# 2. Possessive love prisons someone you love

---

Their relationship was not only potentially toxic but combustible. It threatened to self-destruct by the time you finished reading this article.

My friend would say she needed space but her boyfriend never allowed her space. He never allowed her to be on her own.

She loved it when he looked at her like that. He’d whisper to her, “I’ll love you forever. I don’t have enough life to love you as long as I want to. I don’t think there is enough space on this planet to hide away with you.” He’d hug and squeeze her, so tight and so urgent. Then he’d whisper, “Mine! You’re mine!” It felt safe and delicious, all this love.

Until it wasn’t.

Whenever he saw her glance at a cute cashier in the grocery store or a gorgeous runner on their walks, his lips would release fire like a car that caught on something imperceptible and was engulfed in flames.

He lied and swore he wasn’t cheating on her.

He never physically abused her. But he isolated her from other relationships that mattered to her. He erupted in anger when he explained something was always someone’s fault.

My friend just packed her bags and left her boyfriend of 3 years.

Their breakup was brutal. He could not believe she was leaving him. He wanted another chance. At first, she tried but he could no longer be the person she was certain would spend the rest of her life with.

Her exhaustion crowded out her being in love.

---

Here are 5 relationship deal breakers we can learn from my friend’s nasty breakup:

1. Poor boundaries creates resentments

If, in your relationship, you’re afraid of saying no – because the underlying belief is that saying no will cost you the relationship, a dangerous sign glares at you. The sign indicates you have poor boundaries in your relationship.

Someone you love should not get you to do something, anything that makes you uncomfortable. Your discomfort for the other person’s benefit is not healthy for either of you.

My goodness. How my friend compromised on her boundaries again and again. She worked hard at getting him to like and love her. If he wanted something from her, she was compelled to provide it. She believed if she said no, he wouldn’t want to be with her.

He walked all over her in the name of love…

Whenever my friend’s ex felt something, he expected his feelings to impact the actions of his girlfriend.

This is dangerous.

If someone I love makes me feel like I’m responsible for his feelings, I would run away from him. Love loses its meaning when someone stops being responsible for his feelings. You are responsible for you. The other person is responsible for himself.

Clear boundaries free you from the burden of trying to please someone you love all the time.

Poor boundaries aren’t evil.

Most of the time they don’t imply ill intent. They imply self-ignorance and a disconnect with yourself. They are a sign you have compromised yourself or are (often inadvertently) infringing upon the boundaries of someone you love.

For a healthy relationship, you need clear boundaries.

Setting boundaries is not selfish. It’s healthy. Just like you need to treat each other with respect, you also need to respect yourself. Anything that breaches this basic frontier between where you end and others begin is a display of poor boundaries.

“Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves even when we risk disappointing others.” – Brene Brown

2. Possessive love prisons someone you love

You can’t be friends with guys. I love you. You need to eat dinner with me every night.

You don’t need to spend weekends with your colleagues.

We should get married.

I am a selfless hero who wants to hide you from any harm.

You can’t travel abroad without me.

You belong to me.

I want you to keep looking into my eyes. I don’t want you to look at anyone else.

Please call me every hour.

Possessive love is dangerous.

My friend’s ex choked the life out of their relationship. He was like a 5-year-old who wants his mom to dry his tears. He refused to see his insecurity was his to manage. Hatred replaced her love with his clinginess. After a while, passion had become distasteful and her bruised heart begged for freedom. But he did not see it. Or, perhaps he did not want to see it.

When you love someone, you wish to build a tall tower with no windows and no doors to keep the subject of your love safe inside.

My friend’s ex loved her like this.

She sat in the tower all day plotting her escape. Her longing for freedom was so strong it overpowered any love she had for him. Keeping her in this maximum-security tower accomplished the opposite of what he wanted.

Despite loving him, she craved to get as far away from him as possible.

This is tricky…

Another’s need to possess you might feel like being cherished.

But it’s not.

You might even say, “If someone I love doesn’t want to own me that clearly means he doesn’t love me.”

This logic is a trap. All your relationships are fated to become unhealthy until you disassociate yourself from this fallacy.

Love is not possessive, my friends.

Everything, everything you love is free.

If your love is possessive, you want who you love to belong to you. Wanting to possess who you love is terrible.

Do you want to know why?

It makes someone you love suffer.

When who you love displays symptoms of not really being yours, (which is inevitable, as you can’t own another person) it hurts. Or, if who you love allows himself to be possessed, this is worse, as you end up in a dynamic that will for certain become unhealthy. If who you love goes against the grain of reality, you have to adjust this irrational thing you want. The alternative is to suffer.

As a teacher, I have a mantra I work on every single day. I resist the natural instinct to guide my students to a direction I want them to go and remind myself of this:

My students are free. To think their unique thoughts. To feel whatever they want to feel. To disagree with me. To take any action they want to take. My goal as a teacher is to encourage them – not shove them in a box and hope they don’t contradict me. My goal is to inspire them instead of containing or diminishing their uniqueness.

This is true for someone we love, too.

This is hard because we are on edge when someone we love thinks, feels, and acts different from us.

Let them.

Let them pursue their interests. Let them bask in the beauty of the world. Let them make a list of things they want to try and let them go, even if that excludes you.

This is frightening.

But the only thing you can do to keep someone you love is to be open and vulnerable.  And to let them be free. Free to walk with you if they choose. Free to walk in a different direction if they choose. Free to have a different perspective from yours. Free to have a different hobby from yours. Free for them to choose to stick together through storms and choppy waters.

Anything the other person wants never threatens in healthy love. If, for example, your loved one wants to pursue his dream of traveling all over the world, it lets him.

If you plot an arrangement that defies this, your love withers.

“If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love.” – Hanh Nhat Thich

3. Walking on eggshells around someone you love is scary

Whenever my friend’s ex saw her glance at a cute cashier in the grocery store or a gorgeous runner on their walks, he became enraged like a car that caught on something imperceptible and was engulfed in flames. This feels like walking on this rug, this wall-to-wall carpet. Beneath it is a complex system of wires, and one of those wires, if you step on it, will blow up the whole house.

This is terrifying.

I want to feel safe in my relationship.

Don’t you?

I want to be comfortable enough to tell someone I love if a guy at the restaurant checked me out. I want this to be something we can laugh about – not something that makes me walk on eggshells around him. It is normal to look at a gorgeous guy or woman while you are in a relationship – as long as you do not take action. I don’t want to cower from someone I love just because I’ve looked and admired a gorgeous guy on our street.

We don’t want to walk around in our homes walking on eggshells in our relationships.

A healthy relationship makes you feel safe – instead of forcing you to circumscribe your every move lest you set off someone who you’re afraid might want to kill you.

Just because you love someone does not make you immune to your feelings and the bounty of fabulous men and women the world so generously displays before you. Don’t let a flimsy and unrealistic sense of security steal the most life-affirming part of your time here.

4. Ignoring your gut feeling may cost you

My friend used to brag to me about how hard her boyfriend worked. He worked late on most nights. He was always making deals, making money, and making things happen. It was cute to hear her talk about him.

Until it wasn’t.

She had a feeling something was going on behind her back. She ignored it.

Until she called me one night in tears,

“Everything ok?” I asked. She said, “Yeah about that … definitely not…”

It turned out all that late working was not really working. He had been dating another woman behind her back.

Now my friend says,

“I should have listened to my intuition. I should have forced myself to acknowledge what I refused to see.”

She had a choice between a gut feeling and her faith in him. She ignored her instinct for three years and it cost her. I’m not saying be suspicious every time someone you love says he has to work late. But pay attention to your intuition. If you have a feeling something is going on behind your back, acknowledge your feelings. They tell us what we need to know – even if we don’t want to accept what they tell us.

5. There are wounds that don’t leave bruises behind

My friend’s ex never raised his hand to her.

That does not mean he did not abuse her. There are wounds that don’t leave bruises behind. He isolated her from other relationships that mattered to her. He erupted in a tantrum when he explained something was always someone’s fault.

Not all abuse is physical. Abuse can be any form. Violence, of course, but also someone you love putting you down, yelling.

And trying to control you…

In my friend’s failed relationship, her ex always felt like he had more power than her.

This is wrong.

If at any point in the description of a relationship the notion of “power” is brought up, it’s time to seriously recalibrate your entire relationship.

Power does not belong in a relationship.

Do you understand not all abuse is physical? Are you being yelled at, intimidated, isolated, threatened, dominated (against your consent), humiliated?

These are not just relationship deal breakers.

Get organized. Run. Run for your life.

---

Takeaway:

Relationships are supposed to be a wonderful place where we share this huge and perplexing world with someone we love. We want to be navigation accomplices with our partners. We want to stick together through storms and choppy waters.

Being with someone you love is not supposed to hurt. If it hurts, something somewhere is off and needs to be reconsidered.

Relationship deal breakers, in most cases, are something to watch out for in someone you love and yourself. Does someone you love has no boundaries and no respect for yours? Has possessive love put a shackle around your heart? Do you not feel safe in your relationship? Do you have a feeling something is going on behind your back? Does your partner yells, puts you down, or tries to control you?

If you answer ‘yes’ to any of these questions, it’s time to seriously recalibrate your entire relationship.

---