Balance of Power

This post is about something that is only indirectly related to verbal abuse: the balance of power in relationships, and balance in general, and my experience of these things in my current relationship.

First, I want to mention an idea that I haven’t read about elsewhere, but which occurred to me a year or two ago. What I’ve observed most clearly in this relationship, but also to a lesser extent in past relationships, is that the person with the most strongly felt and expressed preferences usually gets their say in decisions.

These decisions can be about minor things (such as what we listen to on the radio) or major things (such as planning for a backpack trip). I tend to not express strong preferences in order to avoid rocking the boat. So when my partner expresses very strong opinions about these thing, or gets upset or angry when I express different opinions, I back off and say, “Sure, OK, fine”. But my weakness leads me to feel resentment later about having to along with the other person’s preferences. I would like to be more assertive about expressing my own wishes, but I fear the possible negative consequences.

To return to the two examples I mentioned: a minor one is radio or music listening preferences. When I’ve tried putting on some of my favorite music on the stereo, she usually objects in some way (the music is too violent, too boring, too something). She’s complained about nearly everything I’ve tried: from the piano quartets of Brahms, to the somewhat mainstream local classical music radio station, to the rather mellow and folk-tinged “Entangled” by Genesis. (I have recently discovered that Debussy Preludes played at a very low volume seem to be acceptable.) The end result is that when we listen to the stereo or car radio, it’s mostly her preference, usually a news station that I can barely stand at the best of times.

I mentioned in passing the major example, planning for a backpack trip, in my post about the book-throwing incident. The conflict about this kind of planning goes back to the very early days of our relationship. Back then I was ecstatic to have found a partner who shared my love of hiking, but almost immediately I found that my ideas about backpacking, and particularly the use of modern ultralight equipment, were not acceptable. When I brought up these ideas, in particular the use of sil-nylon tarps instead of much heavier tents, she became very angry at me for what she thought was my dismissal of her much greater experience. I tried gently to suggest that perhaps newer technology was better than what she’d tried 30 years before, but that just brought on a new bout of angry accusations.

This angry outburst was my first hint that something was not quite right about this relationship. But I ignored the warning signs and decided that it was best to not talk about my own experience if it contradicted hers in any way. To be fair, she did eventually come around to trying out my ideas, after five years of using her heavy, leaky, and stuffy tents. This seems like a rather long time to wait for my ideas to be taken seriously. I’m even less willing nowadays to champion my own ideas, given that the verbal abuse outbursts have gotten worse over the years. Essentially, I’ve surrendered most of my power in this relationship.

I’ll write more about balance in a later post.