Love One Another

Women have a difficult time releasing their desire for control at times.  Many women fear if they let go of their need to control a situation, their worst fears will come true, especially when it comes to their relationship with their husbands/boyfriends.  However, by tightening the grip you have on the situation, you are only making your partner want to squeeze out and get as far away as possible from you.  This goes for men as well as women.  It is extremely difficult, but we need to learn to let go.  The best way for a relationship or marriage to succeed is by only having two things:  love and respect.  All the other things a marriage needs such as loyalty, honesty, compassion, care, come with loving and respecting one another.  The number one thing to remember if you fear letting go is that if you give your partner the freedom to make their own decisions, they will see your efforts, and in turn respect you more.  If they don’t, you will finally be able to see what the real problems are in your relationship and hopefully begin to work them out.

For example:  Let’s say we have a wife who is trying to prevent her husband from leaving the house for fear he is cheating on her.  She tries to say it is her right to prevent him from leaving the house because he is not doing the right thing.  This does not matter.  The first thing she needs to do is recognize it is his right to leave the house and go out whenever he wants.  He is an adult capable of making his own decisions.  If he does happen to go to bars until 4 in the morning and cheat on her, then that is the problem you have to deal with by making sure to let them know this is not okay, and unacceptable behavior.  But you can’t try to control or smother a partner from making their own decisions.  This is the kind of problem that comes from mistrust in a relationship.  The point is that putting your trust in someone does make them want to please you.  If she had instead said, “Have fun with your friends” when he left instead of trying to prevent him from leaving, he would probably want to live up to her expectations.  Not only that, but he may also seek to live up to her preferred wishes, like that he shouldn’t go out for very long and not to do anything bad and come home at a decent time.  

If you want to control the situation, you are saying you don’t trust your partner.  If you don’t trust your partner, you don’t want to add problems to your relationship by smothering them.  If you don’t trust your partner because they are doing something bad, you REALLY don’t want to add trouble to your relationship by smothering them.  Deal with the real issue you are facing instead of trying to control it yourself.  You can’t fix someone else.  They have to fix themselves, and maybe they would want to if you let go.

When I try to control a situation, I personally am usually trying to fix a problem that I don’t want to talk about.  I’m trying to see if I can get away with fixing the problem by myself without discussing it with my partner.  This has never worked out for me.  Also, it is not respectful or loving.  Your partner may not be respectful or loving to you with their actions, but you will only make things worse by behaving the same way, getting angry, throwing insults, or punishing them.  Why try to fix a problem by making it worse?  It keeps on coming back to love and respect.  

This is not the “end all” to all problems.  Sometimes, you love, respect, give your partner all the freedom they need, and they still break your trust, hurt you, or disrespect you.  That is when things really get tough.  You may seek counseling at this point, or ultimately an end.  But then, you may also just keep loving and trying.  Don’t give up without a fight.  If you are a Christian, I encourage you to go here to remind yourself of what the Bible says about how we should treat each other in a marriage.  Many other religions have similar standards and they also all come down to loving and respecting.


I have gotten a bit behind on my projects, since I am working on so many at once.  However, that’s a good thing because it’s something I enjoy doing.  I am currently working on probably the simplest thing you’ll ever learn to knit:  a scarf.  Cast on around 15 stitches, but really however many you want for desired width.  Knit back and forth til you reach a desired length.  I am switching colors along the way.  Here is one I made for a friend in December (since my current one is not finished).  She’s also wearing a hat I made (which is a bit more complicated, so I’ll focus on the scarf today)..