Filling Up the Empty Spaces

I don’t believe the compulsion to control another person is ever for the benefit of the other person. It’s all about us. We feel insecure, we feel unlovable, we feel empty spaces growing inside of us and so we desperately turn to others to quiet our codependent crazies. When others aren’t being what we want them to be, when they aren’t making us feel OK about ourselves, we then do everything within our power to manipulate them into pleasing us.

A good example of this theory comes from the novel Now Voyager. Jerry Durrance, a major character in the novel, is married to Isabel. It’s not a happy marriage because Isabel guilted and shamed Jerry into marrying her. Isabel is extremely insecure in herself and she must have all of Jerry’s attention. Unfortunately for Isabel, too much of Jerry’s attention goes to their younger daughter, Tina.

Isabel feels terribly threatened by Tina. As a result, Isabel is always trying to make Jerry choose between her and Tina. When Jerry chooses Tina, Isabel gets depressed. She feels rejected by Jerry. She feels like she doesn’t count. All of her self-loathing arises and she drowns in it. So she uses guilt and shame to make Jerry give her the acceptance, attention and love that she isn’t willing to give to herself.

At the same time, Isabel is busy making Tina’s life miserable. Isabel is so insecure inside that she comes to hate her own daughter. Tina develops fear of abandonment issues as she struggles with the fact that her own mother hates her. Eventually, Tina is sent to a sanitarium to deal with the issues that her mother’s lack of love have caused her. And she’s also sent there to appease her mother’s need for all of Jerry’s attention.

Next time you feel like manipulating someone, changing them in some way or controlling their behavior, stop and ask yourself “What’s going on with me?” I guarantee you that the urge to manipulate and control has nothing to do with the other person. And it’s certainly not for his or her benefit. It’s all about you and what you are not willing to do for yourself.

Once we take time to realize that we are feeling insecure, that something this person has said or done has touched upon an old wound, we can better deal with our compulsive need to control the other person. We can realize that the problem isn’t really with them or what they have done, it’s with us and the fact that we aren’t loving ourselves very well.

Then we can turn it over to God, or our Higher Power, and ask God for the help we need to love ourselves honestly. We can shore-up those empty spaces inside with our own love and the love of God. Doing so will relieve us of the compulsion to fill those same empty spaces up with other people.