Is My Partner Trying To Help Me, or Control Me? How relationships can foster healthy growth without drifting into manipulation or abuse episode artwork

EPISODE · Sep 11, 2025 · 35 MIN

Is My Partner Trying To Help Me, or Control Me? How relationships can foster healthy growth without drifting into manipulation or abuse

from Emotional Physics · host Rebekah Tinker and Gillian Boudreau

Well we found ourselves pretty fired up in this week's episode!  Here we respond to a listener question on the type of partner change it's appropriate or helpful to ask for.  We end up grappling pretty deeply with the conflict between the truth that romantic relationships are often the most profound cauldrons of change and growth in a human lifetime, and the equally visceral truth that TRYING to change a partner can very quickly tip into "uh-oh" territory of control and manipulation.  We do our best to own the lived experience we both have that has given us (and this podcast) a strong tendency to steer away from controlling dynamics whenever possible, and we learn quite a bit about ourselves, and different flavors of changing-in and changing-for a relationship in the process.Ross Greene Plan B protocol mentioned on the pod:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTG6kQot3f8Send your questions to us at: https://ouremotionalphysics.com/contact Find us on instagram at https://www.instagram.com/emotionalphysicspodcast

Episode metadata supplied by the publisher feed · Published Sep 11, 2025

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Well we found ourselves pretty fired up in this week's episode! Here we respond to a listener question on the type of partner change it's appropriate or helpful to ask for. We end up grappling pretty deeply with the conflict between the truth that romantic relationships are often the most profound cauldrons of change and growth in a human lifetime, and the equally visceral truth that TRYING to change a partner can very quickly tip into "uh-oh" territory of control and manipulation...

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Is My Partner Trying To Help Me, or Control Me? How relationships can foster healthy growth without drifting into manipulation or abuse

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This episode was published on September 11, 2025.

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