Are you in a Manipulative or Controlling Relationship?

When you're in a relationship that's controlling and demeaning it can be hard to recognize the patterns and work for change. This guide can help you see your relationship in a more objective way.

From wikiHow - "How to Recognize a Manipulative or Controlling Relationship"

As your relationship with a new person in your life has developed, you find your old friends falling away, while family members remark on how you don't seem like yourself. Are you losing yourself to an odd, and ultimately destructive, relationship? Before you can regain your individuality and strength, you'll need to determine if the relationship is taking something away, and, if so, put an end to the destructive cycle. For the purposes of the article, we'll alternate between male and female gender examples ("him" in one step, "her" in the next). While the steps are directed towards romantic relationships, they do apply to any kind of relationship.

Steps

   1. Evaluate honestly: Is this relationship healthy, or is it unhealthy? Be objective as you analyze how things have changed since this relationship began:

          * Are you enjoying elevated esteem from your friends & family, or are they looking at you sideways? Are your family relationships suddenly filled with tension, every time your partner's name comes up? While stressed relationships with others aren't a sure sign of an unhealthy romance, red flags should go up if everyone who cares about you is getting worried or is being pushed away.
          * Do you find yourself straying from your path? Are you doing things you wouldn't ordinarily do (like drinking or drugs)? Are you obsessing about activities that require you to be alone (any time you can't be with your love)? Have all the goals and activities that previously defined you suddenly been pushed to the back burner for no reason other than that your love is not into them? Deferring your future (that means quitting school or blowing off a good job so you can spend more time together) is a sign you are becoming unhealthily dependent on this person (usually a result of being systematically isolated from family and friends from before you got involved).
          * Does this person bring out your best, or worst traits? Do you feed each others' best self, or have you seen your attitudes change to more closely mirror your partner's, which puts off your family and friends?

2. Recognize your blindness to your partner's faults. Infatuation isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, in can be necessary and good; however, it does make one "temporarily insane" for the first part of a relationship. Sometimes our starry-eyed affection can make us willfully close our eyes to warning signals, even though we really kind of know that our friends and family have a point when they say they don't like this or that about the significant other. Ask yourself: Do you find yourself apologizing or defending your significant other's behavior? Finding reasons to excuse it? "Oh, he went through a terrible relationship before and has some issues... you can understand..." If you find yourself getting defensive when someone questions your relationship, you're probably already aware that there is a problem and haven't yet come to terms with it. Remember that people in healthy relationships have nothing to hide or defend. In fact, when a relationship is healthy, your friends and family are normally going to recognize that this person makes you very happy, brings out the best in you, and they will rejoice with the two of you.

3. Notice if your plans are continually overturned in favor of hers. You go to pick her up, thinking you're going to see "The Wizard of Oz" at the art theater. But by the time you're halfway through dinner (at the other end of town, her restaurant selection), she has talked you into seeing "The Fast & The Furious" at the theater next door to the restaurant she chose, instead. More and more, you realize that you're not keeping any of the dates you chose. Instead, you're always changing plans to do what she wants. And heaven help you if you planned to have dinner with friends of yours at 7pm. She won't get into the shower until 6:50, so you'll be calling to apologize, and inconveniencing everyone as you all wait for her. Because it's always about her.

4. Remember that manipulation is when your partner gets you to do something you really wish you hadn't. This person likes getting you outside your comfort zone, because then he is pulling the strings, getting one over on you.

5. Watch for efforts to exert financial control. A controlling partner may take over financial decisions, whether he earns more or less than you. If you earn less, he may require you to ask permission to buy things, seriously restricting even rare personal purchases, or may demand a long and/or emotional discussion of even trivial expenses. If you earn more, be wary of joint credit card accounts - BOTH people are legally responsible for paying, even if only one of them incurred the debt; some controlling people will use a joint credit card account, max the card, and then leave you with the bill.