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In love relationships, power struggles are not really about power — who gets to rule.

Most discord in love relationships rises from attempts to substitute power for value.

We cannot criticize, stonewall, nag, manipulate, coerce, or threaten someone into loving us.

Empowerment is confidence to be vulnerable and regulate disappointment when partners are unreceptive.

In love relationships, power struggles are not essentially about power – who gets to rule. They’re about value, specifically, attempts to compensate for precipitous drops in self-value. When self-value falls, as it typically does in arguments with loved ones, partners feel vulnerable but unsafe to expose their vulnerability. To feel less vulnerable, they try to exert power over their partners, either overtly, through devaluing language, or covertly, through sarcasm, tone of voice, body language, and facial expressions.

These are the mindsets of power struggles in love relationships:

Being right at all costs

Winning (getting what you want)

Punishing (pouting, withdrawal of affection)

Diagnosing (something is mentally wrong with my partner)

Looking for things to resent

These........

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