Caught Yourself Saying "You Let" Your Partner Do Things? Yeah, That's Not Normal.

There was a stack of makeup in front of me.

I had just been on a shopping spree, spending my hard-earned money at one of my favourite beauty stores. The stack was huge, I give him that. But it wasn't any fan of beauty or skincare wouldn't appreciate.

My then-boyfriend looked at his friend who looked shocked by the number of products in front of me. "Wow, your girl really has gone all out," the friend said.

"Yeah," my now ex-boyfriend replied, "I let her go nuts every once in a while."

I beg your pardon. You what?! You let me. Let me. You gave me the go-ahead to spend my own money, that I worked for like I was your child? Or a staff member? Like you controlled my finances? 

Get real dude.

I would love to think I'm the only one who has had a partner "allow' them to live their lives and told them so, too. Alas, we're in the middle of a permission epidemic in relationships.

Here's why saying "you let" your partner do anything is wrong.

Partners don't ask for permission

This whole asking permission concept is very much that of a child and its parent. Student and teacher. Boss and employee.

This is when the power dynamic is clear-cut; there is one person in control and the other person is subservient to them.

In that position of power, it's ingrained in everyone immersed in the situation that the underling asks permission. That's how it goes.

Did you notice I didn't mention any romantic relationships?

It's not normal if you feel like you have to ask for permission from your partner to do anything. Or if you ask permission because your partner demands you do (more on that to come).

Ok, there are some exceptions. It can be times like:

• Asking for permission to borrow their car
• Asking whether it's ok by them if you stay out later than planned, meaning they have to change their plans for you
• Asking permission to make a large purchase with the money you had both set aside for something else

But you can see in those instances, you're not as much asking for permission as you are respecting your partner's input. Or respecting their property and sense of ownership of an inanimate object.

You're seeking their feedback as your decision directly reflects them.

When you want to spend your own money on skincare, for example, that decision doesn't impact your partner. They might try to gaslight you and convince you it does, but that's the way they're trying to control you.

And develop a system by which they are the boss and you are the employee.

Partners don't demand permission

And in a normal, healthy relationship, a partner doesn't demand their other half ask them permission to do anything.

They don't stop their partner and make them ask like they were a parent teaching their child manners. They don't make corrections to the dynamic and tell their partner that in the future, they have to ask first.

And if they find their partner seeking permission, they correct them and remind the partner asking is not part of their dynamic.

Often letting this unhealthy dynamic slip by and grow without fixing it is worse than beginning it. You can see the problem yet you do nothing about it.

You could argue, when this happens, they're letting this power struggle occur intentionally.

Healthy relationships understand the concept of doing to others what you would like done to you.

There's no way you would start this power play because you would hate it if the roles were reversed. And you would loathe having someone treat you like that.

You would also never want to inflict such pain onto your partner and put them through such manipulation. You care about them, after all. Why would you want to hurt and control them?

Partners don't speak about their partner like they're a child

What my ex did to me sucked.

The way he spoke about me in that way left me humiliated, upset and deeply troubled about the future of our relationship. The way he viewed me was pretty clear; I was someone to he could control.

I was the one who was second to him. I was his child, so to speak.

This wasn't affectionate banter or some sort of love language I could grow to love. It was cruel, hurtful and a way of showing dominance over me.

It's not exactly behaviour that screams love. Or that made me want to drop my pants and get into bed with him.

As someone who has a pretty good grasp of what is acceptable behaviour in a relationship, this was far down the bottom of the list.

I eventually broke up with him once I saw he couldn't change his behaviour. I knew it wasn't normal, and that was a deal breaker.

If someone really cares about you, they don't put you in a lower position of authority. They just don't.

Partners don't seek praise for doing what they want

Part of this problem comes from the way we seek praise and approval from our partners. When we do something good, we look to our partner to give us that validation.

My ex always needed his father's approval. Everything he did in life was to keep his old man happy. He even went into finance, which he sucked at and hated, yet he did it for his father.

My theory is the more he had to seek this praise from his father, the more he had to become his father to the people around him. He couldn't be the leader in his family dynamic, so he would lead me, instead.

I didn't buy into his power play.

I didn't seek his praise for anything I did. I probably went too far and stopped telling him about my accomplishments. That certainly doesn't help the cause when you push further the other way, too.

Partners don't publicise an imbalance in a relationship

In my situation, what added to my frustrations was that my ex was making a song and dance of my buying habits in front of his friend.

He was taking his disproval of me to the public, something he didn't need to do. Or, as I view it, shouldn't have wanted to do.

Even if he thought I had bought too much, why say it then? Why was it urgent to say it then?

Sure, you could blame peer pressure. Yet, saying nothing would have been fine. Defending me would have been better, but I couldn't hope for everything.

Even if there is an imbalance in a relationship that hadn't been resolved, airing this in public isn't cool. The main reason is that this added public scrutiny always leaves one party feeling embarrassed and ambushed.

That was me in this case.

When you start feeling like this, it's easy for that party to shut down and refuse to talk about it. Or let it fester. Or let it become something bigger than it needed to be.

It builds resentment, and the power-play situation eventually blows up.

People who care about each refuse to let the outside world know there is a power imbalance. They know it's an issue that needs resolving, and that isn't for public observation.

There is no boss in relationships, so stop feeding into that dynamic

The big problem facing us and the permission problem is the issue of cliches. If we want to move on from looking like we have a power problem, we need to stop joking about it.

Or pretending like it's classic husband-and-wife banter, as some couples do.

I'm sure you can pass this off as just a joke. Not a funny one in my opinion. But as long as everyone understands it's a joke, that's ok.

In my situation with my ex, I didn't know if it was a joke or not. He never told me if he thought this was his version of comedy or whether he felt like he controlled me. One doesn't tend to clarify that type of manipulation.

And as he continued to do this to me, and I continued not to laugh, I didn't think it was a joke.

Despite that, even a well-understood joke doesn't help people understand and nurture healthy relationships. Because there is no boss in a relationship.

And if there is, it's a broken one.

The more we come to realise this, the better our relationships will be.