World Class Hugs

Rachel Puryear

When it comes to friendships and relationships, savvy people usually know the obvious red flags and bad signs. From people who hit or belittle, who consistently don’t do their fair share or who aren’t there when you need them, who are just all-around mean-spirited people or whose deeply poor judgement affects everyone around them – this kind of bad news shows readily.

People who are interested in and experienced with toxic and abusive relationships/friendships tend to know the difference between emotional, physical, and maybe even financial abuse. They likely have at least some familiarity with what emotional manipulation looks like – even the sneakier kinds. They also have heard how people can be groomed for abusive relationships, and may know some of the distinctions between ghosting and breadcrumbing. They might be able to spot commonly-known traits of personality disorders.

People less familiar with such things might understand at some level what a controlling and toxic relationship is, but not have such a good idea of how it works.

There are some troubling red flags which seem to be common in a lot of toxic and abusive relationships. People might find these annoying and problematic initially, but might not necessarily realize that it could be controlling behavior. If you know to look for them, though, they can be readily spotted.

Here are a few examples of behaviors commonly found in harmful relationships that could be controlling, but that people tend to overlook:

Hand manipulating a puppet on strings. By Sivani Bandaru.

Taking Up All Your Time

Have you ever known someone who asks you for “just a few minutes of your time”, only to have them burn up hours, or more – every time? They do it little by little – “oh! just a little longer, we’re almost done!”, over and over again. Or, they just don’t listen to you. They also make you feel guilty about just dropping them.

And they seem to see your down time as fair game for them to grab to spend on them, without asking first. I’m not talking about having a standing date – I mean when they expect they can make plans for you to do things for them, when you had your own thing in mind.

There are people with poor time management skills, who end up being more of a time commitment than you or they ever intended. While that’s something to work on with them, that doesn’t mean they’re trying to do harm.

But there are others who quite intentionally do this, in order to control you and not leave you with any time to do anything else that doesn’t revolve around them.

Listen to your instincts as which one it is, with a particular person. It could also be a combination of both.

Interfering With Sleep

We all need our sleep. It’s essential to maintaining health, and to feeling the best we can throughout the day.

Accordingly, we should generally respect the need for sleep in those we love. There are situations which warrant waking someone (i.e., an emergency, needing help because someone is ill or injured, care of children or elders). However, intentionally interfering with someone’s sleep needlessly and regularly can be a form of abuse and control.

If someone repeatedly and intentionally wakes you up while you’re trying to sleep, or won’t let you sleep – and it’s not for a pretty good reason (like if you asked them to wake you up for something, or made it clear it’s okay), that’s not loving and supportive behavior.

It will leave you cranky and tired, and not performing at your best. It could also make you more prone to accidents, and increased health problems over time. Your partner should generally let you sleep when you need to.

Controlling the Conversation Every Time

Some people are a lot chattier than others, and I’ve written before about interrupting people who frequently dominate the conversation.

Oftentimes, annoyingly chatty people are unaware that they’re doing it – they might be insecure, nervous, clueless, self-absorbed, or haven’t learned to filter themselves so that they don’t verbalize every single thought at agonizing length.

However, there are also people who want to always have the last word, and who don’t really want to listen to anyone else. It’s not just that they talk the longest, or the loudest – they want to dictate when the conversation is over, who talks, and what you are allowed to talk about; lest they either get aggressive, or stonewall you. This is a very unhealthy dynamic.

Damaging Other Beneficial Relationships

Have you ever been close to someone, valued that relationship, and then someone else came between you and that person – and it ruined the relationship?

Maybe you didn’t want it to turn out that way – but you could no longer stand the toxic person they then always had around while you were visiting, or maybe that toxic person even turned your former friend/loved one against you. It’s really awful when this happens.

Ideally, a partner should complement the rest of your social circle, and it’s a good sign when your friends generally like and think well of your partner. When the overall consensus is that they think you can do better, though, there’s probably a pretty good reason why.

Someone who alienates your friends – even without meaning to – is going to be very hard to be with. That’s a heavy price to pay for this relationship, and probably a strong indicator that you’re not compatible.

And if they do it on purpose, it’s hard to believe they’re not an abuser. An abuser wants to isolate their victim, and therefore control them more easily. Alienating their friends first is a great way to achieve that.

Undermining Sobriety/Recovery

This is a really tragic one. People on the road to recovery from addictions need a lot of support from people around them. But unfortunately, sometimes one person who doesn’t want someone to get better can stand in the way of that. They might coax the person into using again – often taking advantage of a vulnerable time, or actively stand in the way of the person getting the help they need.

Why do people do this? Sometimes, it’s because they want their drinking/using buddy back, even if it kills that person and destroys their life. Or, it could be because that person is easier to manipulate, abuse and control when they’re actively addicted, and the abuser doesn’t want to lose control. Sometimes abused and addicted people leave a bad relationship so they can get clean, in addition to getting away from the abuse.

Often, people with addictions are viewed as likely abusers of people. It is true that addiction can bring out the worst in people, and drive a lot of destructive behavior. However, it’s important to also recognize that people with addiction problems are also at high risk of being abused themselves, and also that they may use in order to cope with being abused. In some very abusive relationships, victims are also forced to use, and become addicted and controlled that way.

Undermining recovery efforts is a sure sign of a toxic relationship, and a person who’s very bad news. Even a single incident of pressuring a known recovering addict to drink/use again is a huge warning sign. Even if you’re not an addict or at risk, it’s still pretty gross behavior for someone to do that. Stay away.

Emotional Black Hole

In outer space, black holes are places where gravity pulls so much that even light cannot get out. That sounds scary, but the odds are nil that you’ll ever be in danger from one.

Emotional black holes, however, are right here on Earth – and they’re a much greater danger to you than the outer space kind. These come in the form of people who suck the life out of others, but nothing (good at least) ever comes back out of them. No matter how much good you try and put into them.

Being in a relationship with an emotional black hole means that since they are never satisfied, you increasingly spend too much time and energy and resources trying to satisfy or fix them, when nothing will ever be enough.

That may be the way they are, and they might not set out trying to specifically control you in that way. Nonetheless, being with somebody like this is pretty destructive, and it will wear you down.

Emotional black holes are an interesting and complicated subject. Recognizing them is best demonstrated with some examples.

Accordingly, a future post will cover emotional black holes in greater depth. Stay tuned.

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Thank you, dear readers, for reading, following, and sharing. Here’s to recognizing subtle abusive behaviors, and quickly seeing them for what they are. If you enjoyed this content and want to see more of it, please hit “like” and subscribe, if you have not done so already. xoxo

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