To get rid of a controlling person, you need to set firm boundaries, communicate assertively using "I" statements, stop enabling their behavior, and create distance, which may eventually mean leaving the relationship, especially if it's abusive; focus on your safety and build a strong support system to help you enforce these changes and regain control.
How Do You Outsmart A Controlling Person?
However, by learning the subtle signs, which include love bombing, insults and devaluation, disconnection, using manipulation or intimidation, blaming toxic behaviors on substances, making you question your reality, possessiveness, and disrespecting boundaries, you can learn how to identify patterns and examples that ...
Five Ways to Deal with a Controlling Person
Short answer: Yes--controlling people can change, but change is difficult, uneven, and requires sustained motivation, insight, specific skills, and supportive conditions. Expect gradual progress, setbacks, and need for accountability.
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.
Short answer: Yes, someone can genuinely love you and still be controlling—but that doesn't make it healthy. Even if they swear they're just “looking out for you,” remember love and control aren't synonymous, no matter how convincingly your partner says otherwise.
The most common are anxiety disorders and personality disorders. People with anxiety disorders feel a need to control everything around them in order to feel at peace. They may not trust anyone else to handle things the way they will.
The 70/30 rule in relationships suggests balancing time together (70%) with personal time apart (30%) for hobbies, friends, and self-growth, promoting independence and preventing codependency, while another view says it's about accepting 70% of your partner as "the one" and learning to live with the other 30% of quirks, requiring effort to manage major issues within that space, not a pass for abuse. Both interpretations emphasize finding a sustainable balance and acknowledging that relationships aren't always 50/50, with the key being communication and effort, not strict adherence to numbers.
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.
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.
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.
A person seeking to control their partner may do so because of their own deep-seated insecurities. It could also be a defence mechanism due to past trauma and low self-esteem. A controlling partner may even be re-creating the relationship they witnessed between their parents growing up.
- Control freaks don't delegate.
That is something they cannot let happen. Remember, they fear criticism, rejection, or punishment.
Some of the biggest control freaks I've known have no idea they are controlling — it's fascinating. Yes, without self-awareness and the ability to see yourself, what you're doing, how you're doing it, and its effect on others, we are all doomed to experience their ridiculousness.
Taking a strong stand
Be straight yourself. Let your 'yes' be 'yes' and your 'no' be 'no'. At first the manipulator might push back even harder, but at heart these people are cowards. Stay firm, stay calm, and never take the bait if they try to wind you up.
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.
Proceeding chapters introduce the Five Cs—Communication, Compromise, Conflict Resolution, Compassion, and Commitment—and speak about them within the context of the case study.
“The idea is that you go on a date every 2 weeks, spend a weekend away together every 2 months, and take a week vacation together every 2 years.”
Communicate
Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) involves an extensive preoccupation with perfectionism, organization and control. People with OCPD have rigid beliefs and need to have control of themselves, others and situations.
The motivation or reason for the controlling behavior may influence whether the individual can change or not. Or even if the individual is willing or inclined to change.
If you think your relationship might be unhealthy or you aren't sure, take a look below to find several common warning signs in unhealthy relationships.
How to detach from someone.
Narcissists are drawn to a few types of people: those with weak boundaries, self-sacrificing people, compassionate and empathetic people, and successful and dynamic people, among others.