Subtly Controlling Behavior

The following behaviors are present in both abusive relationships, and also 'merely' unsatisfying relationships. Alone, they are probably insufficient to constitute an abusive relationship. However, combined with stronger actual or threatened behaviors, they may complete the web of control. To recognize abuse, it is helpful to understand all aspects of control. Misusing people includes both controlling and exploitative strategies. While it has been tempting to include 'merely' exploitative strategies, they have been left out to keep the focus on the way control works.

• Never Being Understood: Good listening and good communication, especially during a conflict, relies heavily on the act of paraphrasing or repeating what the other person has said. Counselors are taught this on day one, and all good listeners come to it intuitively. One controlling habit, however, is to refuse to acknowledge that someone has "gotten it', no matter how carefully the listener has refined his or her statements. In fact, complaints sometimes seem to reverse themselves to keep one step ahead of the listener's understanding. This can be a defense against anxiety, but when employed by an aggressively critical person is probably best understood as controlling.
• Black and White In a more general context this is where everything is believed to be just fine, or horrible. This is a widely distributed shame-driven state. In an interpersonal context, it can be used to block meaningful discussion, and can be reinforced for that reason.. It is hard to bring any grievance to a person using black and white thinking, because the implications of the problem are painted in such exaggerated terms, and the black and white thinker uses this to style him- or herself a victim because they are being asked to accept something 'so outrageous. In fact they are just being asked to adjust something.
• Nevr Agreeing: This is similar to never being understood. A tell-tale sign is that the difficult person will, if necessary, contradict his or her previous opinion in order to avoid agreement.
• Walkless Talk The controlling person talks indignantly and frequently to the target about what 'should' be done: target believes the controlling person must be doing a lot of ites to 'help' by doing as much as they can. In actuality, the controlling person is doing very little of the activity, it just seems like they are because they talk about it so much.
• The Chain of Yes: In this ploy, an easy, possibly flattering request is made to which the answer is almost surely "yes". More and more requests are made, each just slightly more demanding or less agreeable. A string of "yesses" is produced. It is natural at this point to have difficulty saying no, and so targets will tend to go farther in agreeing to an unfavorable request than they would have if asked in the beginning. This effect can take hold after even one or two "yesses"