Ms Cyprah

How controlling can lead to abuse

Q. Me and my partner have been together 5 years and in that time I have lost all but a couple of my freinds. If my friends come around my partner is rude and arrogant and usually ignores them and goes into the room and watches TV. If he is drinking he will talk to them but be cruel and immature. If we get invited places he walks in like he has a chip on his shoulder and acts like he can’t wait to get out and is sometimes aggressive towards people. I dont know if it’s too late but should I try and see my friends without him? Should I go to places without him? He just likes to have our life at home and thats it!

A.This is a very sad state of affairs which you would need to act upon if you wish anything different as he won’t do anything about it. Your partner is a controller and the only way he can control you is by ignoring your friends and treating them discourteously so that they will stay away from you. That is the strongest form of emotional abuse. Controllers do not like their partners to have outside contacts, not even their relatives, as it lessens their power. They tend to be lacking in social skills, are rather boorish to others and do just what they please, without thinking of the effect on their partners or the other person. The only people they care about are themselves. Your partner also sounds very insecure and seems to fear the effect your friends would have on you. So by behaving badly to them, he immediately lessens their influence and keeps you to himself to make you dependent on him and to restrict your activities.

Sadly, the answer is entirely up to you, as your partner will never change. You have allowed him to do what he pleases for so long, you have lost out completely. He has got the results he wanted because you are now increasingly isolated, which is precisely what he planned. So you have to now decide if that is the type and quality of life you wish to lead. One of the top five factors for keeping us alive longest is our social interactions and the friends we have. In fact, it is No.2 on the list, a vital ingredient of the quality of our lives. If you ignore your friends, or gradually have no friends, it will begin to cause stress for you which you might not even be aware of. Not only that, it totally limits your life experience.

Once you make your decision on the kind of life you really want, then act upon it. If you decide your friends are important, then you must see them, with or without your partner. It is very important to get on with your life in your own way as a unique human being for your own personal development. If you have to change yourself and your basic needs to please another person, he would be the wrong person for you. Those who love you will accept who you are, as you are and, most important, the things and people you value and cherish. They will encourage you in your efforts, not try to limit your world and life.

Please do something soon before you find yourself completely at your partner’s mercy because that is when physical abuse begins: when people lack support and friendship and become completely dependent on their partner for interaction. That is no way to live. It would merely deprive you of essential stimulus and keep you living in fear. Start by getting a couple of key friends on your side who could give you emotional support. Start seeing them at least once a week for coffee, drinks or whatever, to get you away from your partner. Gradually you will build your courage to do whatever you think is right for your long term relationship or your future.

Not everyone can be a business person. If we didn’t have people to clear the rubbish, for example, we would all be down with various illnesses within two weeks. However, no matter what the individual aspires to do, make no mistake about it, in any diverse society, there will be a majority group who has the power base and who dictates the standards, mores and identifiable culture already in existence. For the outsider to thrive in such an environment, regardless of their brain power or personal merit, and particularly within the administrative and political systems, they have to be given the access to do so by that majority.

People of African origin, the world over, gravitate towards the caring professions (45% of NHS staff is Black and Asian, yet they make up only 10% of this country) and in the USA, 68% of people serving that country in various administrative posts are African Americans. The trouble with those professions is that they might earn the gratitude of the public but they tend to trap their staff in low paid, low status professions, at the mercy of the government, which lack the opportunity for wealth creation, personal influence or genuine advancement.

With these professions tending to be more glory than substance, particularly when very few Black people make it to the top through persistent discrimination (the UK National Health Service being a classic case in point), and everyone unable to become a business person, the scene is set for gross inequality for those who choose this public service route.

Whatever is happening around us is not by accident. It is easy to blame laws and governments, but it is our individual actions from the lowest to the highest which perpetuate those inequalities. If we, as a nation, are happy to have one section of our community excluded from the opportunity and access which are essential for individual and national growth, primarily on the basis of colour, what is it really saying about us? Is it also any wonder that we remain culturally backward, economically second-rate and trapped in a time warp when so much talent is going to waste? Come to think of it, where is that ‘British Empire’ mentioned on all those regular gongs given out to the public?

No one likes to feel excluded, passed over, ignored and invisible, yet one section of this community is being treated in that manner, except for negative exposure when deemed appropriate, especially associated with crime. At such times, African Caribbeans in Britain are always over-represented. That is why, as I write this, 55% of all Black males in London, 18-24 years old, are out of work. If they were White, there would be a national outcry. But they are not, and every one of those youngsters idling their life away represents our future.

Racism succeeds not through the actual racists or bigots themselves, but because of the silent majority who do nothing about it, or prefer to ignore it, which sends the wrong message about its value and proliferates the very action they apparently abhor. That is why Hitler was able to harm so many minorities (Jews) until the majority decided to act - but only because, eventually, they too were being threatened by his aggressive, immoral actions. And that’s the key to anything which is unjust. Allowed to covertly take root and spread (because it doesn’t affect us all!), injustice inevitably corrupts and engulfs both the good and bad around it.

In the end, it depends on the world we want for ourselves and our children. Whether we want one in which everyone, regardless of gender, colour or creed, has the opportunity and access to thrive, or we prefer a community riddled with racism, bias and nepotism, which only favours the few. The choice is definitely ours, and every single one of our routine actions reinforces that unconscious choice in a consistently corrosive way, without us even realising it.