Signs of a controlling person include isolating you from others, constant criticism, extreme jealousy, financial control, gaslighting (making you doubt your reality), micromanaging your life, using intimidation or threats, and making love/approval conditional on your behavior. They often need to be the center of attention, dictate your choices (where you go, what you wear, what you eat), and create drama or guilt to keep you focused on them.
Insulting, demeaning, or shaming you, especially in front of other people. Preventing you from making your own decisions, including about working or attending school. Controlling finances in the household without discussion, including taking your money or refusing to provide money for necessary expenses.
How to handle controlling behaviors
The wish to control others is driven by high levels of internal anxiety. Rather than address those deep-seated fears at their source, controlling people project them onto their relationships, generating emotional pandemonium and instability by making others responsible for their discomfort.
Controlling behaviors often stem from anxiety and fear. When things feel out of control, it's natural to want to control them in order to feel safe (or happy or content). But of course, we can't control other people and situations. So our efforts don't ultimately make us feel better.
But it does provide some rough guidelines as to how soon may be too soon to make long-term commitments and how long may be too long to stick with a relationship. Each of the three numbers—three, six, and nine—stands for the month that a different common stage of a relationship tends to end.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD): People with NPD may exert control to maintain their sense of superiority and avoid vulnerability. Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD): Some individuals with BPD use controlling behaviours as a way to manage fear of abandonment.
Key Traits of a Controlling Person
First and foremost, control freaks rarely know that they are one!
Some signs of manipulative behavior include:
The 5-5-5 rule in marriage is a mindfulness and communication tool that encourages couples to pause and ask themselves: Will this matter in 5 minutes, 5 days, or 5 years? It's designed to help de-escalate conflict and shift focus to what truly matters.
Here are key indicators to help you see beyond the surface.
The biggest red flags in a guy include controlling behavior, excessive jealousy, manipulation (like gaslighting), lack of empathy, and anger management issues, often seen through verbal abuse, aggression, or emotional outbursts, all indicating deeper emotional instability and poor communication. Other significant signs are disrespect, constant criticism, dishonesty, refusing emotional intimacy, blame-shifting, and a pattern of love bombing followed by devaluation, suggesting an unhealthy dynamic.
Controlling people often insist everyone do things their way, even when it comes to small issues that are a matter of personal choice. Your partner might insist you change clothes if you're wearing something they don't like. They may refuse to back down even after you make it clear you disagree with them.
(1) Controlling is a Fundamental Management Function. (2) Essential Function of Every Manager. (3) Controlling is a Continuous Activity. (4) Controlling is Both the Beginning and the End of the Process of Management.
"Repeated or continued behaviour that is controlling or coercive"
Communicates in a way that is hurtful, threatening, insulting or demeaning. Respectful: You value each other as you are. Disrespectful: One or more partners is not considerate of the other(s). Mistreats the other: One partner does not respect the feelings, thoughts, decisions, opinions or physical safety of the other.
12 Phrases Skilled Manipulators Use in Everyday Conversation
Narcissistic traits often peak in late adolescence and early adulthood (around ages 14-23), particularly with grandiosity and entitlement, as individuals seek identity and status, but then tend to decline as people mature and face life's realities, though some individuals with NPD may see intensification in these years before a potential mellowing in middle age.
Most often, the desire to control is a way of coping with pain, fear or low self-worth. Our expectations of other people and the ways we treat them are often shaped by our past experiences.
10 Types of Difficult People
When a high-conflict person has one of five common personality disorders—borderline, narcissistic, paranoid, antisocial, or histrionic—they can lash out in risky extremes of emotion and aggression. And once an HCP decides to target you, they're hard to shake. But there are ways to protect yourself.
survived the dreaded two-year mark (i.e. the most common time period when couples break up), then you're destined to be together forever… right? Unfortunately, the two-year mark isn't the only relationship test to pass, nor do you get to relax before the seven-year itch.
The 777 dating rule is a relationship strategy for intentional connection, suggesting couples schedule a date every 7 days, an overnight getaway every 7 weeks, and a longer vacation every 7 months to keep the spark alive, build memories, and prevent disconnection from daily life. It's about consistent, quality time, not necessarily grand gestures, and focuses on undivided attention to strengthen intimacy and partnership over time.
Practicing Non-Attachment for Healthier Relationships