Following on from last weeks blog post ‘Who works who, in a relationship?’, the new Liberace film  ‘Behind The Candelabra’ on TV HBO, and selected cinema release in the UK from June 14th, is a true story of puppet and puppet master. Rave reviews, like shiny sequins, not only from Cannes Film Festival, but 4 or 5 star UK newspaper reviews, have propelled interest to Las Vegas heights with many stating it’s Douglas’s finest performance to date, while Damon exceeds all expectations in this glittery tale of control & dysfunction.

Scott Thorson had already had a relationship with a Hollywood mogul before Liberace found him at 17, then making him his personal assistant, chauffeur, lover, companion and captive. Liberace saw Scott as the son he never had, and foster-cared Thorson jumped at the chance of stability, attention and a vision of love. Scott says he is not gay, and although a physical relationship developed within the relationship, it took a while. He said on ‘The Larry King Show’ in 2002, that “I pleased him. He once told me, he said, “Scott,” he says, “you have the most important job in my organization,” he says, “and that is to keep me happy and please me.” OK? Remember, Larry, I was a child. I was in foster homes. And then all of a sudden, boom, all this wealth, all this fame, you know. So I did whatever I had to do”.

This spectacle of codependent need, greed & manipulations on both sides, echoes a thread within some male same sex relationships, that of social and financial disparity. It can also affect heterosexual couplings but lesser so, as heterosexuals are much more ring fenced when it comes to friends and relationships. For starters, a huge amount of relationships are conceived in the workplace, not much chance of that happening if you favour men. Gay men are much more led by physical attraction, ask questions later, and have a higher propensity to batter down class, social and financial barriers, in seeking friends, lovers and sexual companionship. In fact one of joys of being gay is wallowing in different backgrounds, educations and multi-cultaral diversity with ease and ample opportunity.

The film illustrates the complexity of this ‘can’t leave, can’t stay’ relationship model, so you can imagine perhaps, how Thorson hustled and pleased Lee ( Lee Liberace, Mr Showmanship and other names he used ) without taking responsibility for the fact he stayed. In fact he had got used to the perks.

A friend once suggested that the gay scene is like a wedding cake tier. We start at the bottom, with little sense of personal style and esteem. Then we realise the value of our own currency, discovering that youth like cash, is king. Or queen in this case. Like Thorson, partying, pouting and pleasing, we love the adoration, fawning and a new sense of self, meeting and using new allies on our journey. Perhaps at some point, a well educated middle class male hook-up, probably older, takes the role of guiding father and lifts us up 2 or 3 tiers, in one swoop, to a new social circle, where drugs are offered instead of After Eight mints after dinner.

Then invitations arrive to holiday, to accept gifts, to revel in the new illuminating lifestyle. It’s easy to get used to the clubs, the drugs, the bashed out credit cards to keep up and then suddenly you’re dropped. Not only are you left with the CC bills, but since all those friends on the Class A tier are ‘his’ friends, you also discover what an illusion it all is, and drop down 2 tiers to where you started, blighted and sore. Not every relationship forms this model but many big urban city boys will nod in agreement, passed around like pass the parcel at a party, looking for the next rescuer, dealer, lover. Thorson sadly, ended up a junkie, at least you don’t have to.

The solution in avoiding this guest list lifestyle, or to make it work better for you, is to speed bump. Not a drug cocktail that gathers speed, but more like the ridge in the road allowing you to slow down. It is this quest of stopping, checking, learning and saying NO more often that creates emotional balance in the individual and a relationship.

When you can’t afford something, a restaurant meal or a cocktail bar round on your salary, say so. Many couplings with financial disparity do work because they are worked on, with frequent honesty, emotional checkin and less emotional blackmail. Relationships can get lazy when things are offered beyond your personal reach, like exotic holidays, high fashion spends and bling. Like a Dad spending loads of time at work and buying his children gifts, what the kids really want is something that costs little – time & communication – the recipe of love.

Go see the film, see what, how and where it resonates in your memory bank. Look for the similarities not the differences. When youth fades what do you trade? Are you the controller or victim? The Puppet master or puppet, and how many times have you flipped roles? Interesting.

Finding your own voice is an acquired art, it takes practice and tenacity to avoid codependent patterning. Most of us feel controlled by someone or some thing, at any one time, but how you respond to these situations, especially in an emotional partnership, determines which side of the functional / dysfunctional fence you sit on. Is your voice just an echo of a parent, partner or co-worker?

Maybe it’s been lost down the mineshaft of memory, as you’ve learn’t not to rock the boat? Do you speak up and get shouted down, or still remain silent just to keep the peace? Perhaps, as a controller, you drown out others needs by demanding your own get dealt with first? In short, who has their hand up you, organising your life? It could be a companion called fear.

Those who complain they are controlled by a person, place, or thing, often fear finding a voice and action to administer change, while those who indeed control others and try to control aspects of life, fear losing ‘being in command’ and appearing weak. Both suffer from the same malady : fear of change and being out of control. When in fact the feared experience of being out of control, when acted out, actually transforms the sluggish status quo.

Both of these types, the controller and the controlled, (often called a victim), fit together like a dovetail joint, that can only be pulled apart sideways. Trying pulling the joint out any other way and it remains locked. Many relationships stay like this for years, one controlling the voice of the other. The majority refer to it as love. It’s isn’t. As the writer Chuck Spezzano put it ‘If it hurts, it isn’t love’. It’s all about control.

As a relationship becomes lazy, these seeds of domestic abuse in gay relationships, verbalised put downs, financial inequality and scarce sexual intimacy, breeds a dialogue as unfunny as the current new ‘gay sitcom’ VICIOUS on UK TV. Two high grade knighted actors, who happen to be gay themselves, Sir Ian McKellen & Sir Derek Jacobi, play low grade stereotypical queers in a 40+ year codependant relationship.

Love and respect appears in short supply, while oneupmanship is a competitive olympic sport between them. Reviews have been mixed to say the least, with the gay community most vitriolic toward it’s outdated execution and positioning of current male gay relationships. Yes, people have noted, we know old queens that bicker like that, with framed theatrical posters everywhere and lights dimmed, but what they don’t mention is that many of these relationships, just like longtime heterosexual ones, are often held together with the glue of entrapment, emotional survival and fear of change, with low esteem the price paid for security on all fronts.

With the benefit of viewing these kind of relationships, plus maybe our parents too, we witness what we no longer wish to follow, so some good can come out of these observations. Controlling relationships serve no one in the end, even to those who observe them, as after a while it becomes tedious to watch.

Younger 21st century gay men, with the advent of therapy and personal development, not available to older gay men growing up except to ‘change their sexuality’, can create healthier options in relationships, like finding a voice and sticking with it. If a partner appears controlling and abusive while dating, leave him, don’t wait around for ‘love’ to solve it. It doesn’t. What takes it’s place is an illusion of love called ‘codependent fear-base bonding’, those ‘can’t leave, can’t stay relationships’ where voices get raised and no one listens.

Like Lady Di said in that famous interview ” There are three of us in this marriage’. Fear can be a third party in any social or emotional interaction, including gay marriage, so avoid inviting this emotion into your liaisons by being clear from the very start, state your needs, avoid ‘people pleasing’ to keep the man, avoid remaining silent because ‘that’s what I always do’. Learn to vent your feelings appropriately and if they get trodden on, move on yourself. Healthier dating and relationships are out there, it’s just a question of tenacity of search and loving yourself enough to say NO more often to the type you usually attract, that no longer works for you. Just like ventriloquism, it’s just a question of continued practice of putting your hand up more often. Easy.