How To Stop Giving Your Power Away In Relationships?

Relationships shouldn’t be power struggles, but unfortunately, they often are. Many people in relationships aren’t getting enough respect and love, so they ask for love or give more love themselves.

By doing so, they invest their heart and soul into their partner and expect their partner to do the same.

But, unfortunately, this doesn’t happen very often. More often than not, their partner only responds lovingly once and then goes back to his or her usual way of expressing love.

To change the way their partner expresses love and treats the relationship, he or she would need to reflect on this matter extensively and make a conscious decision to be more attentive and emotionally expressive.

It would take weeks if not months of self-work to adapt to his or her partner and change for the sake of the relationship.

But since most people don’t change the way they perceive and give love, they tend to keep starving their partner of love and make their partner even keener to receive attention and recognition.

They pretend that their partner is at fault for wanting too much of everything and by doing so, begin to affect their partner’s self-esteem and see their partner act needy or clingy. That’s when they feel even more pressure than before, push their partner further away, and gain even more power over their partner.

This may be an extreme example of how a person can gain power in a relationship, but the point I’m trying to make is that relationships are imbalanced power-wise not just because someone has insecurities, fears, and a bigger desire and capacity for love.

They are also imbalanced because people don’t see things from the other person’s point of view and adjust to that person.

Many people lack the emotional intelligence necessary to imagine how their partner feels and what he or she wants from them. That’s why they hog all the power in the relationship and refuse to change anything about themselves.

In their mind, it’s their partner who’s never satisfied with anything and always wants more. It’s their partner who has no respect for them, hence why they think that if anyone should be more understanding, it’s their partner.

If you want to know how to stop giving people power over you in a romantic relationship, the very first tip I have for you is to choose your partner wisely. It’s very important that you pick someone who not only communicates emotions and problems but also possesses the ability to empathize and sympathize.

Typically, a person who can do these things is emotional by nature. Emotional people are hands down better at understanding their emotions and tend to care about their partner’s emotions more too.

If you go for a stoic person, chances are he or she will be prideful, avoidant, or inexpressive. And that will make you feel like you’re talking to a wall, which will create more problems than it will solve.

Bear in mind that an emotional person isn’t someone who cries 24/7 and feels sorry for himself or herself.

It’s a person who wants you and a relationship for emotional reasons about as much as you do. Don’t think that only women care about relationships. That’s one of the most toxic generalizations you can come across these days.

Both men and women want (or rather should want) a relationship equally so that they can have a balanced relationship. When someone wants a relationship less than the other, the relationship tends to become imbalanced and causes disagreements and fights.

So the most important tip of all is to get to know your partner before you commit to him or her. Figure out what love means to that person and how he or she would react if you weren’t happy about his or her lack of care and investment in the relationship.

The responses a person gives you in the dating stage are very important as they’ll tell you if this person is even mature and capable of having a balanced relationship with you.

In today’s article, we answer how to stop giving your power away in relationships and how to reclaim power.

1)Improve your self-esteem

It can be tempting to give your partner power (which is the ability to control your actions, thoughts, and emotions). It can feel good to trust your partner with the most important parts of your life. But if you give your partner everything you have and neglect yourself in the process, you won’t just trust your partner.

You’ll also overprioritize your partner and fail to respect yourself.

And what happens when you don’t respect yourself?

You cling to your partner for reassurance and make it possible for your partner to take advantage of you. Of course, not every person will take advantage of people who don’t respect themselves. But many people will. Especially those who feel disrespected and bitter.

Such people will see that you don’t value yourself and that they needn’t value you either. They can just take you for granted and abandon you when they lose too much respect.

This often happens when they sense that you love them more than they love you and that they can get what they can from you without giving you the same in return.

2)Relax and refuse to let emotions get the best of you

People can also control you if they see that certain things hurt you, anger you, excite you, or disappoint you. That’s because they can use your triggers against you and make you feel any way they want to.

If you want to stop giving power away in relationships, stop giving the person you’re with the ability to make you feel any emotion he or she wants. In other words, stop reacting emotionally or impulsively to things because the man or woman will see that you’re emotion-driven.

And emotion-driven people are very easily persuaded. Others can change their opinion and thoughts with very little convincing. All they have to do is discover their emotional weaknesses and bring a reaction out of them.

Always remember that emotions show how invested you are and that the wrong kind of person could use your investment and impulsivity against you.

3)Don’t over-apologize and be too self-critical

Don’t get me wrong. It’s important to apologize when you do something you shouldn’t do and/or when you hurt a person. Your apology shows that you care about your behavior and another person’s feelings or the inconvenience you’ve caused that person.

But apologizing randomly and excessively for no apparent reason doesn’t help. Not only is it unnecessary, but it’s also seen as a weak gesture that shows something’s wrong with your self-esteem.

Your partner won’t know or care that you’ve grown up in a highly controlling family and that your reason for over-apologizing stems from your family. All he or she will see is that you’re willing to give power away and take the blame not only when you mess up but also when you don’t.

This will make your partner feel in complete control of the relationship and perhaps even allow him or her to crave a person with more self-respect and autonomy.

So make sure to apologize when an apology is due. But don’t over-apologize or say you’re sorry or that you’re stupid, ugly, useless or anything along those lines. If you convince your partner that you possess an unattractive trait or feature, he or she will think that you do even if you don’t.

And that will give your partner power over you even though he or she might not even want it.

4)Have a life outside of the relationship

One of the best ways to feel powerful and in control of your life is to have interests and goals outside of the relationship. Whether you’re a man, a woman, or anything in between, you need to have things going on outside of the relationship so that you don’t over-depend on the relationship for your basic human needs.

The moment you depend on your partner for happiness, it’s game over for you because you’ll overwhelm your partner with your needs and expectations and overburden the relationship.

So make sure to invest in other things as well.

Other things can be:

• friends
• hobbies
• work
• ambitions
• shortcomings
• and anything that gives your life purpose

Your partner needs to understand you’re not waiting for him or her all the time and that you’ve got other things that make you happy. Other things bring excitement and passion to the relationship and also increase your value.

5)Set some healthy boundaries and live by your values

As a person with self-respect, you must set some relationship boundaries. These boundaries must contain rules that you and your partner must adhere to at all times. If one of you breaks the rules, there should be severe consequences.

It’s up to you to decide what those consequences are, but you must make sure your partner knows about them so that he or she takes them seriously.

Some of the things you can establish boundaries for are:

• lying
• cheating
• poor communication
• swearing
• shouting
• name-calling
• ignoring
• blocking
• talking to exes
• and anything that hurts you or makes you feel insecure

Standards are extremely important in a relationship because when your partner understands you’re not going to tolerate certain behaviors, he or she will be afraid of doing those things. Doing them will disappoint you and force you to do something your partner doesn’t like.

So listen to your morals and set some healthy standards as soon as the relationship begins.

If your partner (or future partner) knows you know your worth, he or she will have way less power over you than someone who sees that you’re happy to tolerate just about anything.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you should give your partner a hard time about everything you don’t like. That will be counterproductive as it will cause conflicts. But there should be certain things you aren’t okay with.

If your partner crosses your boundaries, you should react accordingly.

For example, if your partner cheats, you should leave him.

If he doesn’t tell you he still talks to his ex every day, you should find out why he’s doing that and then decide what to do.

And if he seems busy recently, you should have a discussion with him about it and see if he needs help with anything.

Having a good idea of what you’ll tolerate and what you won’t is essential. Every relationship needs boundaries. Boundaries help you respect yourself and protect yourself in case your partner does something you’re not okay with.

6)Express yourself clearly and strongly

People admire you more when you express your wants and needs clearly and strongly. They sense a lot of power in your words and see that you won’t yield under insistence.

So make sure to state things firmly and confidently. Your partner will appreciate it, but so will you because you’ll feel listened to and in control of your life.

7)Forgive but don’t forget

Forgiving people is vital. But if you just keep forgiving time after time, you’ll give away your personal power and force people not to take you seriously. So decide how many times a person deserves to be forgiven.

How many times are you willing to put up with something unhealthy before you stand up for yourself and decide that enough is enough?

The answer to this question should, of course, depend on your partner’s behavior. But if your partner is doing something nasty that hurts you badly and has no intention of stopping it and maturing, you should probably not forgive more than a few times.

At some point, you must put your feelings first and stop forgiving and trusting your partner with your happiness. If your lack of forgiveness and trust doesn’t bother your partner, nothing will because your partner will slowly detach and lose interest in you and the relationship.

So forgive apologetic people who deserve forgiveness, but don’t keep doing it over and over again. If you show eagerness to forgive everyone, you’ll be the one who gets hurt. You’ll also feel foolish for thinking things would get better with time.

8)Understand what drives people to do certain things

The last point on the list that will help you stop giving your power away in relationships is a good understanding of what drives your partners to treat you a certain way. By understanding that your partners get something out of obtaining power, you’ll be less compelled to give it to them.

You’ll be more eager to protect yourself from a power imbalance and show your partners you respect yourself and put yourself first.

To understand why your partners want power, you should start by acknowledging the fact that everyone wants to feel important. Everyone has a desire to be valued and have a say in the relationship.

But certain kinds of people have an even bigger desire for power. Those people normally have huge egos and low self-esteem. They feel so undesired that they want to extort power from the relationship and make themselves feel stronger.

They don’t realize that they’re taking their partner’s power rather than building their own.

That’s why you can expect them to argue with you in unhealthy ways and try to win the arguments. To them, it’s about winning or losing, so they’ll try to win every time.

How to reclaim your power in a relationship?

Reclaiming lost power in a relationship isn’t an easy task because once you’ve lost power, your partner will be hesitant to give it back to you. He or she will hold you back from growing and constantly remind you who’s in charge.

But despite that, you should be able to regain your power and feel in control of your relationship. You should be able to do that by following all the tips in this article and remembering that you’re the boss of your life. You get to decide who you give power to and how you let people treat you.

You may not be able to control what others do to you, but you can make sure that they do something malicious to you only once. That’s what it means to have strong personal boundaries and respect for yourself.

It will likely take weeks to regain power in a relationship. But if you focus on yourself and others rather than your partner, you should be able to do it. I’ve seen hundreds of people do that. Some of them broke up though because they didn’t just regain power, but also took their partner’s power away.

Are you tired of giving people power over you? Will you give the tips in this article a try? Let us know what you’ll do below the post.

And if you want to talk about your relationship and your power, click here to sign up for coaching with us.

Zan

My name is Zan and I’m the founder of Magnet of Success. I enjoy writing realistic relationship and breakup articles and helping readers heal and grow. With more than 5 years of experience in the self-improvement, relationship, and breakup sphere, my goal is to provide advice that fosters positivity and success and avoids preventable mistakes and pain. Learn more about me or get in touch today.