Kirshenbaum, Mira - Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay

PERSPECTIVES: POWER PEOPLE

So who are these power people that question #7 applies to? Where do they come from? What makes them the way they are?

Turning on the Power

There are two main threads that generally run through the growing up years of power people. The first thread is that they have parents or other influential family members who are in one way or another incredibly powerful people. They grow up with the sense that accumulating power of one’s own is the only way to survive. They learn the rule: do whatever it takes to win.

Their parents don’t necessarily exert power by being straightforwardly domineering. The parents can get their power by being incessantly, intensely emotional. They can get their power by being outrageous. They can get their power by being nutty. They can get their power by making the child feel like an idiot. The point is that the child of parents like this soon realizes that cooperation is impossible. The only alternatives are victory or escape.

The second thread for power people growing up is that their parents inadvertently ran a school that taught them lessons on how to be powerful. They observed their parents and they saw how when you do this you win. This learning gives them an advantage. We all emphasize our strengths in life—intelligence, charm, beauty, energy, whatever. This means that as we pass from childhood to adulthood we enhance the strengths we began with. And power people started out by learning how to be powerful, they used their lessons well, and so they developed further power skills.

A Talent for the Game

Power people also bring their own traits and aptitudes to who they are. In the old nature-nurture controversy, the correct answer is always both. That applies to power people, too.

Here’s what power people have going for them. One thing is talent. I’ve spent years working with individuals in a variety of contexts where power was up for grabs, and a talent for power is as palpable in relationships as a talent for music stands out in a high school band. Anyone who works in an organization of any kind knows exactly who has a talent for power in the circle of people he works with.

But there’s a further dividing line beyond having and not having a talent for power. There’s the line between being able to acquire power in a particular situation and being unable to stop yourself from acquiring power in any particular situation. The mere talent for power doesn’t make you the kind of power person that destroys relationships. But when the talent controls you and makes you its servant, then you and everyone around you are in big trouble. Power people are out of control with the need to be in control.

Reality

Then there’s reality. There are practical circumstances in people’s lives that make them much more powerful than they might otherwise be in a relationship. Most often this comes from their job.

For example, if your partner is involved with any kind of emergency-type work, whether as a fireman or as head of emergency medicine at a big-city hospital trauma center, the demands of the job are so intense that it’s easy for your partner to get whatever he wants by standing on the shoulders of the job. But any kind of job with significant pressures or demands or difficulties can give your partner real power in getting what he wants. “You’ve got to do this or that because I need it for my job.” “You’ve got to stop doing this or that because it prevents me from doing my job.” These kinds of things put a strain on any relationship, but if you’re involved with a power person they just add to his power.

There’s a surprising range of circumstances that give people power. Owning a business does this. Having real power in the corporate world does this. Political power does this. Having star power in the entertainment world does this. Having to hold down two demanding jobs to make ends meet does this. Having a power person for a boss does this. Even if your partner’s not a power person, if your partner’s boss is a power person it can still be like being married to a power person yourself.

In some circumstances even being pregnant can give you real power, as was the case with a woman I worked with who was the wife of a mob figure. He’d ignored her and run roughshod over her for years, but she was amazed to find that starting with the day he learned she was pregnant she could get him to do whatever she wanted whenever she wanted. Sadly, her new power lasted only until the day she brought a healthy baby home from the hospital.

But it’s crucial to distinguish between external circumstances that change the power dynamics all by themselves and a power person using circumstances to gain still more power.

One more thing power people have going for them is caring. That might sound odd until you think about it for a moment.

Suppose the issue is deciding what you’re going to have for dinner. One of you doesn’t much care what you eat. The other cares passionately. He emphatically requires certain vegetables cooked a certain way, for example, vehemently hating certain dairy products. Guess who makes the menu.

Or one of you doesn’t much care how things go when you make love, as long as you make love. The other has a whole list of must do’s, must do’s in certain ways, and must not do’s. Guess who’s in charge of lovemaking.

One of you is pretty easygoing when it comes to the kids. The other strongly believes in a whole list of rules and restrictions. Guess who’s in charge of childrearing.

Someone who’s not a power person can be very powerful in a relationship the more things they care about and the more strongly they care about them. But at least you can talk to someone like that about the impact their caring has on your power dynamics. A power person goes beyond caring about some particular thing and uses his caring about everything to gain power.

This gives you a sense of what you’re potentially up against in a relationship with a power person. Someone who was brought up to have a hunger for power. Someone who learned about power at his or her parents’ knees. Someone with a talent for power. Someone willing to go much further than you’d ever imagine in an attempt to gain power. Someone whose power is enhanced by the realities of his or her life. Someone who cares overintensely about specific issues.

To someone like this, you may very well be invisible.

Power People in Action

To help you answer question #7, the issue is are you in a relationship with a power person?

It certainly looked as though Rosemary was. That incident in which Vinnie suddenly had to stop by the restaurant even though it was so important to Rosemary to go right home may not have been important in itself, but it clearly showed something that had been true for Rosemary every day of her life with Vinnie: he was interested in getting his needs met, but he was even more interested in maintaining his power.

Going to the restaurant seemed completely unnecessary. But power people fight for a lot of seemingly unnecessary things. They only seem unnecessary, though, when we focus on their need for that thing. They’re completely necessary from the perspective of their need for power.

The problem is that if you’re not a power person it’s easy to understand needing specific things but very difficult to understand needing power. So it’s hard for you to accept what a power person’s really up to. And that means it’s hard for you to accept what’s happening to you if you’re living with a power person.

Now suppose you’re in a relationship with a power person like this and you try to take care of yourself. All you want to do is get some need of your own met, like Rosemary’s wanting to go right home so she’d have time to change her clothes. But you have to understand how the power person’s mind works. If they care about power so deeply, they can’t imagine that you’re not the same way. If all they want is power, all you must want is power. They interpret your actions with their own meanings.