Control and Safety in Relationships: A Relational Life Therapy Perspective
When couples seek support through marriage counseling or couples therapy, they’re often struggling with more than surface-level communication issues. At the heart of many relational challenges are deeper dynamics around control and emotional safety. Understanding these two forces is essential for building a lasting, connected partnership.
In this post, I’ll explore how Relational Life Therapy (RLT)—a bold, transformative approach to relationships—frames control and safety, and how these dynamics may be playing out in your own relationship. Whether you're exploring couples counseling in Summerville SC or considering marriage counseling elsewhere, this insight can help you start to break painful patterns.
Why Control Shows Up in Relationships
Control in relationships isn’t always obvious. It doesn’t always look like someone giving ultimatums or being overtly domineering. It can also show up as:
A partner needing constant updates and reassurance.
One person dictating how the other should behave, think or feel socially or at home.
Subtle criticisms or "fixing" behaviors masked as helpfulness.
Withholding affection or communication as a way to regain power.
In Relational Life Therapy, control is seen as a protective strategy. It often stems from unresolved wounds—perhaps from childhood environments where safety was unpredictable, or where one partner had to grow up too fast. For others, they recall being controlled by their own caregivers and now they carry these unhealthy behaviors into their marriage. In these cases, controlling behaviors are often attempts to create stability in the present, even if they harm intimacy.
The Importance of Emotional Safety
In healthy relationships, both partners feel emotionally safe. This means:
You can express yourself without fear of ridicule or retaliation.
You can be vulnerable and know you won’t be shamed.
Conflicts don’t escalate into attacks, stonewalling, or threats.
Unfortunately, many couples operate in relationships where emotional safety is fragile—or nonexistent. RLT teaches that emotional safety is a prerequisite for intimacy. Without it, partners retreat into blame, defensiveness, or withdrawal. And when emotional safety is missing, controlling behaviors often intensify as each person scrambles to feel more secure. Terry Real often describes these folks as Angry Pursuers. These pursuers can act in controlling, manipulative, and gaslighting behaviors.
The Cycle: How Control Destroys Safety
Here’s where things get tricky: the more one partner tries to control, the more the other feels unsafe—and vice versa. This creates a feedback loop where each person’s attempt to feel secure actually triggers the other’s defenses. Over time, both partners may become locked in roles—pursuer and distancer, critic and avoider—that reinforce disconnection. Let’s look at a common example:
Case Example:
Mary and Bob come to couples counseling in Summerville feeling stuck. Mary says Bob is “emotionally unavailable,” while Bob feels like he’s constantly being criticized.
Underneath, Mary’s anxiety about being abandoned leads her to try to control how Bob expresses emotion. She frequently checks in, pushes for deeper conversations, and becomes frustrated when he doesn't respond the way she wants. Bob, feeling attacked and overwhelmed, shuts down. The more he retreats, the more Mary pursues—and the more unsafe and misunderstood they both feel.
RLT changes this cycle by helping each partner understand their underlying fear, not just their behavior. Mary isn’t just “nagging”—she’s afraid of disconnection. Bob isn’t just “shutting down”—he’s overwhelmed and unsure how to engage without being criticized.
What RLT Teaches About Change
Relational Life Therapy is direct, experiential, and deeply practical. The therapist is not a passive listener—they actively coach both partners toward better relational behavior. This includes:
Naming controlling behaviors and calling them out with compassion.
Helping partners connect with the vulnerable emotions underneath control or withdrawal.
Teaching new relational skills, like healthy repair, emotional attunement, and personal accountability.
In couples therapy in South Carolina, using the RLT model, we emphasize that intimacy is a skill set—not just something that “should come naturally.” Partners learn how to speak truth with love, how to hear difficult feedback without defensiveness, and how to create the emotional safety needed for lasting connection.
What This Means for Your Relationship
If you and your partner are stuck in cycles of control, criticism, or withdrawal, know this: you’re not alone, and it’s not a sign your relationship is broken. It’s a sign you’ve hit the limits of the tools you currently have—and it’s time to learn new ones.
Whether you're seeking marriage counseling to heal after an affair, or you're looking for couples counseling in Summerville, SC to deepen connection and prevent future resentment, Relational Life Therapy offers a compassionate yet powerful roadmap forward.
Ready to Rebuild Safety and Connection?
If you're ready to stop the cycle of control and disconnection, and start building a relationship grounded in truth, respect, and emotional safety, we’re here to help.
Kayla Stewart, LMFT offers couples therapy in South Carolina with a focus on intensives for busy professionals. Using the RLT model , I help couples understand their communication patterns and reconnect—not just with each other, but with themselves.
Book a free 15-minute consultation today to learn more about how The Nesting Space LLC can support you.
