When Accepting Your Partner's Influence Feels Hard (& How To Make It Easier)

Written By Ashley Gray, LCSW, MFTC

You're well aware that you and your partner are supposed to make decisions together. However, that knowledge doesn't make it any easier to do. There is something that makes it so easy to discount their input, almost automatically, that you don't even notice it all the time. Your partner notices though and they definitely let you know how they feel about it. They don't feel considered or like you two are equals because they don't get to have as much of a say in the relationship. While you may understand their point, you still find it very difficult to change this behavior. You want to change the pattern, but you're not sure where to start.

Let's begin with how we define accepting influence, why this could be happening and then explore some ways you could engage differently and ultimately start accepting their influence a bit more.

By not accepting their influence, I mean that you are...

• Having a hard time letting your partner have a say in decisions (big and/or small).

• Experiencing difficulty in allowing them to be in charge of certain or help out with tasks.

• Not allowing their interests/goals/beliefs/values/needs inform how you do life together.

Why It Is Difficult To Accept Influence

You Love Control

It is normal to want to have control of your life and the things going on in it. In fact, you may have learned from your past that things go best when you are calling the shots. Over the course of your life you have learned to be wary of trusting others. To protect yourself, you have decided (consciously or subconsciously) not to allow anyone else to have too much influence. It is totally understandable, but not totally fair.

When you decide to do life with a romantic partner, you're essentially saying, "Let's co-create someting beautiful together." If you don't let them have a say, then you're passively asking them to let you lead and to tuck away a part of themself.

You probably don't mean to do this, but if you care about your partner, you need to find a way that you can share influence. Your nervous system might fight you on this if it doesn't feel safe to trust others. We'll get into how to handle this later in this post.

An exception to this is if you have agreed that one person takes the reins on certain things and the other doesn't doesn't mind this, that is okay because you decided that together.

You Feel Like That Is Just The Way It Should Be

If you grew up with or were heavily exposed to relationships with more traditional gender roles you might find it normal for the male (in straight relationships) to have more influence than the women. Research done by the Gottman Institute has shown that men struggle more than women in accepting influence in straight relationships. If this could be true for you, this doesn't necessarily mean that you hate women or don't think that women should have a voice. It just might mean that you accidentally default to this because of the impact that traditional relationships have had in your life. And if you both like being more traditional in your relationships, that doesn't mean that each of you can't have more influence in the relationship.

In order to change this pattern, you need to become aware of where these automatic behaviors come up for you. Then, slowly, but surely start to understand what the belief is that keeps those behaviors in play.

Some places where these automatic behaviors show up is...

• Not letting your partner share about their interests if it isn't an interest of yours

• Not taking their emotions/perspectives/needs/complaints seriously

• Not allowing them to pick the show you watch or where you go to eat

• Minimizing emotional needs within the relationship as a whole

• Lack of curiosity about your partner's inner world

Again, this is made possible given the things that we learned in our environment. Growing up, young men are often taught that if you have any interest in what young women are interested in, you are more feminine than masculine. That can feel like a giagantic blow when you're a young man wanting to be liked by your peers. So, young men, slowly and surely push away any consideration for anything that could be deemed a female interest. Emotions often get pushed aside as well as having emotions often gets characterized as being feminine. They are taught that if they have emotions they won't be a real man, so they don't allow themselves to feel and they don't show up for other peoples emotions either. It often gets to a point where it isn't chosen consciously, it becomes an automatic reaction to social pressures as a way to survive. This isn't fair to men as they deserve to have their emotions responded to by those around them and it isn't fair to those that they choose to love.

When these young men grow up and are in romantic relationships, they struggle with emotions or the hobbies/interests of their partners and they don't always know why.

A cousin to the more traditional roles in a relationship is avoidant behaviors in a relationship. Men are often socialized to have more avoidant behavior in a relationship. Again, this doesn't mean that women can't have an avoidant attachment or men can't have an anxious attachment. This just happens to be a trend that we see that men are often more avoidantly attached and women are often more anxiously attached. If you are not familiar with avoidant and anxious attachments in a relationship, read this blog post. Along with this avoidance can come a fear of losing yourself in the relationship, so accepting influence feels like an inherent threat. So, again they decline accepting influence to protect themselves.

They Hurt You

You don't trust their contribution based on past experiences. You want to trust that the way that they show up in the relationship is well intentioned and will align with shared goals, but based on what has occurred, you're unsure. You may start to wonder if what they are saying is a actually a good idea or if it is just another idea that will be self-serving for them.

You might be afraid that if you don't advocate fiercely for yourself, you won't be considered at all, so you shut down their influence instead.

It makes sense that you might look out for yourself first if you don't trust that your partner is looking out for you. What this behavior can actually do is preemptively shut down an repair that could happen in your relationship if your partner is truly willing to make things right and you know that your partner is a safe person.

It is a tricky dance to go from protecting yourself in your relationship to accepting their influence in hopes of experiencing positive change in your relationship. This work is possible though and we'll talk about how in the next section.

Quick Note: you might be noticing that more than one of these causes for not accepting influence applies to you. That's normal. These things can overlap and more than one thing can be true at once.

Beginning To Accept Influence

It is not a quick process to learn to accept influence. You have to build trust or perhaps believe the evidence in front of you that is already showing you that you can trust this person. First and foremost, you have to name what is happening. You have to state in no uncertain terms that there is a lack of influence. Make sure you enter conversations with your partner in a calm state and with an open mind. You have to be open to hearing ways that you may have hurt your partner, if you want to be able to learn how to prevent that hurt in the future. Get clear on the emotions that show up for both of you when this negative cycle begins. How do you each tend to act when particular thoughts and emotions show up?

This is delicate work that takes a lot of vulnerability. It is also what is known as Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). It can be helpful to work with an EFT therapist (such as myself) to help you and your partner work through this stuck place. Working with an emotionally focused therapist will help you to name the cycle and get to the fear and needs underneath the fighting. You will also be learning communication skills in real time. Such skills as reading body language, accessing more vulnerable emotions, identify your thinking and emotions, learning to sit with your thoughts and emotions, learning how to support your partner, learning how to take care of yourself and ultimately how to create healthier patterns in your relationship.

In the meantime, if you're looking for small ways to start accepting influence, start with easier decisions and then move up to bigger decisions (make a list of things that it feels easier to accept influence on, move on to things that feel harder and then rank them), ask your partner to help you call out the negative pattern when they see it. Create a culture in your relationship that is you and your partner against your negative cycle rather than against once another.

When you attempt this, your nervous system may kick in and tell you that you're not safe. Here are some things that you can do that could help you stay the course:

• Practice affirmations that remind you that your partner is a safe person and worth doing this work with.

• Make a list of all the times your partner came through for you and look at them when your nerves come up.

• If you're feeling emotionally overwhelmed and that is keeping you from being connected to yourself and others in that moment, engage in a 5 Senses Grounding exercise, Progressive Muscle Relaxation exercise and/or step outside to help yourself calm down. You can easily find these exercises by entering their names in a search engine.

• Name your fears out loud (to your partner or just to yourself) or journal about them. This can help those fears seem less overwhelming.

• If you would like some more skills on how to calm down by yourself or with your partner, you can get my free self-regulation guide or co-regulation guide here.

It is true that this work can feel difficult at times. If you need some convincing that the work is worthwhile, The Gottman Institute found that men that accept influence have better relationships. If you're a man struggling in a relationship, this work might be just what you need.

If you live in Colorado and want the support of a therapist to work through these concerns, use the contact buttons at the top of this page to reach out. I would be happy to help support you.

To learn more about working with me in couples therapy click here.

I'm wishing you the best on your healing journey! :)

This post is written by individual and couples therapist, Ashley Gray of Arvada, Colorado. Ashley works with her clients using Gottman Method Couples Therapy, EMDR Trauma Therapy, Prepare and Enrich, attachment focused therapy and Emotionally Focused Therapy, Couples Intensives and EMDR Intensives. As a therapist, she is passionate about helping people build healthy relationships and supporting people with the resources they need. In her free time, Ashley hikes, paddle boards, reads, spends time with her husband and her cuddly dog. For more information about Ashley and her practice, click here.