"The one who loves the least has the most control". A friend said this to me years ago. It has always remained in the back of my mind, but it was not until recently that I really began to ponder this comment.

Could this be why the WS seems to have the upper hand and so many BS's try desperately to win back their WS's love?

Are the BS's really trying to get back some of the control and power that they lost when their WS betrayed them?

WS's does it give you a feeling of power and control to have your BS fighting so hard to win you back?

BS's did you feel the biggest lack of control in your life when your spouse betrayed you?

I'm wondering if others feel or felt this way, because I know I did. I can be a bit of a control freak, so maybe this affected me differently than others. It's just something I have been pondering lately.

in what context did someone say this to you...

in general, applicable to all marriages...?

ugghhh I hope not...cause I surely would have NEVER gotten married..

or in a marriage in the throes of an affair...where the perception of control is skewed..but always within....
each individual.,..

love and control...
not two words I generally group together...

ark

You do the best you can to formulate a family, especially if you have children. You are allowed to have boundaries. If husband won't honor you and your reasonable boundaries and you are truly unhappy, then he can join you by being unhappy with half his stuff. Neither party in a marriage should be a doormat.

Larry

Those are definaely 2 words that don't go together. I've learned that the hard way. When you control someone you are definately not showing the love you should be. I know this as a fact in my life. When someone feels controlled they don't feel love. I know my wife didn't feel love from me because she felt and was controlled and it cost me my marriage. I can only work hard to show that love so it hasn't cost me a future with her in it.

Does that mean you are done with the swinging?

In junior high school, my homeroom teacher said this to the whole class. For no apparent reason.

It's always stuck with me, and I haven't been able to convince myself he was wrong.

I've always wondered which one he was, and what was going on in his M... prolly he was the one caring more...

You know, this actually struck a chord with me...
I remember shortly before I got M, I was at work, and I was upset because something had upset me, and my now exh did not seem to care. When I spoke to him, he just kind of blew me off. Which hurt even more.

A co-worker of mine, who had been married for 20+ years talked to me and told me that it is always better to be in a R where the other person cares about you more than you care about them.... I thought that was odd, and she said, "Honey, you know that you care, and you will not ruin the R, and it is better when you know that the other person is head over heels for you... they will not ruin the R either".

And, in retrospect, I kind of agree.... I think that I DID care more than he did....

Sorry, but no. I know mine was head over heels in love with me and he would not ruin the R but he did.

I have stated I'am done for the better of our marriage. I have shown those actions and I have stated my promise.

I said something similar to our MC.

I was in sales. I firmly believe that whoever is most willing to walk away from the negotiation table has the upper hand.

Should it apply to marriage? No. But neither should affairs. Sometimes reality stinks.

If you could apply a "love gauge" to both H and W to figure out who loves the most, maybe the statement could hold true. But, with my W and I, you would have looked at our marriage from the outside looking in and assumed that I was the one who loved the least. After her infidelity, and my ensuing reaction to it, it is pretty obvious that it was actually the opposite. My actions (not fulfilling her EN's) would have placed me in the "loving the least" category, and I'm pretty sure that I had absolutely no "control" over the marriage...hence the adultery on her part. I think the statement is false. Love is essential to marriage, and to "love the least" gives you absolutely no "control". I can't remember where I heard this quote from, but it goes..."You cannot control something that you have taken for granted."

edit:
Just remembered where I heard the quote. It is from a song by I Mother Earth. It actually states..."There ain't no control of things you take for granted".

Funny thing is, I used to say this to my W, regarding everyday stuff, work related issues, etc... Guess I forgot to practice what I preach.

When a WS performs their little horizontal mambo, it is usually not about sex but about power. That is why a BS's groveling reinforces that often illogical quest for control. A mature personality has little need for control in a M. Another word for lack of control is called ......love.

A great Plan B suddenly yanks that control rug out from underneath them and the stunned and completely disoriented WS is suddenly back in a psychologically inferior position. I have often stressed to BS's to pay attention to their actions and note what gets the biggest reaction from their WS. Invariably it occurs when you take yourself out of the in control game.

Dr Dobson calls this same "game" by a different name but his strategy is the same.

Hope for Couples

"Hope for Couples"



Great read...thanks

I have heard - He who cares the least in a relationship, has the power.


Another one ...


What you are trying to control - is really controlling you...



carnation

When I read this post I had to reply. My best friend is from Taiwan. We used to go for walks together a couple of times a week. We had great talks on these walks. One time she told me when she was growing up her mom told her to marry a man that loves her more than she loves him. She told me she loves her husband very much but he does love her more. Then I told her that with DH and me, it seems to change over the years. I told her things can change in the blink of an eye especially as the marriage grows and you become more dependant on each other. That talk with my friend was over 5 years ago. They moved 3 years ago and had another child. Just recently she told me now she feels she would be completely lost without him!
DH and I are madly in love but at times I do feel that he would be lost without me. Then there are other times where I feel I would be lost without him. DH and I have talked about this and he has told me time and time again that he HAS to die first because he would be so lost he would die of a broken heart and the kids would have no parents. He is so cute when he is being emotionally vulnerable to me. That is the key for our marriage, feeling safe enough to share your deepest fears. For me my feeling that I love him more than he loves me is not about him it is about my feeling insecure. It is just a perspective, I KNOW how I feel and what I think. I only know what my husband shows me, I am not in his head. That being said it is an issue of trusting he his being honest with me and I know he is.

Oh I don't know. I do think that the person that is the least invested in the marriage does have the stronger position. This person would probably be less affeced by the ending of a marriage as he/she just doesn't value it as much as the other.

I think bringing "love" into this conversation muddies the waters. Love can be an action, but here I am speeking of love as a feeling. We all know that those feelings can and do change. You can have wonderful feeling of love for your spose one day and have feeling of real animosity and annoyance the next. So I won't speak in terms of love.

So yes, I think that the person that cares less about the success of the marriage has a stronger position in the marriage. That person will be motivated less to make changes to keep the marriage together than the spouse that really wants the marriage to work.

Now I believe that if something happened to me my H would simply replace me. I know that sounds cold and unfeeling but I don't mean it that way. I know I'm the stronger of the two, although I have not exhibited much strength this past year. I believe he could not just 'be'. He needs someone to take care of him. I miss the comfort I took in how much he loved me before the EA. I wish I was that same cocky girl who just KNEW everything would be ok because we would be together. Hmmm...what a sad thought.
But, to stay on topic...yup, I think this may be true. But, I also think that at different times in the marriage the "more lover" shifts from one to the other. This seems natural given that we are flawed human beings.

Yeah, Gray and I talked about this, too. And gee! He was really lost when I helped caravan my bro to CA and the trip took much longer than expected. I was too. I started getting freaky after about 2 or 3 days!!

After Linda McCartney died and Paul was already scooping up some other chickie 8 months later I told Gray that I hoped he would find someone if I died first but that he would at least wait a year or so. A little longer grieving period!! LOL!!

Now it's just funny because when he only *thought* I was going to die because of the things that were happening to me when my thyroid went on the fritz, he replaced me before I was even cold in the ground. Not in the ground at all!! LOL!!

Charlotte

fiori,

Your husband once had strong feeling of love for you means that he can have those feeling again. Of course the OW has to crawl back under her bridge first . . . But I think it is great that he once was infatuated with you.

Yes, feeling change. And the position of who loves whom more at any given timeslice can change too.

I think that some people value a marriage more than others. Some will do whatever it takes, sometimes to the point of madness, to save a marriage. Others will never allow themselves to intimately bond with another. They may get married, but they are in it only if it is convenient and not complicated. If one is married to the latter you are at a disadvantage I think. If you just aren't that invested in a marriage you may not be willing to do the hard work to save it when the bloom is off the rose.

When I hear this phrase, I tend to think how "Machiavellian" it sounds. I don't remember all of "The Prince", but he argued that to control a country it is best to be both feared and loved, but because these two feelings seldom exist at the same time, if you had to choose one, it is best to be feared. He argued this way because in his observations, fear persisted through adversity, while love does not.

So I rephrase this as the one who has less fear has more control.

WS's have less fear because of two factors. What their life will be like without you is not an unknown (at least they think that way since they have already started their new life) and they usually have had more time to ponder the situation, which helps alleviate fear.

As for the control part. That is really always an illusion.

I guess I look at it this way, this idea that loving less equals more control may in fact be correct. But is that really what your after? Control? To me, its like here's an efficient way to get something you don't want. Doing what is efficient is often mediocre at being fulfilling.