[Alphas] Why Do I Control Men? The Alpha Life Cycles – Control #1

We spent two weeks talking about why Alphas need to fight and who we love to fight with: our man, our family, friends and coworkers – OK, sort of everyone.

FIGHT is the first Cycle. Next we enter CONTROL.

In our late 20s/early 30s we enter the Control Cycle. This week will talk about how and why we control our men (and no, it does not usually come out well.)

Short version:

We control by rescuing and helping in hopes he won’t leave us and he’ll give us the love and approval we are not giving ourselves.

Last week’s post – The Alpha Life Cycles – Family Fight #2, The Alpha Life Cycles – Fight Our Men #1

Why Am I a Control Freak??

To understand WHY we control our men, you have to understand why we WANT to control everything. Please memorize the following: You only need to control things when you are afraid.

Unfortunately, Alphas are always afraid that somebody (Him!) is going to bail on us. That fear comes from our families (Read Fighting Family #2 from last week). We are convinced our mates won’t meet all our needs, so we have to arrange it ourselves.

That energy of – “I’m going to watch you, guide you, correct you, inspect you AND STILL expect you NOT to do well”, repels a healthy man. It leaves Alphas with softer, Beta Men.

We Make Love a DEBT

The Alphas’ solution to feeling loved is engineering conditions where men aremade to give us with what WE need.

Think about it. The only person that would let themselves be controlled long term is a person who is not a natural leader. Unfortunately, these softer (beta) men still want be seen as strong, treated as men and respected as leaders. The inability to get that respect makes them passive-aggressive eventually.

Passive-aggressive comes after years of letting the Alpha have her way. The average period in a marriage before a beta man starts really acting out is approximately 5 to 7 years in. They start to feel permanently small and broken.

This is when they say yes, but “do” no. They resist, resent, delay and grumble and everybody’s favorite… Explode. The hallmark of these passive-aggressives is stuffing things down and then exploding over a small trigger. The explosion can be verbal or it can be bad behavior.

That crappy behavior reinforces the cycle that convinces YOU that YOU have to stay in control. If you don’t keep pushing them, they won’t keep moving is your logic. If you don’t keep watching them, they screw up is your rationalization.

And every once in a blue moon you leave them in control of something and it… fails. He has the reins so seldom, that he fumbles them under pressure. And then we judge him unworthy and revoke future privileges citing his past performance.

Don’t forget our baking analogy. We’ve decided, that if we just changed 4 or 5 things about the man in front of us, he’d be perfect for us! We bake him to order. So, we figure out what will improve him and make HIS life better and we “explain” that to him. We buy him books and try to get him to take courses. We try to convince him to follow our logic and reasoning and feelings.

We become extremely difficult when things don’t go according to our (head’s) plan and we are easy to get along with when we have our way. THIS IS control and manipulation.

You cannot stop controlling your man unless you begin doing the inner work on trust. The goal is trusting you will receive what you need without directly overseeing it.

The object of coaching in this area is for you to spot when you’re controlling and begin to feel control as undesirable.  You learn how all the things you really want, come when you are not in control of things. (Yep, pretty much the exact opposite of what you think right now.)

Is that hard to do alone? Yep.

Happily, you aren’t alone. Ask me for help now.

In Joy,