Power Dynamic in  Relationships

Power in relationships is often cast as something overt and negative—manipulation, control, coercion. But the truth is subtler and more unsettling: power is most influential when it is invisible. It shows up not only in who leads or who speaks the most, but in whose feelings are tiptoed around, whose comfort is prioritised, whose needs are consistently deferred.

And often, none of this has ever been consciously negotiated.

We inherit patterns of power long before we know we’re using or yielding it. They’re shaped by gender, culture, race, class, family conditioning—and solidified through silence, repetition, and structural reinforcement. Many people mistake their internalised roles for personality: the peacemaker, the decision-maker, the caretaker, the rescuer. But these roles are often rehearsed responses to systems of unexamined power, more about survival than choice. These patterns become mbedded in our bodies and nervous systems, not just our beliefs.

We like to believe that intentional relationships are free of these patterns. That if we mean well, we’re doing well. But the body keeps a different kind of score. When trust starts to erode, it doesn’t always register in words. It shows up as breath held too long. A tightening in the chest. The subtle disappearance of voice. The body knows when power has shifted from negotiated to assumed—even if the mind hasn’t caught up yet.

Even in relationships that call themselves conscious or egalitarian, unspoken authority often takes root. It can grow through emotional proximity, perceived maturity, or assumed wisdom. It takes shape in what isn’t questioned, what is smoothed over, who is deferred to, and how much space each person is allowed to take up—energetically, emotionally, and somatically.

This is what happens when power becomes structural rather than shared. Not out of malice, but out of avoidance, fragility, and a quiet refusal to reflect. When one person’s comfort becomes the invisible axis the relationship orbits around, intimacy gives way to performance. A relationship becomes a structure that protects one nervous system at the expense of another.

And that structure becomes embodied.

Relational defenses—like over-functioning, fawning, freezing, or intellectualising—are not just personal tendencies. They’re shaped by history and enforced through relationship dynamics. Over time, they become postures, scripts we act out without consent or recognition. And because they’ve become structural, not just behavioural, they are hard to interrupt—until something breaks.

When there is a rupture, clarity rushes in.

What we thought was connection is revealed to be a system of soft control. What we named care is unmasked as covert containment. The partner who has quietly carried the emotional labour begins to refuse—refuse to contort, to downplay, to keep bleeding truth into a container that won’t hold it. This refusal is not abandonment. It’s a turning point. A reorientation toward truth over performance.

But this moment—this rupture—is also opportunity. Because when we stop equating harmony with health, and recognise that discomfort is not collapse, we can begin the deeper work. Repair isn’t about smoothing over tension. It’s about staying present with truth, allowing discomfort to burn away the illusion that everyone has been consenting equally all along.

For this to happen, each person must confront their own relationship to power—not just how they wield it, but how they yield it. Where do I take up too much space? Where have I gone silent? What parts of me have I exiled to keep things smooth?

You cannot negotiate power consensually with another if you haven’t yet met it in yourself. This means tracking not only your impulses to dominate, defer, or disappear—but also noticing how those impulses live in your body, not just your thoughts.

True relational power isn’t about control or comfort—it’s about clarity, consent, and co-creation. When we each reclaim our inner authority, we become capable of entering a different kind of relationship: one where truth doesn’t have to shout, where roles are not assumed but agreed upon, and where trust is rebuilt not through performance, but through mutual willingness to stay at the table.

Take your understanding and expectations of a relationship to another level

The times we live in place stress and pressure on all relationships and in particular our personal ones and for many of us this has made us question the nature of an intimate relationship and how we might be able to learn something that will enhance and develop our most important connections.

All human relationships are rooted in power. Power is the fundamental energy that lies in the interpersonal space between people.