536 - Finding Your Voice: Navigating Control and Taking Back Your Power in Relationships
Power and control
Power imbalances exist in every relationship, but we often don’t think about them very much until they become a problem. Some possible imbalances of power could come from:
Age (one partner may be older than the other, and there is power that comes from both being younger in a relationship and being older).
Socioeconomic status/wealth (one partner might make more money than the other one and this can result in a deep power imbalance between the two people).
Able-bodied vs. disabled (for example, one partner might be more mobile than the other, or one partner might need more care than the other when it comes to disabilities or might need more recovery time after a long day out with another partner).
Gender.
Race.
Sexuality.
If non-monogamous: The amount of time that someone has been practicing polyamory or other forms of non-traditional relationships.
“Power is the ability of one person to exert control and influence within a relationship or group.”
Power can be a good thing in a relationship. It can help people complete tasks, provide emotional support and comfort, take charge when needed, and more. But there’s also a darker side, and when power and control start to be exerted over another person, we can run into issues.
What does power over someone look like?
Some possible examples of power exerted over another might look like:
Constant criticism of a partner including their clothing choices, physical appearance, or other actions resulting in low self-esteem.
Extreme jealousy and accusations of infidelity (even in polyamorous situations), or an attempt to control their interactions with other people. This could also include things like looking at a partner’s phone or emails without asking permission.
Using emotional support or physical touch as a way to reward behavior, and then conversely withholding it if a partner is doing something they don’t like.
Needing a huge amount of reassurance from a partner even if their partner isn’t giving them any reason to doubt their love and affection.
Guilt-tripping a partner, gaslighting a partner, and hold grudges for long periods of time (and bring up past infractions long after the incident occurred).
Lack of respect for their partner’s boundaries or for the agreements that were mutually created during the course of the relationship.
Feeling extremely entitled to their partner’s time, energy, and emotional bandwidth.
In extreme cases, isolation tactics can be used to keep a partner from their friends and family.
Additionally, creating total financial dependence on a partner can be an extreme form of control. This includes creating a lack of financial independence and not allowing them to have their own money or credit cards or any ability to make financial gains on their own.
These situations may sound extreme, but they can show up in more innocuous ways as well; these are simply some examples. According to the research, when you lack power in a relationship, it can have lasting effects on your mind and ability to think critically or perform difficult tasks.
Taking your power back
How do we reclaim our power? Feeling powerless in a relationship can wreak havoc on your emotional life. You may:
Feel like you need to walk on eggshells around a partner because you don’t know what kind of mood they are in or what might set them off that day.
Exhibit behavior like diminishing yourself for a partner in various ways, or choosing to not let them know if you are going through something emotionally difficult.
Choose to stop doing things like hanging out with people they don’t like or stop engaging in activities that they don’t approve of.
If they do anything to upset you, you might choose to emotionally regulate to a point where you simply don’t bring it up and bury the issue internally.
Generally make excuses for how to change the situation or make excuses for why you can’t leave the relationship. You may feel powerless to do so for a variety of reasons.
Some options for taking power back could include:
Retaining financial independence and making sure that you’re not reliant upon another individual in order to survive.
Making sure that you don’t compromise heavily on things like work, friends, goals, or on the things that you love to do.
Truly taking time for yourself to focus on your own individual healing and internal processing. This also may mean working with a therapist to help facilitate that journey.
Working to understand the transient nature of all things, including relationships, which can help you care for them fiercely and cultivate them when you’re in them, but also to not let them become the majority of your identity.
Knowing that your time is your own, and no one is entitled to it but you.
Not all of these are feasible for everyone, depending on their situation. If you’re reliant on another person in ways that make it impossible to do some of the above, that’s ok! It’s important to simply be working towards regaining your power, or putting systems in place before you enter another relationship.
You can also try this journaling exercise:
What things in my life do I love the most and feel like they are intrinsic to who I am as a person? How can I ensure these things are always a part of my life?
What are things I am not willing to compromise on in a relationship?
What are the relationships in my life that are not romantic that are the most meaningful to me? How can I ensure these relationships will stay important to my life?
Do I have savings and financial security? How can I ensure that I continue to strengthen my financial security over the next five years?
What are some ways that I can continue to work on my mental health in order to stay empowered and comfortable in my own skin?
What are the ways in which I can put myself first and make sure that I always communicate my wants and needs in all of my relationships?
If you’re currently in a relationship, how well does that relationship align with the answers you wrote down? If it doesn’t align as well as you want, try the following tactics to try to realign your power imbalance:
Open Communication: Start by having a frank and honest conversation with your partner about how you feel. Clearly express the need for more balance without blaming or accusing.
Self-Reflection: Assess your own behavior and contributions to the power dynamic. Recognize areas where you may need to assert yourself or change your responses to patterns that often come up.
Build Confidence: Increase your self-esteem by engaging in activities that make you feel competent and valued. Confidence can naturally lead to a more balanced power dynamic.
Seek support or professional help: Talk to friends, family, or a therapist about your situation. External perspectives can provide insights and emotional support.
Negotiate Roles and Responsibilities: Ensure that both partners engage in decision-making and share responsibilities equally, whether related to finances, household chores, or parenting.
It’s ok to break up: If you are in a situation of true imbalance with a partner unwilling to negotiate or change their behavior, or if you are in an abusive relationship, take steps to exit that relationship.
Stay tuned for the next part of this series where we explore these situations from the perspective of the one being controlling!
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory podcast, we're talking about control in relationships. Power dynamics occur in every relationship, and that can be natural, but we can often take for granted just how out of control or how devastating that can get in certain situations. We're actually going to be discussing this topic in two parts. One on this episode and one on the next episode.
First, we're going to be talking about this from the side of those who feel like they've lost control in a relationship or they have a loss of control. Then in the second episode, we'll be talking about this from the side of the person who might be exhibiting controlling behaviors over their partner without realizing it.
We'll be discussing why this can occur, how to identify it, what it looks like, and then what to do if you find yourself on either side of the control spectrum. If you're interested in learning more about our fundamental communication tools that we reference on this show all the time, check out our book, Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships, which covers our most used communication tools for all types of relationships. You can find links to buy it at multiamory.com/book or wherever you like to buy books.
Emily: All righty. To start off here, have the two of you ever been in a situation where you felt like your partner was trying to control you? Specifically, I'm curious about the small innocuous ways that this might have been occurring, that felt like, "Oh, that's just perhaps because they're insecure about a situation, or maybe they just are worried about me and want to figure this thing out," for instance. Something along those lines. Could you recognize it? If you did recognize it, were you able to do anything about it at the time?
Dedeker: This is a tough one because I think that I've experienced a full spectrum of those controlling behaviors, all the way to the extreme end of the spectrum of someone who wants to control the way that you dress, or wants to control who you spend time with, or wants to really directly control your actions in that particular way.
I think this is difficult because it can get very subtle as well. I think part of what makes this difficult is the fact that I think the desire to control a partner is actually a very natural desire that we have as human beings. It doesn't mean that it's good or that it's right, but I do think we do maybe sometimes have a natural inclination or instinct to want things to go our way, right?
Emily: Yes.
Dedeker: That can involve subtle manipulations, or subtle ways that we change our behavior, or the types of requests that we make in order to get what it is that we want. Sometimes identifying what a controlling behavior is can be tricky.
Jase: Yes. Even thinking about it, like Emily, you mentioned little things here and there. I think that there's a certain amount where that could just look like someone stating their preferences or just being clear about what they want. I want that in a relationship, right? I want my partner to be able to say, like, "Oh, I like it when you do this." Like, "I like these things," or, "Oh, I didn't like that as much," but then, yes, it can cross this line into now it's making ultimatums, or it's withholding or at least threatening to withhold affection, or intimacy, or-- God, it's such a tricky thing to look at.
I know there've been these power dynamics, but I would bet in the moment, when it's happening, I probably haven't always been aware of, is this getting into problematic controlling territory, or is this normal? I think that's the whole point of this episode, right? Is that it can be hard to tell when is something going over that line because it's not just this clear, "Oh, now it's all this or it's not." Sometimes it's clear, but a lot of times, it just happens so gradually, or you get in this situation without really realizing it.
Dedeker: I'll start with a bummer, but then I promise I'll balance it out with not a bummer or less of a bummer. An example of the more extreme control might be, yes, I had a bad relationship once where I didn't realize it until retrospect, but where this person would constantly threaten ending the relationship or would threaten little things like, "Ooh, maybe I picked the wrong partner," would say that to my face. "Maybe-
Jase: Oof, jeez.
Dedeker: -I picked the wrong partner."
Emily: Had that too.
Dedeker: Things and where I was, of course, that created a very insecure situation in the relationship, and where I didn't recognize that that was control because for me, I was just freaked out about, like, "Oh no, I don't want to lose this person." Anything I need to do to make them not say those things or to believe that I'm the one they should be with is really important. That sucked, but it also took me a long time to realize what that was.
Also talking about like, what are the subtle ways that I try to control Jase? If something's broken, if I can't figure out how something works, and I don't really want to get into the weeds of how to fix it, all I have to do is be like, "Huh, this is weird. My backspace key isn't working for some reason," and then I can just walk away and Jase will take care of it. Does that count as control? Is that a manipulation?
Emily: Maybe a little manipulation. I will say, we're going to get more into that side of things in the next episode, so I do want to try to steer us towards the times in which-
Jase: Sure. Sure.
Emily: -we have personally felt like there has been control over us. Even though I understand that we want to be introspective and see when we've actually been doing this to other people, because it does happen. We are not without flaw, all of us. I will say, power dynamics also really come into play here at times. That the times in which I felt like control has become a problem is when there's a pattern of being in a relationship when you feel like, "Okay, I don't have as much power here, or there are things that keep happening that feel like I'm being put in a situation where this person has control over me."
Power dynamics, we've gone back and forth on a lot. There is that subtle push and pull that we've spoken about in a variety of ways, even on our recent remaster of the Demon Dance Battles, that pursuit and withdrawal thing a little bit, but have you also had times where you have felt like you have had the most amount of power in a relationship? Are there times when you felt like you had the least amount of power in a relationship?
Dedeker: Totally. Totally. Yes. I guess the times where I felt like I had the least amount of power, going back to that same crappy relationship, that relationship was very significant for me because it was a guy who was older than me, he was more successful than me, he had more money. I think up at that point, I'd just been dating college dudes or whatever who are just--
Emily: Underemployed.
Dedeker: Yes, underemployed, don't get around getting high or whatever. For the first time meeting someone who felt like they had their life together, and they were also successful in an industry I was trying to be successful in as well.
Jase: Yes, that's a lot of power dynamics all at once.
Dedeker: Yes. Again, none of it necessarily explicit, but I definitely came into that relationship already feeling like, "Oh my God, I'm a piece of crap. Oh my God, I really hope he likes me. Oh my goodness." I feel like I have to make up for all the ways that I lack in this relationship because he's so great and I'm not. Of course, this is some of my own insecurities that influenced as well, but yes, I felt like I did not have a lot of power or at least set myself up to not have a lot of power in that situation.
Then, on the flip side, the relationships where I felt like I've had more power, I've spent a lot of time thinking about how-- We talk a lot about relationship security and how to form secure attachment, and that is important. However, I do think there's something about security as a resource that exists in your life outside of just your relationships, right?
Emily: Yes, absolutely.
Dedeker: Just you're someone who has not just the basics of I have housing security and financial security, but maybe you have a really wonderful network of friends. You have a really wonderful community, you have good family relationships, maybe you have actually pretty good self-esteem. Maybe you've been in a lot of therapy, and you're pretty well adjusted at this point. Versus someone who maybe doesn't have those things, or they're going through a hard time with any of those things that I find that that can influence your sense of relationship security.
What I'm leading up to with this is the relationships where I've felt like I have more power than the other person, sometimes it comes down to that of feeling like I'm actually pretty happy with my life and I have access to a lot of resources emotionally, physically, financially, or whatever, and this person doesn't. That can influence how we show up in the relationship.
Jase: Yes, I think that makes a lot of sense.
Dedeker: Because if you think about the cost of, for me, maybe losing this relationship will suck, and it'll be painful, and I don't want that. However, if I feel like I'm still enjoying the rest of my life and I still feel held by the rest of my life, that may be different than for the person who maybe this relationship is the only bright spot in their life and everything else is shit. That's going to change the ways that the two of us show up and like how hard we fight or don't fight to cling onto the relationship.
Jase: Yes, absolutely. I think that makes a lot of sense. I think that in my life, I've probably had fewer of that power dynamic imbalanced against me just by virtue of being a man who's mostly dated women, not exclusively. That's also something I'm thinking about of even in short term-situations, an experience that-- It's been a long time since I've talked about it, but of when I was staying at somebody's place, doing a couch surfing kind of thing, and finding myself suddenly in this very scary and upsetting power dynamic with him because I don't have anywhere else to stay in this country where I am.
There is this weird, even just in that short term. I was able to get out of that situation the next day, but it was that kind of weird, like "Yes, you're right, I feel really powerless here. There's nothing I can do. I don't feel like I can escape this." That, for me, was very, I don't know, I don't want to say eye-opening exactly, but really gave me some different understanding of some perspectives.
I think that can show up even in a more day-to-day life too. If you feel like not only do I want this relationship because I feel like it's important to me, or maybe it's the only one that I think I can get, or I'm not sure I could get one better, but also, if I break up with this person, I don't have a place to live anymore. I think that, even just experiencing that in a very acute short term, where like I literally don't know anybody else in this country, but then, thinking about that longer term could be even worse, of that ongoing sense of it's not so easy to get away or do my own thing. That power dynamic gets really amplified.
Emily: Yes. I think that's a big reason why I stayed in my last relationship for as long as I did, my last very long-term relationship. That was one of the many reasons, that power imbalance there in terms of financially, such a disparity between the two of us, and me feeling like I really couldn't get out of that situation, especially because of housing.
Some of the stuff that you spoke about, Dedeker, we're going to get into in the later part of this episode, but I do agree with you. It's interesting that you talk about having more power because you're thriving in a lot of ways in your life. I do think that sometimes you can get into situations where somebody wants to exhibit power over you because they don't have those things in their life.
Dedeker: Interesting.
Emily: That is--
Jase: Yes, they see you being so secure, so they're going to try to do stuff to gain some control over you.
Emily: Correct, yes. Or take you out of those situations in various ways. I guess the hope is that they're not able to do that because you have those securities in place. I was surprised by all of the things that you were talking about, I'm like, "I felt like I had a really good system. I felt like I was doing things that I wanted to do and was successful in various ways, and yet, I still felt controlled by that situation," which was interesting.
Dedeker: Well, but you mentioned though, the financial piece, right, that there was-
Emily: Of course.
Dedeker: -in that relationship, there was this huge income imbalance between the two of you where it's like, if the relationship ends, he would be totally fine and you would be dealing with the repercussions to your finances for a long, long, long, long time in trying to find housing. Even though maybe you have access to other resources, unfortunately, money talks. Money is really important.
Emily: Absolutely.
Jase: Yes. That'll be an interesting thing to look at too, where income imbalances can happen, and they don't always have to be involved in control. They don't always have to be used that way, but there is something to be said for a situation where there's an income balance, and that then decisions are made or money is withheld or whatever in a way to keep the person with less money in a situation where they still have less money and depend on the person with it.
Versus a situation where there might be an imbalance, but there's this kind of this encouragement of, but both people need to have their safety net, and how can we work together to try to get that? I remember that's a thing that you had talked about in that relationship too, Emily, was that there were a lot of financial decisions that he really pushed for, that I don't think he did intentionally, but that kept you in that place of not having savings and not really having those resources.
Emily: Yes.
Dedeker: I feel like our culture revolves around that. We still see, I think, the very traditional model of a Cis straight couple, if they're choosing to raise children together, and we live in a culture where men statistically are more likely to make more and be in industries that make higher incomes. I think there's very few couples who are making the decision to have the primary breadwinner be the person who makes less, right?
That usually, it comes down to, "Okay, we'll prioritize whoever's job makes more, and then the other person, if they want to be the primary parent or caretaker, can do that." That also maintains that same cycle, right, where-
Emily: Absolutely.
Dedeker: -traditionally, women have to have their careers interrupted, and then financially, just not as set up on as solid of a path as men usually are? Yes, we see this play out all the time. Even if no one in that situation is directly wanting to exert control or be abusive or manipulative.
Emily: Yes, that, I think, is a good place to start in just speaking about what it means to have control or power over another person in a relationship. Just speaking about some of those power dynamics really quickly that there are these inherent differences in relationships, and it's challenging to find something that's just perfectly balanced in terms of power because power imbalances can come from things like age. Like you mentioned, Dedeker, one partner might be older than the other. There's power that comes from not just being the older one, but also being the younger one.
Jase: Yes, I've seen that definitely play out, especially as you get older when there's that age imbalance. There's this sense of, oh, the younger one's the one who now has all the power, and the older one feels like, now, I'm becoming dependent and don't have as many options. Yes, absolutely.
Emily: Then, of course, we talked about the socioeconomic status. One partner might make a lot more money than the other one, and then this can result sometimes in a very deep power imbalance between the two people. Just want to acknowledge able-bodied versus disabled. One partner might be more mobile than the other. One partner might need more care than the other when it comes to disabilities, might need more recovery time after a long day out with another partner. Something along those lines.
We talked about gender. We have to talk about race as well in there. Things like sexuality. If somebody is trans, for instance, if somebody is bisexual, if somebody is gay, or if somebody presents a certain way, they may have more or less power.
Then, for non-monogamous people out there, also, the amount of time that somebody has been practicing polyamory or other forms of non-traditional relationships, somebody in maybe our position, for instance, who was a social media influencer or been steeped in this world for a really long time, that creates a potential power imbalance if you start dating someone who has only done it for a short period of time.
Jase: For sure, yes.
Dedeker: I keep thinking about what you said, Emily, about how it's probably impossible to find a perfectly balanced relationship where there's no possibility that any person holds more power over the other any given time. That's just unrealistic because we come from different circumstances. Someone in a particular situation having more power than their partner isn't always necessarily a bad thing.
The person with more power can serve as a really important support to their partner. They can offer more emotional bandwidth, they can offer a shoulder to cry on, they can help people fix challenging issues, or they can swoop in and they can take charge when someone needs to come in and take charge, if that's what's appropriate for a particular situation. I think it's not about trying to constantly level the playing field, but I want to say, "It has to be about a power exchange," but I don't mean like that type of power exchange necessarily.
Jase: Sure. I think there's also something to be said for that within different areas of life too, that this isn't just-- There's always power as like a stat on your role-playing game character sheet, where one has higher power than the other. This could also vary by parts of your life. Within certain arenas, one person might have more power, like Emily said, for more experience, or usually experience tends to come up, but experience, or maybe culturally, they're given more power or more authority in a certain area.
This could also go back and forth in different ways, and that, like you're saying, Dedeker, could be appropriate, could be fine, could be balanced. It's just keeping an eye on when it slides out of control or gets too imbalanced to this point where it's negatively affecting the relationship and negatively affecting the person who systematically ends up with less power. If that gets perpetuated, you can end up in this really bad situation, even though no one necessarily went in with that goal in mind. Maybe they did, but even if they didn't, you can end up in this situation.
Emily: Definitely. We have been touching on this already, but what are some of the behaviors that somebody exhibiting power over another person or a little control over another person might look like in a relationship? Dedeker, you mentioned criticism or trying to make a partner dress a certain way, which I'm shocked, but that also happened to me.
Dedeker: Yes, it feels like this behavior should have stopped like 500 years ago, or at least 50 years ago, but it still happens.
Emily: Talking about somebody's clothing choices, their physical appearance, or just other actions in general that might result in something like low self-esteem or feeling like I have to look a certain way in order to keep this person around. Also, things like extreme jealousy and accusations of infidelity, yes, that attempt to control their interactions with another person. Maybe this looks like looking at a person's phone, or their emails, or their Instagram messages, anything along those lines without asking permission.
Jase: Yes. Yes, absolutely.
Dedeker: I think also control can look like, if there's patterns of withholding, as in, "I'm going to withhold my emotional support, or my physical touch, or sex unless you do something that I approve of, and then I'm going to give it to you. Then I'm going to withhold it if I feel like you're not doing what it is that I want you to do."
Jase: Yes, I think also guilt tripping, where it's like, "Oh yes, I'm not controlling you. You can do those things," but then bringing it up constantly of like, "Oh, I let you do this thing." Bringing that up to guilt trip or even holding grudges for a really long time, like an inappropriately long time of just not--
Emily: Six months or more? Yes, I've been there.
Jase: Right. Those can definitely be ways that we can try to exert control or that someone might be trying to control you.
Emily: I think it is somebody having a lack of respect for their partner's boundaries or for maybe the agreements that the two of them created over the course of the relationship that can feel like control or feel like somebody not respecting what it is that you need and want. Somebody also feeling really entitled to your time, your energy, your emotional bandwidth, all of those things can be a way that somebody is exhibiting control over you.
Jase: The one thing that's really jumping out to me as we go through this list and look at these different ways that can show up is how, like the two of you were saying that with that, trying to control how you dress or how you look. When you say like that out loud, you go, "Jeez. Gosh. It seems like that would be such an obvious red flag. How could that possibly still be around today?" Yet, they can show up in these really subtle, innocuous kinds of ways. I think that's true for all of these. It's like they can start very small.
I think that's the key of this, is this isn't just this. If it's this, then it's bad. If it's this, then it's good. It's more about, how do we understand this? How do we recognize it? How do we see what's going on, so that we can make those decisions for our own lives and see, is this becoming a problem in my life? I think that's why this is such an important topic to talk about in this way, that's not just a one-line Instagram catchphrase. Whatever I'm trying to say.
Dedeker: That's why we're a podcast and not just an Instagram account.
Emily: Yes.
Jase: Exactly, yes.
Emily: Correct.
Jase: That's why we're spending two episodes talking about this topic, because there is a lot of nuance. It is also a really important thing to understand and to have, I guess, better literacy about in terms of knowing the different ways that this can look and seeing how it can happen. Also, I just want to emphasize also not blaming yourself or feeling shame if you find yourself in a situation like this, because these things, each on their own, aren't necessarily a problem from the start. It's easy to gradually get yourself to this situation.
I just want to throw that in there as well to say, yes, let's normalize talking about this. It doesn't have to be this extreme, this person's evil and horrible, or I'm a victim and all this happened to me, but to still say, yes, but learning about it. If you want to change your situation because of this, then great. Let's try to empower ourselves through learning about this and talking about it.
Emily: Now I want to talk about what some of the research out there says about lacking power in a relationship and how it can have lasting effects on your mind and your ability to think critically or perform difficult tasks. I found this to be really, really interesting, and I can relate to it quite a lot just looking at some of this research and realizing, "Huh, okay, maybe this has an effect on how we think and how we can perform tasks." Both of these studies that I'm going to be talking about use a method called priming, which was created for a 2003 study called From Power to Action by Galinsky et al.
In this study, they essentially manipulated their participants into feeling more powerful or less powerful by having them recall either times in their life where they felt powerful or had control over the outcomes of other individuals. Or, when they felt powerless where other people had control over the outcome of something in their lives. Or for the control group, just simply recall the events of their day. This method has actually been used in a variety of different studies, including the two that we're about to discuss. Have you heard of this before, this priming thing?
Dedeker: Priming is very common in psychological studies because this sounds like you're referring to this specific priming people to feel like they have more control or less control, but priming in general, it can be as simple as just like having your research subjects read a list of words that have particular words in them that might evoke an emotional state in them. Priming is definitely something that's used quite frequently.
Jase: Yes, and I think it makes sense because it's harder to say, "I'm going to create a study and find some way to actually make them feel in control or powerless right now." That's maybe a more difficult, perhaps ethically dodgier place to go than getting people into that mental state by just having them remember something, or talk about an experience, or read a story about something where we do have that experience, even if it might be not as intense as actually living in it, but it helps us to see some patterns when you're in a different mental emotional state.
Emily: Definitely. Yes, it was an interesting way to conduct both of these studies. I hadn't heard of it before, but clearly, it's in a lot of different studies out there. This first study is called Lacking Power Impairs Executive Functions by Pamela Smith of Radboud University and colleagues Nils B. Jostmann of VU, or University Amsterdam. This was published in the May 2008 issue of Psychological Science.
This study involved, of course, undergraduate students from a Dutch university with varied sample sizes across four different experiments. Participants were assigned to either a high-powered group or a low-powered group. There were basically four different experiments where they each had to do various tasks, so--
Jase: They were primed to be in one or the other of those-
Emily: Correct, yes.
Jase: -two groups, and then they did these tasks? Okay.
Emily: As well as the control groups, so they were primed into three different groups. Again, the first one was the powerful, the second one was the powerless. Or high power is what they called it, low power, and then control. In one experiment, participants completed a Stroop task. That is, basically, you're presented with color words like red, green, blue, and then they're either printed in the same color or a different color.
Dedeker: Oh, right. Yes.
Jase: Usually, it's like, that's a--
Dedeker: It's a different--
Jase: Have you ever tried doing this? It's supposedly hard.
Dedeker: It's really--
Emily: It's hard. It's really difficult. Yes. It'll say red, but it'll be green, or it'll say blue, but it'll be orange or something. Then you need to, I believe, say the word as opposed to the color.
Jase: No, you need to say the color that it is-
Emily: The color as opposed to the word?
Jase: -not the word that's written. Yes, it's surprisingly hard to do.
Emily: Yes, exactly. Participants assigned to a low-power group made more errors on the Stroop task compared to those in a high-powered group. Then the errors in the low-powered group were not due to lack of motivation or effort, they just struggled to maintain focus on their current goal. Then, in another experiment, participants tackled what's called the Tower of Hanoi task. This assesses complex planning abilities. I hadn't heard of this before, but it's basically moving discs from a start to a final position in as few moves as possible. Then--
Jase: Right. The Tower of Hanoi is like a game or a puzzle. It's been around for a long time. If any of you played the original Monkey Island, it's one of the puzzles in there, actually.
Emily: Oh, cool. Okay.
Jase: It's interesting. I've never seen that used on a psychological test like this, but it makes sense because it is that like, "Wait, how do I figure this out? How do I get these things from one to the other?"
Emily: Yes. Again, the low-power participants made more errors and needed more moves, which indicates a difficulty in planning, basically. Smith and colleagues assert that having low power impairs executive function by enhancing vulnerability to distractions and reducing their ability to just focus on goal-relevant information. I guess the goal is to perform this task with as few errors as possible.
They basically believed that their research provided evidence that lacking power has a lot of cognitive costs. It might affect several aspects of executive functions that are crucial for things like decision-making, goal pursuit, even things like if you are a nurse, for instance, in a big hospital, was one of the things that they talked about. You are perceived to have lower power, or you feel like you have lower power, but you are doing really, really difficult things, like trying to save somebody's life, for instance, or even put a needle into a vein. You need to be able to feel empowered in those moments and not have this feeling of low power there.
Dedeker: That's really interesting that you use the example with the nurses. You can imagine that trickling down to so many different work situations, where if you perceive that you are the bottom of the food chain and if that is constantly reiterated to you through-
Emily: Absolutely.
Dedeker: -the way that HR communicates with you or-
Jase: Sure, yes.
Dedeker: -if you're treated for instance-- I know, I've been in some workplaces where they're constantly convinced that you're going to be stealing from them, and so there's all these punitive measures and surveillance and things like that, or you're not given a lot of control over your schedule. That's a situation that probably very much primes you to feel like you don't have any power and control, which it seems would imply maybe would make you worse at your job, if your job involves executive functioning tasks.
Emily: 100%, yes.
Jase: I was thinking about that in a relationship that it also could reinforce that power imbalance by continually having you in a place where it's just more difficult to focus, more difficult to do your own stuff, get your life together. I could see this in a workplace or within a relationship that in either way, it could be keeping you down like that.
Something that this study didn't cover, but I'd be very curious about is if an awareness of that effect might mitigate it at all. Because you two have heard about the Pygmalion effect, right?
Dedeker: Yes.
Jase: That's the one where they would tell a teacher like, "We think these students, they're going to blossom this year," or, "These ones are not going to do very well," randomly. The teacher thinking that would actually affect how the students did. This shows up in a lot of places where someone's expectations of you actually have an effect on how well you do at certain things. I remember reading about that when the students in this case or whoever was that student's role was made aware of this effect or that they specifically knew that the person thought wanted to prove them wrong, that then that negative effect went away.
Emily: That's cool.
Jase: Knowing that that could be affecting them or knowing they want to overcome a belief someone has, negated the effect, but it's when you're not thinking about it and you're just subconsciously receiving their lower expectations of you-- Anyway, I don't know that that would apply in this case, but I'm curious if even just knowing about this might help one to gain a little bit of power back in terms of their focus and being like, "Okay, I know this is affecting me, so let me put that aside and focus." I don't know if that's true, but I'm curious.
Emily: Any way in which a person can feel more empowered, if that's just knowing this data, for instance-
Jase: This is a form of power. Knowledge is power, right.
Emily: -versus-- Yes, exactly. Knowledge is power versus a employer trying to help empower those who are maybe perceived as less powerful for whatever reason. The second study is called Social Power and Frontal Alpha Asymmetry by CM Galang and SS Obhi, published in cognitive neuroscience in 2018. This was done with 54 right-handed undergraduates. I don't know why it said that, but I guess they wanted everyone to have the same dominant hand.
Jase: Weird, okay. Huh.
Emily: They were equally assigned to each power condition, so 18 high power, 18 lower power, and 18 neutral. Once in those groups, they were fitted with a 64- channel EEG cap to acquire brain signals from scalp electrodes.
Jase: Wow, okay.
Emily: If you look that up online, it's like a big old cap with a bunch of little electrodes on there. It's not sexy at all, but I guess it helps in looking at your brainwaves, which is pretty cool. Based on the groups that they were assigned to, they were either asked to type out on a computer about a situation where they had power over another individual or individuals, what happened and how they felt, or recalling an incident where someone else had power over them, what happened and how they felt about that. Or, in the case of the control group, the neutral social power group, what happened during their day, how they felt and what they did.
Jase: Okay, so just the priming was specifically typing it?
Emily: Correct.
Jase: That's interesting. Versus just having them think about it, okay, because the priming is the study.
Emily: Yes, the priming is the study. They found that those in the high power group showed more left frontal cortical activity than those in the low power group. There was a little difference between the high and the neutral social power groups, but there was a significant difference between the low and the neutral power groups.
Jase: Interesting, okay. Because I would've thought it'd be on a spectrum, like the high power would have the most, neutral would be middle, and low would have the least activity if there were a correlation. It's really feeling like you have high power, or just neutral, or both-
Emily: -pretty high.
Jase: -effectively neutral. They're both just normal activity. It's specifically just with the low that has this inhibitive effect on that. That's really interesting, huh.
Emily: Just for reference for everyone out there, the left frontal cortex is the place where you store and process information in order to do things like learn, and reason, and understand language, stuff like that. Again, if you're not feeling powerful, then you may have a more difficult time doing things like reasoning, or learning, or processing language, or whatever it might be.
If you're in a argument with your partner for example, and you feel like you're really powerless in a moment, or they're berating you, or they're telling you that you're doing something wrong or you're a bad person, whatever it may be, it's completely understandable, to me at least, that that would make you feel like, "I don't have any agency here, and I also can't talk my way out of this situation or reason with this person as effectively as I might otherwise." I definitely felt small, and timid, and out of my depth in situations like this when I was with my partner that was exhibiting control over me.
In other situations where I feel like I have a lot of power, like when I'm in the middle of a Multiamory episode, or I am at work, or something along those lines, I do feel a lot more confident and powerful, and I'm able to speak about things easily and rationally. It is interesting just when you are put in those different moments of your life or when you feel like, "Crap, I don't have a lot of power," just what that does to your brain. It's something for all of us to think about there. Have the two of you ever experienced this?
Dedeker: Yes, for sure. It makes me think of something that came up on an episode of Help Me Be Me that I was listening to a while ago where she was doing an episode that was about getting out of toxic relationships. She shares how sometimes certain relationships can put you into this mode of feeling like, "Okay, all I have to focus on is am I winning the game with this person or am I losing?" As in like, "Are they being nice to me? Are they off my back? Do I not have to walk around eggshells? Do I feel good? Great. That's the only thing I have to focus on."
Versus if I'm losing, like, "Are they mad at me? Are they trying to control me? Are they throwing a fit or whatever?" Then I have to focus on not losing. That can take up all of your brain space and not leave a lot of room for anything else in your life, or not leave a lot of room to even sit and think about whether or not you actually want to be in this relationship. That's what it makes me think of that maybe there is something inherent in our brains when we're feeling powerless, where that just takes our focus and pushes out our energy and ability to do any kind of deep processing or executive functioning.
Jase: Yes, it's also making me think about the language piece, if it's suppressing activity in the part of the brain that's involved in understanding language. Thinking about when you're in a situation where you not only feel powerless, but also you're not speaking in your native language. Then that can then make you feel even more powerless and get into a cycle with that.
I think I've had tastes of that experience from times in Japan. If there is some kind of thing that isn't going correctly and you're trying to get it resolved or figure it out that that's a stressful situation, you can end up feeling powerless of like, "I don't really have any power, or a lot of rights, or understanding, or whatever it is." That then, that can amplify and could even be worse. I could imagine a lot of situations in the US right now where that could be especially amplified for people that are not native English speakers.
Emily: Absolutely, yes. Just a sense of feeling like you have no place to go or you just are completely powerless against this person in front of you. I think if you are in that--
Jase: Yes, you don't have any recourse.
Emily: Yes, if you're in survival mode all the time, then that is Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs kind of thing. If you really can't get out of that space internally of feeling like I've got to figure out how to keep myself safe, it's completely understandable that all of those other things, like trying to get ahead at work or trying to build more wealth or whatever, those things might be more challenging for you, for sure. Just simply because you have to devote so much space in your life and in your brain to just keeping yourself safe.
I was curious how gender plays a role into this a little bit, just simply because I think historically, men are often seen as like having more power in a heterosexual relationship with a woman and a woman having less power. However, our society has changed quite a lot over the last, I think, many decades, and so I did wonder if this is still a thing that is prevalent in our society.
There was a study called Power and Romantic Relationships: How positional and experienced power are associated with relationship quality. This was published in 2021 in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. This study was done with 181 romantic heterosexual couples, and they were together around seven years, a little over seven years, and they did an online survey about power and relationship quality.
Participants were asked, how satisfied are you with the extent to which you influenced decisions in your relationship? They responded on a scale ranging from one, very dissatisfied to seven, very satisfied. They also used something called the relationship quality questionnaire to determine relationship quality.
Unsurprisingly, they found that men and women who had a greater overall sense of power in the relationships also felt more satisfied and had a more positive view of their relationship. They also tended to report greater admiration for and attraction to their partner. Also, things like commitment, willingness to invest, sexual fulfilment, and trust. All of those things were higher when they felt like they had a greater overall sense of power in their relationship. It's something to think about. This makes sense to me, but--
Jase: I think that that's something that is worth looking at with all of this that we talked before about power is maybe having a disproportionate amount of control over decisions, but this is showing that having influence over decisions, like having some of that power is a really good thing, and it's about finding that balance.
That, I think, ironically, feeling more attraction to your partner or more admiration for them that I think often, we can go to a place of trying to be controlling when we don't feel like we're getting enough of those. Ironically, that's probably making the problem worse. That actually, by being less controlling, by giving more power to your partner, that they'll feel more attracted to you. They'll be more invested in you, have more admiration for you.
Emily: Yes, absolutely.
Jase: Yes, interesting.
Emily: I think that makes sense to all of us who have been in relationships where power has been exerted over us, and then we get in a relationship where that's not the case, and we're like, "Wow, I feel like I can breathe again. I feel like I have so much room to feel admiration, and love, and care towards this person because I'm not fighting for my own needs. Making sure that I stay healthy and happy in this relationship as much as I can." I do think it offers more room for all of those things. That makes a lot of sense to me.
To round this out, we're going to talk a little bit about how we can take our power back. I did want to touch on briefly just how some of these day-to-day instances of loss or control or feeling like you have less power in a relationship, how it can really be difficult for your emotional life, for just your day-to-day existence. For feeling like, "I don't know how I can get myself out of the situation." I feel like I definitely did things like I walked on eggshells around that person just because I didn't want to set them off in any way, and they were unpredictable enough that I felt like, "Okay, I need to just try to keep the peace as much as possible."
If anything happened that upset me, for instance, I tried to emotionally regulate, to a point where I just didn't bring things up or buried it internally. Sometimes on the flip side of that, if it got so intense, it would erupt into a really bad fight with a lot of things, like door slamming and yelling and stuff like that, I felt like I diminished myself in a lot of ways just by not doing certain things, or hanging out with people, or trying to make sure that I did less stuff with Jase and Dedeker, for instance, because I felt like that was going to set them off.
I also tried to figure out how I was going to change the situation or how I was going to be able to figure out how to stay in the relationship, or maybe if I just did one more thing, or if I tried hard enough, or if I changed my behavior in some way, then it would cause this person to feel better about the situation or feel better about being in relationship with me, for instance.
It was a lot of, as I look back on it, self-diminishing in order to maybe lift this person up or help them feel like they didn't need to be as insecure as they were. That just often resulted in, I think, overall, me feeling really small and helpless, and like I was in a situation that I ultimately couldn't get out of or didn't know how to get out of for a long period of time.
Jase: I think something that is tricky about it is when you'll have these moments of seeing it, but then can fall back into it because of it just feeling like it's too hard, it's too much work to change it, or that's too unknown, that at least it's like I know what I'm doing when I'm in this situation. I feel like that was something that I got from you during that time, too, was sort of this like, "Yes, but at least this is my life, and I know it."
Emily: Yes. I think that fear of the unknown is a big part there. Also, if you are told by a person that there are various ways in which you suck or are not good in relationships, you do start to believe that. Dedeker, I remember there was a time in your life when you went away out on a trip by yourself, and you came back and you had done this personal manifesto on what you wanted in relationships and what you weren't going to compromise on. I don't know if I ever read the whole thing. Maybe you sent it to us.
Dedeker: Oh, I'm offended. You didn't read the whole thing?
Emily: Okay, then you did send it to us.
Jase: I'm not sure if you sent it to us.
Emily: That's the thing, that I felt like--
Dedeker: Really? My first fusion. We're going to cover this in a episode pretty soon. I don't want to dive too deep into that. Yes, I did do that. Yes, I took a little weekend trip by myself, did a couch surfing stay. That was totally free because I was in a situation where I felt like I was pulled in a bunch of different directions and needed to get away from people. I have this sense of how do I need to operate moving forward? What do I actually want? What am I not going to compromise on?
Emily: Yes, totally. I felt empowered to do something similar to that after doing this episode. I felt extremely powerless, especially in the back half of my nine-year relationship, and it caused me to stay in it for a lot longer than I should have because I felt like I couldn't really find anything better, or I didn't really deserve anything better.
Now that I have moved on from that and that I have moved to an entirely different city in an entirely different state, I really want to make sure that I never allow another person to have that same control over me in the way that my ex did. For me, this means doing things like retaining financial independence, making sure that I am not reliant upon another person in order to survive. Also, making sure that I don't compromise heavily on things like my work, and specifically for me, Multiamory and my friends, especially important people like Jase and Dedeker, because that was such a big point of contention in my last relationship.
Also, things like my goals or the things that I love to do, like going to Hong Kong to sing every year, for example. Another thing I want to do is truly take time for myself to focus on my own individual healing and my own internal processing. This means working with a therapist to help facilitate that journey.
Also working to understand the transient nature of everything, including relationships which can help me really care for them in the moment and cultivate them when I'm in them, but also not let them become the majority of my identity, because I do think that it's so easy to get in these situations where you are controlled by an individual, also simply because your relationship with them represents the majority of who you are.
I think that this is even true in non-monogamy, for instance, that non-monogamy becomes your whole identity. I think it's really important to realize that there are so many things that make up the core of who a person is, not just one individual or multiple individuals that you are in relationship with. Also knowing, finally, that my time is my own and no one is entitled to my time but me.
Of course, some of these things aren't necessarily possible for everyone, but I do implore all of you out there to work towards getting your power back if you're still in a relationship where there is an imbalance of power, or try to put systems in place, like I have now, before you start a new relationship.
Dedeker: Being able to do some of those things aren't necessarily possible for absolutely everybody. You may be in a position where you just have to be financially reliant upon somebody else, and so this may not resonate for you. Really, the important thing is just about working towards getting your power back. If you feel like you're in a relationship where you're noticing a very strong imbalance of power. Or, trying to put some systems in place before you start a new relationship to make sure that you can maintain your sense of self.
Especially if you're not in a relationship right now, or if you're on the cusp of a new relationship, or beginning a relationship, it can be really helpful to do some reflection. We have some journal prompts for you to work through. You might sit down and do some reflecting on what things in my life do I love the most? What are the things that I feel like are intrinsic to who I am as a person? How can I ensure that these things are always a part of my life, regardless of what's going on in my romantic life?
You might reflect on, are there things that I'm totally not willing to compromise on in any relationship? You might reflect on what are the relationships in my life that are not romantic, but are the most meaningful and important relationships to me? How can I ensure that these relationships will stay important to my life regardless of what's going on in my romantic partnerships?
You might want to take inventory of what your financial security situation is like. Can I strengthen my own sense of financial security, if that's feasible for me, over the course of the next five years or so? You might reflect on what are some ways that you can continue to work on your own mental health in order to stay empowered and comfortable in your own skin? I think this is especially a very important point of reflection if you know you're someone who maybe relies on a romantic partner too much for stabilizing your mental health. I've been there, trust me. If you know that you're that type of person, that can be really important to reflect on that.
Or asking yourself, what are the ways, the concrete, tangible ways in which I can put myself first, and make sure that I'm always able to communicate my wants and my needs in all of my relationships? You can pick a couple of those. You can go through all of them. You can really do a deep dive because I really do think that this sort of prophylactic work is very important when you're heading into a relationship. Especially, if you're someone where if you know that you have a history of getting yourself lost in another person in relationships, this can be extra important.
Jase: Yes. I think that as Dedeker was going through that list too, if there's anything that you heard and kind of went, "Oomph, I don't really want to do that one." That's probably the one that you should do, right? That's the one to explore. I love that this both includes-- The first few questions of that like, what are the things that are intrinsic to who I am as a person? Or what are the things I'm not willing to compromise on? Or what are the other relationships in my life that are the most meaningful, that those can help to identify also, has this relationship crossed a line into where it's affecting these things negatively?
That could also be a good evaluation for if you're in it and you're wondering, "Am I? Has this crossed a line into some sort of a bad power imbalance?" That I think the exploring those three questions right there is a really good way of looking at that, because I think those questions about what are the truly important things to me in my life and am I feeling like I'm not able to do those? I'm not able to spend time with these people. I'm not able to do the things that actually matter most to me if that's due to the relationship. I think that's going to be a very eye-opening thing to see.
Then, the next three after that being more about, "Okay. Now, what can I do about this to help myself feel a little bit more empowered, too?" Even if the end of the day, that just means I want to be more empowered so I can leave this relationship that I'm in. Or, I want to feel more empowered so that in my next relationship, I'm less likely to feel like I can't get out if it starts to go in this direction where I'm losing out on what really truly matters to me. I'm compromising on those things that are not areas where I would like to be compromising.
I hope that this journaling and this exercise and just kind of building more awareness about the complexities of these power dynamics can be helpful for you in your relationships. Then, also, we hope that you join us next week for our second part of this where we're looking into the other side of it. As you can tell from this episode where it's hard to talk about being the one feeling powerless without also talking about the experience of why someone might be trying to exert that power or how you could get there.
The same thing's going to happen in the other one. I hope that everybody, regardless of your situation, listens to both of these episodes to kind of get that picture, to get that full sense of what's going on here. In the interest of having better relationships and having higher standards for all of us in the world about the types of relationships that we can all be in, the types of relationships that are an option for us, so we would love to hear from all of you. With our question of the week on our Instagram stories, how do you ensure the balance of power is equal or close to equal in your relationships?