Until she realized what he was really concerned about: when control goes too far

They had recently fallen in love and he wanted to accompany her to work. Thea* thought that was sweet, but she quickly realized that he was also interested in control. When she told him about an appointment with a friend that evening, he threw the coffee mug on the ground in a busy square, he was so angry. And when she went to pick up some stuff from her ex-boyfriend, he was against her. Will got into the car.

A few weeks later, he broke the DVD player that the same ex-boyfriend had given her as a gift. He later threw away some of her photo albums while she was away. And when Thea wanted to plan a vacation with friends, he gave clear instructions: not to Egypt, not to Ukraine, not to Israel and not to Latin American countries. It’s better to stay in Switzerland!

Thea is not an isolated case. Stalking, twenty texts a day, repeated accusations and jealousy dramas – many relationships result in one partner obsessively harassing the other. An Italian study has now found an important reason for this behavior.

The research team led by Federico Contu of Sapienza University in Rome asked about 750 younger adults who were in committed relationships about their self-esteem and their tendency to engage in abusive relationships. For example, it was found that those who declared statements such as “I feel humiliated” and “I feel disrespected” to be true were more likely to agree with sentences such as “I have almost obsessive feelings about my partner” and “I always want to to know where he is now.”

Contus Summary: Anyone who feels socially insignificant sees their partner less as an opportunity for new experiences and more as an asset to be controlled. The Roman psychologist suspects that this is an attempt to ‘compensate for the feeling of one’s own insignificance by obsessively focusing on one’s partner’.

According to the pattern: I feel like no one, but through the other person I become someone – and therefore he must stay with me under all circumstances. And as the Italian psychologist noted with surprise, this “apparently applies to both men and women.” He had expected the aggressive, invasive behavior to be more common in men.

For Thomas Stompe of the Vienna University Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, gender equality is no surprise. This has been known for some time. “But if you look at the different forms of obsessive behavior, there are differences,” Stompe emphasizes. “The more severe the reaction to the loss of meaning, the greater the proportion of men.”

This includes, for example, stalking and physical violence against the partner. “However, guarding and withdrawing from one’s own interests to be there only for the partner occurs in both sexes,” says Stompe.

In Thea’s case, her boyfriend and later husband used violence very early in the relationship, even though it was initially only against objects. Later, he pushed her roughly against the wall and held her down with force. Sometimes he hit himself in the head. She also explains this with her resistance. “If I hadn’t objected, he certainly would have been less upset.” But she has always fought for her freedoms.

When they had a baby, her husband made it clear to her that he would like her to stay home. Thea initially left the decision open, but then resigned. The audit craze spread. For example, Thea is not allowed to spend the night with the child, not even with her family, because that would be bad for the little one. “He always talked to me and it worked; I often couldn’t think for myself.” During this time, she increasingly gave in to his pressure, wanting to avoid escalation in front of the child and wanting him to see her as a happy mother.

According to Contu, 50 percent of adults between the ages of 18 and 22 have been in an obsessive relationship. Twenty years ago this percentage was considerably lower. But this does not necessarily have to be the result of moral decline or increasing aggressiveness in society. “You have to remember that the opportunities for such behavior have increased in recent years.” Digital stalking on the Internet, for example, and especially mobile phone tracking, has not been around for very long.

Stompe says that two personality types in particular are predisposed to obsessive behavior in a relationship. One of them is the narcissist. He can hardly tolerate rejection and therefore tries to suppress all actions outside the partnership, considering the probable rejection moves of his partner (“Why do you want to meet your stupid friends again?”).

The other type is the dependent personality, who acts as a counterpart to the narcissist and exhibits passive, submissive, and conformist behavior. These types of people are less noticeable at first, because their strategies include keeping a low profile (“I can handle it if you leave me alone”). But this can also put a lot of pressure on the partner, because it creates a bad conscience and a strong pressure to take care of the other person.

The question remains what to do if your partner is obsessive and abusive. Breaking up is certainly an option, because if the behavior is ingrained in your personality, you can’t hope for improvement. But in the case of a brutal narcissist, isn’t it actually dangerous to reject him clearly and unequivocally? Stompe points out here that rejection, even for sociopaths, does not necessarily lead to violence. “But conversations with such people should take place in public space,” advises the Viennese psychiatrist, who also works in a penitentiary.

When it comes to stalking, detailed documentation of the stalking activities is a top priority so that an associated criminal complaint has a greater chance of being filed: “When a stalker is questioned by the police, it takes on a different quality for him, This usually leads to the actions stopping.” However, there is no guarantee for this.

Thea is now divorced, but is still under pressure from the father of her child. There are always situations that cause him to bombard her with messages and make wild accusations, she says. For example, when it comes to alimony payments determined by the court.

Today she does not understand why she stayed with him for ten years despite everything. She held on to the positive things. When he found a good job in the pharmaceutical industry after completing his PhD – in which she had funded him – the freakouts subsided somewhat, which gave her hope. She was also able to accompany him on business trips to many different cities. Thea liked that too.

Today, the experiences from the relationship still catch up with them in everyday life. “I have a diffuse feeling of anxiety about once a week and then I don’t function for a few hours. I fear his words more than anything else.” (bzbasel.ch)