Many of us struggle to maintain our sense of power in relationships. As a result, we develop all kinds of strategies for doing so. And this often leads to both overt and covert power struggles within our relationships. Today, we are going to be talking about one of these strategies for getting power in relationships. It is a pattern that I like to call the “Oopsie, I’m Sorry” power play.
So that you can understand this pattern, I’m going to start off by walking you through an example. Chase’s parents divorced when he was really young. His mother decided to hit her ex-husband where it hurts and fought him for full custody of Chase and his younger brother. As a result, Chase grew up in a home with an emotionally cold, highly competitive, narcissistic, high powered business executive for a mother. Chase learned that his needs and wants did not matter. The only way to stay safe in his childhood was to comply to whatever his mother wanted. He became highly enmeshed as a result. Chase learned that any time he brought up his needs and wants, he would be shut down because his mother would not accommodate them. As a result, his only way of getting power in his life and in his relationship with her was to simply do exactly what he wanted and either apologize profusely later, or act like it was a mistake. He did this so often that Chase’s mother began to see him as a bit of a screw up. She was very disappointed in him. But even though it hurt, Chase kept up this strategy because when his mother saw him as a screw up, she failed to see that he was simply doing things without her consent. She also started to expect less of him and so he was out from under the pressure of her expectations. Besides, Chase cared more about finding a way to be able to do whatever he wanted to do than he cared about his mother’s approval. Afterall, she spent most of her time gone on business trips anyway.
Today however, Chase continues to use this rebellious strategy. As a result, no one takes him seriously. No one in his life can rely upon him to caretake their best interests as opposed to just acting in his own best interests. When he apologizes for doing things, he gaslights everyone into thinking that he didn’t mean to and that it was just a mistake. He also asks for forgiveness only to do whatever he apologized for again the next day. So, people are wondering if he is stupid despite the fact that Chase often demonstrates very clear intelligence. Down deep, the people around Chase feel manipulated because they are being manipulated. And eventually, Chase loses because this strategy ruins relationships and his own success in the long term.
Have you ever heard the phrase “ask for forgiveness rather than permission”? This phrase perfectly represents the idea behind this passive aggressive power play. This power play is when someone does exactly what they want to do, regardless of the negative impact on others; and plays it off once they are confronted on it by apologizing or by making the other party think that it was an unintended mistake… an oopsie. They expect that by apologizing or by pretending that it was a mistake, that they will be immediately forgiven and the conflict will go away. They expect that they got away with it.
People who use this passive aggressive power play to the extreme often don’t care if people think they are stupid or incompetent if it means getting their way. It’s a lose-lose but it’s still a clear choice for them. And some people even go so far as to deliberately craft the perception that they are stupid, so that they can maintain the power in this way. You’ve probably seen this strategy employed by the hero in an action film at least once because playing dumb causes people to see you as an annoyance rather than a threat. It lets you get away with things. And this makes sense because being seen as a threat often has such extreme consequences. People who are employing this power strategy are looking to do what they want and to get away with it rather than face the consequences they imagine would befall them if they were straightforward about their own best interests in any scenario, including what they want and need.
This strategy usually works because of the societal belief that we are only good and right if we forgive those who apologize. And we are only good and right if we make allowances for mistakes. And we are only good and right if we lower our expectations as well as the amount of pressure we put on others when we are dealing with someone who is either incompetent or stupid. This means, not only can the person employing this strategy get away with doing exactly what they want regardless of the negative impact on others, they can also get away with making you the bad guy, or the asshole or the one in the wrong if you don’t let them get away with it.
So that you can understand this pattern even better, I’ll give you another example. Brittany likes to shop… a lot. She feels that it should be a husband’s duty to provide for his wife. And to provide well. She hates that her husband Jason controls how much money she can spend on their household credit card. They have gotten in so many fights about the fact that consistently, when Jason reviews the household expenses at the end of each month, he finds all kinds of unnecessary expenses for things that Brittany has purchased. Every month, Brittany feels shame and says that she is sorry that she did it and apologizes profusely and says it was a mistake and promises to stop buying stuff compulsively and running up their debt. But every month, she does the exact same thing. Brittany is proving to be unworkable. Jason doesn’t know if she’s stupid or has some uncontrollable shopping addiction or what. Really, Brittany wants to shop and expects Jason to enable her to do that. But she doesn’t want to get into a direct conflict about it. She feels she will lose that fight and not be able to shop. So, she continues to get away with it by continuing to shop and apologizing or saying it was a mistake later.
The “oopsie, I’m sorry” power play is a deceptive and gaslighting strategy. It does often enable a person to get away with their own personal agenda at first. But once people recognize it as a pattern, you’re in trouble. Either they will lose respect for you and think you’re an incompetent idiot. Or they will decide that you can’t be trusted with anything because you can’t keep your word or be trusted to caretake and consider their best interests; even when they directly tell you what their best interests are. Or they will be able to feel below the surface deception and see that you are sneakily acting narcissistically in your own best interests, regardless of their best interests and you are trying to get away with it. So, using an American expression, they will see you as a little weasel.
The “oopsie, I’m sorry” power play is a self-sabotaging strategy. But there is no such thing as genuine self-sabotage. The aspect of a person that employs this strategy thinks that doing so is actually in their best interests, not against them. The thing is, this aspect usually does not see the consequences of doing so. Specifically, it does not see that this strategy sabotages your relationships. It also sabotages your success. If you demonstrate yourself to be someone who will do whatever you want, no matter the negative consequences to someone else, no one will stay in any kind of relationship with you. If you demonstrate yourself to be unable to keep your word, no one will trust you. If you demonstrate yourself to be incompetent, stupid or passively belligerent, no one will feel like they can rely on you and so you can expect to be fired from jobs, never taken seriously, left out of things, put into positions of inferiority, and considered a liability instead of an asset by others.
If you are someone who uses this strategy, it is important to see the price that you will be paying to get away with passive aggressively getting your way. It is critical to clearly see how important it is to go for your best interests, wants and needs in an honest, direct, straightforward and upfront way. This means communicating about them so that you can find a meeting of minds with the people whom might be impacted by you getting your way; before you act.
Many people with this pattern have developed a codependent relationship style, where they feel that if two people’s best interests are opposing each other, there is no point to discuss it before an action is taken; because there is no room in a scenario like this for a meeting of minds. Instead, they think it is an automatic zero-sum game. If they bring up their wants and needs, they will either lose their relationship or the answer will be no, so it will mean that they will either be abandoned or not get what they want and need. They think that talking it out or standing for what they want and need leads to them losing and the other winning. Whereas if they simply act on it and pretend it’s a mistake or apologize later, they will get what they want and need (be in power) but they will also get to keep their relationship at the moment. And the other person will lose. To understand more about this, watch my video titled: Why People Are Stuck in The Cycle or Either Complying or Rebelling.
Because this strategy comes from interpersonal trauma which most people incurred in their childhood, it is important if you’re struggling with this pattern to heal this trauma. I created one such process to heal this trauma. It is called The Completion Process. You can find out about it by reading the book I wrote that is titled: The Completion Process. Alternatively, you can go to Completionprocess.com and select a practitioner to lead you through it.
If you struggle with this pattern, know that a relationship is only a good one if the other person cares about your best interests and wants you to have your wants and needs met. But this does not mean that if a person loves you, they should sacrifice their own best interests, wants and needs for yours. What it means is that both of you need to master the concept and practice of communication and each really caring for the other person’s wants and needs so as to find the highest and best win-win scenario in any situation.
A big part of finding win-win scenarios is the opposite of this pattern, which is deceptive by nature. It is being very honest with yourself and very honest with the other party. That honesty highlights where genuine compatibilities and genuine incompatibilities exist. And recognizing those compatibilities and incompatibilities allows us to find the right arrangement for ourselves and others; so that we are allies to each other’s best interests, instead of antagonists to each other’s best interests.
