Escalating Control

[from the archives]

This post is a continuation of a series starting here.

When we stop allowing others to control us, often the controlling person doesn’t like the new relational arrangement. The controlling person frequently ends up escalating the controlling behaviors in order to put the relationship back into their comfort zone. This happened for me with my husband.

Most of the time since becoming free from my selfish responses, I was able to simply ignore his angry outbursts and blaming toward me. He would usually carry his angry grudge until falling asleep at night, and that would be the end of it. I continued to treat him with love and speak to him as though he was not holding his grudge.

However, with his escalated resistance, he took his outbursts, grudges, and emotional punishment of me to a new level so that I could no longer ignore it.

In the fall that year we had cut down several large trees in order to make way for our new garage and driveway. We had already moved most of the wood off the old road to the barn, but it was still covered with branches. As my husband left for work he asked me to send the boys out to get the rest of the branches off the road so that the bulldozer estimator could see the ground clearly. He was coming the next evening.

After breakfast and chores and a few other things, I sent the boys out to move the branches, and then the girls and I went to the grocery store. Phillip and Josiah were 13 and 9 yrs old at the time. While at the store, Phillip called me on my cell phone. They were pushing the last of the huge cedar rounds off the road. As one rolled down the grass slope picking up momentum, Josiah’s hand got smashed in between it and another when it came crashing to a stop. Phillip was afraid Josiah’s hand was broken in some way. I told him to get some ice on it, and we rushed home.

I was relieved to find that Josiah’s hand was not broken, but it was hugely swollen and red. He had been trying to be brave, but as I brought him up into my lap, he melted back into tears of pain and trauma. Phillip sat close in his concern for Josiah and the weight of bearing the responsibility while I was gone. I was comforting Phillip in the knowledge that it was an accident. He felt badly because he had been the one to push the round and get it moving.

We cuddled on the couch for a while, and then it started raining. Our whole mood was sober both with the gratitude that Josiah’s hand wasn’t broken and with the knowledge that it could have been much worse considering the massive weight of the 2 1/2 foot rounds. I didn’t send Phillip back out into the rain alone to pick up the rest of the branches.

In a short while Tim came home from work just after it stopped raining. Seeing that there were still branches on the road, he was angry before he came in. He harshly burst out as soon as he saw me, “You didn’t send the boys out to pick up the branches like you said you would!! You lied to me!! You don’t even care about our garage project, and you don’t care about the bulldozer guy coming tomorrow!! Why didn’t you do what you said you would do?!!”

It was clear that Tim had no knowledge of what had happened in the day, and it was also clear that his arrogant assumptions and blame were the source of his anger. I calmly told him he was in his flesh (being self-centered and unloving) and I wouldn’t participate in his flesh with him, and then I left the room.

A bit later I came back into the room and he began accusing me again, “You think you’re so perfect! You won’t even take responsibility for lying to me! You didn’t do what you said you would do because you don’t care!”

I said, “You’re being unloving and I’m not going talk with you about it while you’re treating me this way.”

“UNLOVING??!! You’re the unloving one!! You don’t care about the garage project, or the bulldozer guy, or me and you lied, and you won’t take responsibility for any of it because you think you’re so perfect!!”  Then he mockingly added, “Do you think the Holy Spirit is telling you to treat ME this way?!!”

I thought about that for a moment. I asked my conscience about the way I was treating him. I was instantly assured that I wasn’t supposed to do anything to fix his anger, and I knew I was not supposed to take on blame for things I had not done. (see Slaves to Sin or to Righteousness, and Not My Fault?) So I said, “Yes, I am being obedient to the Holy Spirit.”

He began to laugh in incredulous disgust, and then he walked away.

Throughout the evening I remained naturally cheerful and connected with the family while Tim sulked and refused to look at me or speak to me. Over dinner the conversation turned to the events of the day, and Tim heard the kids talking about the runaway cedar round and Josiah’s smashed hand, and the emergency cell phone call to Mom. He was too set in his assumptions and anger toward me and justifying it all to himself with fault-finding to muster up any compassion for Josiah or any understanding for the real reason that there were still some branches on the road.

That night when we were getting ready for bed he made a show of his angry grudge by avoiding any possibility of speaking the smallest word to me, and being extra pointed about turning his back to me and getting as far from me as possible to go to sleep.

I thought it would be gone by morning like usual, but he had come to a new level of trying to re-exert his control in our relationship and bring me to an apology like I used to do…… (to be continued here)

P.S. My husband Tim gives me full permission and his blessing to share these stories about our past. He is no longer an angry blaming man. We hope these stories will help others to see controlling and being controlled behaviors in their lives, and come to repentance and reconciliation with the Lord and with the people in their lives.

[originally posted December, 2010]