Healthy Relationships

Healthy Relationships

Deeply ingrained in human nature, the desire to control our destiny occurs in everyone’s life, with varying degree and intensity. Not only do we want to control our life, sometimes we also want to control the behaviours of others. After all, control over others is power. Unfortunately, it’s very easy to abuse this power and domination over others.
Some people mistake the control over one’s own destiny and the destiny of others as being a necessary condition for ensuring their happiness and contentment. These people tend to be control freaks. They want to control everything, and in so doing they drive you crazy. They can be an overbearing father, an overprotective mother, an autocratic boss, a manipulative friend, or a jealous spouse. These are people who want to change you and your behaviours. They want to tell you what to do, and if they could they would run your lives. Their ego plays brilliantly on their fundamental fear of losing control, and of the unknown. They will use intimidation, manipulation, reason and logic, and emotional exploitation to try to persuade you to do things their way.
On the other extreme, there are people who hate confrontation to such a point that they always give in to others. These people tend to be treated accommodating doormats with other people walking all over them. They can be shy people, followers, colleagues without any initiative, abused spouses, yes-men, people who cannot decide for themselves. These are people who will do what they are told whether they like it or not. They tend to let others impose their will on them because they hate confrontation, have low self-worth and self-confidence, have no initiative, are laissez-faire type of people.
Under normal circumstances, most of us are somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. When we interact with others we like that our relationship follow a certain path. We are not comfortable being with people whose behaviours are unpredictable, irrational or puzzling to us. Sometimes we want to the leaders, and at other times we are quite happy to follow others. Regardless, we all have a certain amount of control on others and ourselves.
People’s behaviour is fundamentally selfish in nature. We are all looking after our self interest. And it is no different in the realm of personal relationships. Even when we act benevolently toward others, most of the time we don’t do it out of altruism. We do so in the expectation of being recognized and rewarded by some reciprocal act of kindness in the future. It’s like having a deposit account where we are depositing favours, and acts of kindness. In times of needs, we expect that we can call on the past beneficiaries, and successfully draw from that deposit account.
Let’s take, for example, the maxim, “Honesty is the best policy” in a relationship context. Many people can honestly say to spouses that they have never been unfaithful to them. However, how many of them have really had the opportunity of having an affair or a one night stand, but have genuinely refuse the offer. How many of them would engage in sexual activities with other partners if they were sure that they would not be caught? How many of them are not tempted because they are scared of sexually transmitted diseases like aids and venereal diseases? The controlling factors for fidelity are not necessarily love, respect and loyalty to their spouses, but rather a combination of other factors as described above.
We have the tendency of trying to influence others so that they will see things from our point of view. Everything is fine when people agree with us, and when our values and beliefs systems coincide. Once there is difference of opinions and conflicts, the relationship is in distress. It’s much more difficult to have the habit of putting ourselves in the other person’s shoes. To have healthy interactions, we need to develop relationships based on mutual love and trust. When there is disagreement, try to find a win-win solution.
You need to learn when to combat the control that others want to impose on you, and when to accommodate them to create respectful and trustful relationships. Don’t let someone’s else controlling behaviour dictate how you live your life. Take control of your life and relationship. Be assertive and don’t let control freaks dominate or victimize you. Be flexible, think in terms of preference rather than in terms of must have or must be like that.
Most human relationships consist of people interacting mentally and emotionally with each other. Healthy human relationships need commitment, caring, compatibility, communication and compromise. You need to give up the illusion of control. You certainly need to have a positive mental attitude and a healthy self-esteem. No relationship can thrive without you being in touch with your inner self and having a relationship with God. When all is said and done, everything in life that truly matters can be boiled down to meaningful and fulfilling relationships. Life is a series of relationships; the rest is just the mechanics of life.

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