Control is cunning and sneaky. It can creep up on you, and slowly infiltrate your life disguised as Compromise. Compromise, naturally, having a softer and more inviting connotation is vulnerable to Control’s ploys.
Compromise (n):
A settlement of differences by mutual concessions; an agreement reached by adjustment of conflicting or opposing claims, principles, etc., by reciprocal modification of demands.
Control (n):
The act or power of controlling; regulation; domination or command; the situation of being under the regulation, domination, or command of another.
Most commonly, Control masks itself as Compromise in relationships. Compromise signifies the ability to work together, or “team work.” It excites couples to be able to compromise; they feel they are making some great achievement in being able to decide on an even-keeled and equally beneficial resolution.
But what is the couple, or what are the individuals within the couple, not achieving by compromising?
Yes, in some situations compromise may be beneficial and necessary – equal, even. But is this always so? When compromise leans more towards one side than the other, it no longer can be classified as Compromise, instead becoming comparable to Control.
When the “compromise” better accommodates or favors one over the other, the latter is allowing for compromise to transform into control. This often happens as a result of love; “I will do this for my significant other because I love him/ her… I will compromise my precise wants to meet his/ her wants because I love him/ her, and in turn he/ she will compromise for me at some point.”
This is a fine belief, however it is not always the case. Once one begins to compromise their wants and needs for the other, with no immediate reciprocation, the other may become sub-consciously, or consciously, aware of this, and realize the facility by which they are able to get their way. They ask for more and more until the compromiser has ultimately altered their life to fit the requests of their significant other. The compromiser becomes the controlled, the significant other the controller.
This is not compromise, and this certainly is not love, at least on the part of the controller. It is not equal love if one will compromise and the other will not.
Do not forget who you are in the name of love. Remember your ambitions and why you have them. Love your time. Love your ambitions, and value yourself and your ambitions enough to see them through, without compromise.
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