women. Okay. So the circumstances were bad. And I found a way to relax, let go, take care of myself, and not let his emotional state dictate my emotional state. And how did I do that? Through surrender. Well, a few years have gone by, and yes, I've dated and yes, I've, you know, had different experiences, but I've mostly been working on myself and uh my son. And now I'm back in a relationship, back sharing a home with a man on the way to marriage and hopefully having another kid. And I am back in that place where I want to control my partner. And here's the thing: in my first marriage, it made sense that I would want to control him because he was like on heroin, right? Like who wouldn't want that to stop? But the man I'm with now is so unbelievably healthy that really I'm learning from him. And the fact that I want to control him shows me that it's not about the other person. It's about me. Okay. So that is like my message to you today is that if you find yourself wanting to control your partner, it is not about your partner, it is about you. So let's talk about it. What would it mean to surrender, right? So let's get like really nitty-gritty. Some of the things that I do when I'm not in surrender is I make passive-aggressive comments to try and manipulate and control. I um get quiet because I'm trying to give a message that maybe I don't agree with something. Um, I take time for myself, which I don't actually think is a bad thing. I think taking time to myself is a fantastic thing that I do for both me and my partner, but I can feel within me that when I'm taking that time, it is because I'm trying to release some control. Um, I interrupt, I jump to correct, uh, all kinds of little things, right? And I've really been thinking about this lately, and I've been engaging in prayer about it and meditation and talking to a lot of my spiritual friends about it. And I also have been coaching people on this for a long time. And taking my uh my initial, my initial love affair with control back in the day, and then taking my healing from it the first time, and then now kind of coming into a relationship that is so healthy and so clean and so supportive and so honest and so communicative and still wanting to control really just proves to me that it's human nature. It is human nature to want to control. Now, why? The question is why? The reason is fear. If I wasn't afraid of some kind of outcome happening or not happening, I would have zero reason to try and control anything ever. Okay. Why do I want to control my son? And I don't mean like take care of him and tell him to brush his teeth. I mean like control his experience in life is because I'm afraid that he might end up, you know, insert whatever fear you have or I have about our kids, right? He'll end up an addict, he'll end up uh not popular, he'll end up um with no money, he'll end up uh uh, you know, mental health, whatever it is. So I want to create an experience that I think in my little brain will stop my fear from coming true. And it's the same when we try and control our adults as well, right? I want to be in control of how my partner views things. I want to be in control of how he manages his work and his kids and you know, all of the things. Why? Because I have some deep down fear. And so I had to really, really stop and think about it. Like, what is the deep down fear inside of me that makes me want to control a man who's basically like has nothing that needs to be controlled, right? He handles his own business, uh, has like he's fine. He's fine. He doesn't need me to control anything in his life. He's fine. Why do I feel the need to control? Because I need to feel like the person that I'm with is like a million percent mentally healthy. Now, that's my thing, okay? My thing goes back to number one, me being a therapist and putting a lot of weight in mental health. Number two, my background of being in addiction and really struggling with my mental health in that era. And most of all, my first marriage, where I was married to a man who was really mentally unhealthy and how difficult that was. So my sensitivities are and always have been towards mental health. So anytime that I hear or see anything that maybe sometime down the road might lead to losing something or something's not healthy or something, I feel the need to control it now. Now, I want you to ask yourself, what is the fear that you have that makes you want to control your partner? Okay. Some of the things that I've heard in my coaching is, well, if I don't tell him what to do, he won't be able to take care of the kids the way they need to be taken care of. Or if I don't help him with X, Y, and Z, it just won't get done. Well, if I don't, you know, and it goes on and on. But the thing is, you have to ask yourself who you want to be in your relationship. And for me, not only am I thinking about who I want to be in my relationship with my partner, but like, who do I want to be in my relationship to God? Right? Like, do I trust God or do I not? Like, what's really happening here? I'm human, I'm always gonna have fear. That's totally fine. But at the end of the day, like, do I actually trust God? Like, I know he takes care of the big, big things. He took me out of addiction, out of a toxic uh marriage. He recently took me out of single motherhood, like, you know, and he's basically rolled out the red carpet for me because I continue to try and stay close to him at all times. So if I can trust him with these big things, like why do I not trust the little day-to-day things? And again, the answer is fear. So, my job, your job, our job is to identify what is the fear that is driving you to want to control things. What are you afraid might happen? And it might be that you're afraid something might actually happen, like circumstantially, like something might actually cause and effect happen. Or it might just be a really uncomfortable emotion that you're trying to stay away from, like insecurity. Uh, if you're dealing with a partner who um, I don't know, like maybe isn't making any money or is out of a job or something like that, and you want to control their process for how to get back into working, that is because you are trying to make yourself feel better by not having to feel that insecurity. As soon as we go into some kind of an action, whether it's actually helpful or not, we feel more powerful. And we're addicted to feeling more powerful, especially when we feel out of control, right? If you feel out of control, what makes you feel in control is going into action. And we don't stop to take a look at the action and actually ask, is this action actually helping or not? And I'll give you some better questions. Is this action bringing me closer or further away from my marriage goals? Okay. Now, what are your marriage goals? My marriage goals are uh transparency, open communication, playfulness, and connection. Like those are my marriage goals. I want to strengthen those things, and I don't want to do anything that takes me further away from those goals. So I have to ask myself, when my partner is talking about his work and I think he should be doing it differently, would telling him that, even though I have absolutely no idea like how to do his work, right? Like we're nowhere near in the same field. Um, but like when I want to control how he's doing things, is that gonna get me closer to connection or further away from connection? Is it gonna get me closer to playfulness or further away from playfulness? And my answer in my relationship is further away. Why? Because when I'm trying to control things, I am tense. I am not relaxed, which means I can't be playful. I am not trusting him and his decisions and his life experience, which means I can't really connect with him, right? Because I'm trying to change him. It takes me further away from my marriage goals. So this is one of the things that we have to look at. What are the goals in your relationship? What are your intimacy goals? What are your relationship goals? The actions that you take when you're in fear, when you want to control, do they take you closer to those goals or further away? We have to kind of soften our shoulders a little bit, take a deep breath, know that everything is okay and that we are not actually in charge. Okay, this season on Partnership Aligned Podcast, we're getting a little bit more spiritual. And a big part of spirituality is trusting the process. I am not in charge. I at the end of the day, really do not get to decide the outcome of things. I am in charge of the effort, not the outcome. And my effort in this arena that we're talking about today is to surrender. So what does it look like to surrender? Surrender means knowing that you don't know and then not needing to act. Because if I don't know, then I don't need to act on anything. If I think I know, now I have to make sure that you know. Now I have to make sure that you know that I know that you know, right? Now I have to make sure to go into action to help you do the thing that I know you need to do. Like it just goes on and on and on and on. One of the things that really helps me is um, you know, that saying of uh from the Psalms of be still and know that I am God. That like just makes me take a deep breath. Like, just be still. Like, Ilana, I've got it. Like, I've got it. You do not, you just know that I am God, know that I've got it, know that it's already taken care of. Like your little human interferences are adorable, but really they don't, they're not gonna do anything for you. Focus on loving your partner as they are, focus on loving yourself as you are, focus on building a home and a family that reflects the life that you want. Focus on those things. Sometimes the wisest thing you can do is nothing. And surrendering is like this tricky thing where it's an action and it's an inaction at the same time. It's an action because it's a decision. I need to decide to surrender, and then I need to let go, which is an action. But it's an inaction because within that letting go, I do less. I stop figuring it out, I stop managing him, I stop uh deciding what's right and what's not and what needs to happen and what doesn't need to happen. What do I do instead? I turn my focus to myself. Am I showing up as the best version of me today? Because if we're gonna talk about control, the only thing that I'm in control of is myself. Can I influence my partner? Absolutely. Can I motivate or manipulate my partner? Sure, if I really want to, but at the end of the day, the only thing that I can control is me. So I take the reality that I'm in, which is a great reality, by the way. I take the reality that I'm in and I say, okay, who do I want to be in this in this reality? And my personal answer is I want to be relaxed. I want to wear life like a loose garment. I want to let the things that don't matter go, the inconsequential things. I want to be less irritated. I want to let it go. And how do I do that? Number one, by making a decision that I'm going to. By number two, letting go of the idea that I know what's best and really challenging that. Like, do I actually know? Because I've been wrong quite a few times. Um, and then it's really just about um following through with the action. And for me, sometimes the action is just staying quiet or thinking a really loving uh thought or physically turning towards my partner or opening up into curiosity, right? Curiosity is the secret sauce to communication, it's the secret sauce to a happy marriage. So today I just wanted to give you like a little bit of an insight of what's going on in my relationship. Um, it's not even going on in my relationship, to be honest with you. It's just going on in my head, it's going on in my body. Um, it's not even really going on in my relationship. If you asked him, he'd be like, What? I didn't, what are you talking about? Um, but inner work is relationship work. Okay. Relationship coaching is coaching with self. That is exactly what it is. When I coach you about your marriage, one of the things that I coach you most strongly about is about your relationship with yourself. Because the way that you feel about yourself is the way that you're going to show up in your relationship. Your relationship is just a mirror of your relationship with yourself. And so that's where, that's where we take it. Um, all right, guys, I have an awesome, awesome workshop that I want you guys to go ahead and sign up to get. It's called Speak and Be Heard, the Formula to Effective Communication. It's a 90-minute class. It is step-by-step. What is the formula to effective communication? What are the characteristics you need to embody? I give you verbiage, I give you mindset shifts, I give you everything that you need, both um concepts and the concrete stuff. Uh, it's only$37 and it's yours forever. It comes to you in your email. I'm gonna go ahead and link that here in the show notes. And I want you to go ahead and watch the 90 minute class and then send me an email or hit me up on Instagram at partnershipaligned and let me know how it was. All right, guys, have an amazing week, and I will talk to you soon.