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Accessibility statementSkip to main content Democracy Dies in Darkness SubscribeSign in Advertisement Democracy Dies in Darkness AdviceAsk ElaineAsking EricAsk SahajCarolyn HaxMiss MannersParenting AdviceWork Advice AdviceAsk ElaineAsking EricAsk SahajCarolyn HaxMiss MannersParenting AdviceWork Advice CAROLYN HAX: ‘COMPASSIONATE’ WOMAN CONTROLS HIS WHOLE LIFE. CAN THAT BE ABUSE? A letter writer has come to question the hold his partner has over him, through guilt and other control tactics. December 8, 2024 at 12:00 a.m. ESTYesterday at 12:00 a.m. EST 5 min 564 (Illustration by Nick Galifianakis for The Washington Post) Column by Carolyn Hax Dear Carolyn: A person lives with a partner. The partner has long-term issues, which the person feels are the sad result of the partner having had a very bad ending to a relationship decades ago. The person was also greatly helped by the partner before they became partners, when the person was in the throes of a bad divorce and was truly lost. The person feels they owe the partner for this, and also because the partner is so compassionate and cannot stand to be hurt. Subscribe for unlimited access to The Post You can cancel anytime. Subscribe But the person has ceded control over their life to the partner, even as the person financially supports the partner. The partner controls who the person sees, and if the person sees anyone behind the partner’s back, the partner threatens to leave. This panics the person. Story continues below advertisement The person has also found that the partner reads the person’s emails, downloads the person’s texts, etc. Advertisement Is this abuse if the person is a man, and the partner is a woman? 🗣️ Follow Advice Follow — Person in Connecticut Person in Connecticut: Has someone actually said to you that men can’t be abused by women? That only women are victims of abuse, only by men? Because that’s what you’re implying, just with the fact of your question — and I want to take that utter falsehood out from the folds of implication into daylight. Abuse isn’t about gender or age or role or physical strength. Regardless of the specifics of their relationship to each other, if one person has power over another, then they can exploit it. And that’s all abuse is: the harmful exercise of power over someone else. Story continues below advertisement Skip to end of carousel ABOUT CAROLYN HAX (For The Washington Post) I’ve written an advice column at The Post since 1997. If you want advice, you can send me your questions here (believe it or not, every submission gets read). If you don’t want to miss a column, you can sign up for my daily newsletter. I also do a live chat with readers every Friday: You can submit a question in advance or join me live. Follow me on Facebook and Instagram. End of carousel Abuse of women by men will be more common, sure, when accounting for a patriarchal society and likely physical strength advantages — but that’s only two types of power in a whole palette of them. Advertisement So yes, man person, your woman partner is an abuser per your description, and you are being abused. Control is abuse. It doesn’t matter who is doing it or why or what they’re controlling. Your partner uses your sense of indebtedness to her, and fear of her leaving, to manipulate your feelings and restrict your freedoms. She also uses your sympathy and compassion as a lever for control. You say she had “a very bad ending to a relationship” to explain why she limits whom you can see and snoops in your texts. So, her ex … cheated, I assume? And you’re accepting that as good reason for her to control whom you see? Story continues below advertisement It is not a valid reason. I am here to report, sadly but surely, that your partner is not the first person with “a very bad ending to a relationship” on her ledger, and she will not be the last. Advertisement Plenty of these other people carrying around the scars of getting cheated on or otherwise mistreated — and feeling shocked and humiliated and duped — manage to get over it. It can be devastating, so some need help, sure. So they get help. My point is, they don’t all use this experience as an excuse to jerk subsequent partners’ leashes around for decades. I know that’s not a nice way for me to put it. But it’s not inaccurate, either. She’s making you pay for whatever her bad ex did all those years ago. Story continues below advertisement You may have persuaded yourself this is a kindness on your part, a gift to her: “She’s been hurt, so I will let her read my emails.” But it’s not. All it does is give her an excuse not to get the serious help she seriously needs. All this time, everywhere you go, everything you do, she’s still shadowed by her anxiety that you’re going to hurt her. Because no amount of controlling, snooping, worrying or threatening has reassured her yet, has it? Advertisement The healthier choice is to insist she get sufficient help with this long-ago trauma for her to manage it entirely by regulating herself. Healthy people trust again because they trust themselves to recover, to be okay, to carry on, no matter what bad things happen. How would this look? Old way: snooping in your phone. New way: meditation, say. Old: controlling your social calendar. New: managing her own expectations. Old: threatening to leave. New: actually leaving, if you’re ever a jerk to her, or if she is unable to regulate her emotions well enough to stop micromanaging you. Story continues below advertisement I’ve made this mostly about her so far, to explain why her behavior is problematic. But you control only your side of the relationship, so the small but mighty advice part of this answer is as follows: Get therapy, please, just for you, to help you understand why you ceded control of yourself to anyone, much less someone who abuses that power. And understand why you read your abuser as “so compassionate.” Why you think your partner “cannot stand to be hurt” — but you can? Why you think you can “owe” a partner yourself, literally, in return for anything. You two have built a life of defaulting to your pain. You, at least, can choose to start healing. Please do. MORE FROM CAROLYN HAX From the archive: If he’ll ditch you for first class, bump him from your life A sister disparages her brother’s contribution to their mom’s care Her soon-to-be ex is grieving, but she’s still seething They ‘take turns’ choosing movies. It’s always his turn. Sister-in-law angles for news on child she left behind More: Sign up for Carolyn’s email newsletter to get her column delivered to your inbox each morning. Carolyn has a Q&A with readers on Fridays. Read the most recent live chat here. The next chat is Dec. 13 at 12 p.m. Resources for getting help. Frequently asked questions about the column. Chat glossary Show more Share 564 Comments NewsletterThursdays for 12 weeks Voraciously: Meal Plan of Action Dinner needs a game plan. Menus and meal prep guides for the week ahead — every Thursday for 12 weeks. Sign up Recommended for you Recommended by Subscribe to comment and get the full experience. Choose your plan → Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Company About The Post Newsroom Policies & Standards Diversity & Inclusion Careers Media & Community Relations WP Creative Group Accessibility Statement Sections Trending Politics Elections Opinions National World Style Sports Business Climate Well+Being D.C., Md., & Va. 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