Think Your Spouse Is Controlling?

“Then they start chipping away at your self esteem. These men are predators. They can sense out who they can pray on. Then he will suck up to her, praise her, tell her how great she is, do things she has never seen before, and sweep her off her feet. Once he’s got her, he switches to Mr. Hyde. In response, she says, ‘What did I do to change his behavior? It must be my fault.’ And so she tries harder and harder and harder to please him and have him treat her the way he once did, which doesn’t happen because the abusepattern is being set in stone,” said Fay. And as that pattern is reinforced, Fay says it’s very difficult to change because the person’s self esteem suffers from the conditioning.    

Narcissism can come in all forms and all grades, according to Fay. “It’s like a one to 10 scale, with 10 being the most manipulative and dangerous. Say one is Oprah Winfrey, a woman with a healthy sense of herself. A woman with empathy and compassion for people. That is healthy narcissism. Put Hitler as a 10, a person who truly thought he was God and had no empathy or compassion for others. That’s the key to the difference in levels – how much compassion and empathy does the person have. People fall in every level in between,” she said.  

And those who have dealt with level 10 narcissists agree that the level of manipulation and control is frightening, and no match for someone who is vulnerable. “These guys are incredible,” said Thomas Martin, 63, a private investigator and former FBI Agent from Newport Beach, Calif.

“I have worked with other FBI agents, who are trained, you know, spend their lifetimes interrogating people–killers, terrorists, the scum of the earth, you name it. And they will tell you that these guys, the controlling ones, they are the worst. When you are interviewing and interrogating them, you have to constantly be on your guard. You have to keep reminding yourself every five minutes who you are talking to and what they are capable of because if you don’t, they can suck you right in and you think, ‘What a great guy this is.’ And these are seasoned professionals I am talking about and they still can get duped.”   

While the award-winning personality is often saved for manipulating the masses, the ones closest to them see the real person.

“You are more of an extension of him rather than an individual in your own right,” said Daniela E. Schreier, 37, a licensed clinical psychologist and assistant professor of the Chicago School based in Illinois. “He feels, ‘I have the right to control you. You are an object of mine.’ While the other person at first may have been flattered thinking, ‘This person wants all of me,’ it is very unhealthy. You belong to them and you have to please them.”   

According to Fay, the issues go much further than just possession and control. The controllers, she said, actually  think they are gods. “These people truly believe the everyone should believe that what they believe. Look at Hitler. He expected everyone else would believe what he believed, too. It’s truly that they look at their world and think those who don’t share their views are idiots. And they treat the ones they do love as objects.” And that objectification allows for them to continue the spiral of control and abuse.   

“You don’t buy presents for your car; you don’t thank your car, apologize to your car. It’s an inanimate object. That’s how they see us. We are cars. Turn on when they want us to turn on. We don’t have feelings, that is why they don’t treat us like we have feelings. But their feelings are magnified 100-fold because they are God. Therapy will not work with these people. ”   

And many agree that men who are narcissistic to the point of being oppressively controlling cannot be changed. “Controlling husbands, we have found, cannot be fixed. The same applies to females afflicted with the same curse, which is far fewer in my experience,” said Martin, a former FBI agent whose agency has been involved in more than 30,000 surveillance cases. He added that in his experience controlling husbands are actually very insecure.  

“I have many degrees, but my Ph.D. is from the streets, and what we have found is that these guys are very insecure. They freak out over the smallest things,” he said. “It’s like a huge tantrum over nothing. They have zero self esteem. That’s why they need to control everything. Don’t tell me these guys think they’re gods.”   

Fay further explained that thinking you are a god is not tantamount to having good self esteem. Narcissists, according to Fay, are empty inside. They have no self esteem. The God-complex is just a facade – something constructed to mask the truth, which is why they need others to control.   

“They need you to reflect self esteem back to them,” she said, while admitting that the source of controlling behavior is still being debated. “There is still a battle ensuing over whether the problems stem from nature or nurture. Were they born this way or was there something wrong with their belief systems, their upbringing, were they neglected, abused or idolized. Either way, the message delivered to them was who you are really is not acceptable. They don’t feel lovable, so they come up with a persona that seems to fit. That’s their job 24/seven, so no one can get to that real person. They need an audience to reflect back. A narcissist alone will perish.”    

But not everyone believes that controlling husbands are a lost cause. “Past behavior is the best indicator for future behavior and that gives an indication if they can change or not,”  Schreier said. “But if it is part of your personality pattern, a longstanding, persistent trait, it is very hard to change that. If a person has antisocial or psychopathic traits, are always out to get the better of others, and does not have the capacity to emotionally connect – if someone has those psychopathic traits, this is not treatable. You can’t pop a pill and make it go away”   

Of course, the overriding factor is whether or not the controlling person even recognizes his behavior and if so, is the desire there to change it. And, Elliot would add, if there has been some substance abuse involved that exacerbated the controlling behavior. “I have seen it a lot of times with alcoholics who get sober and work a program. Men who have been abusive and controlling and get sober. They make amends, put the marriage back together. But it has to be something extreme like getting sober,” said Elliot.   

“I think they can change if they want to change. But I think people don’t change unless the pain is bad enough,” said Elliot. “A lot of times, it is person who is abused who changes, because being abused is more painful than being abusive. But I believe that there are some people who know what they have done. Usually they can’t restore the relationships they destroyed, but they can create new ones.”   


FOR MORE INFORMATION

Click here to read a story about the top reason for women to divorce is abuse.

Click here to read a story about narcissistic personality disorder.


Lenore Skomal is author of nine books and columnist of an award-winning weekly column in the Erie, Pa., Times-News, she also teaches college journalism in Pennsylvania.