110: Control in a relationship? Understanding Divorce, Gaslighting and Emotional Safety

In this powerful episode of Revolutionise Your Love Life, Heather Garbutt is joined by family lawyer Colette Bane to explore the important difference between controlling behaviour and “control freak” behaviour during separation and divorce. Together, they discuss how urgency, panic and fear can sometimes look like control, but may come from a very different place than coercive or narcissistic control. They also look at gaslighting, legal shielding, victim mindset, conscious uncoupling and how to stay anchored in dignity when a relationship has ended. This is a deeply practical and compassionate conversation for anyone navigating a difficult ex, a high-conflict separation or the emotional overwhelm of divorce.

Key Takeaways

• Control and control freak behaviour are not the same. Colette explains that true controlling behaviour is about power, dominance and compliance, while control freak behaviour often comes from panic, fear and a desperate need for things to move forward.
• Urgency can unintentionally escalate conflict. Chasing for immediate answers can make the other person feel cornered, leading to reactive emails, defensiveness and greater hostility. Sometimes the wisest thing is to slow down and allow space for a more considered response.
• Conscious uncoupling helps people return to intention. Heather shares how conscious uncoupling invites people to look at how their behaviour affects their ex, how their ex’s behaviour affects them, and how they can own their responses rather than react from pain.
• Gaslighting needs a strong protective filter. Colette describes how gaslighters may go on the charm offensive with lawyers, trying to discredit their ex and manipulate the process. A good support team can help clients see clearly and make decisions from their adult self.
• An act of golden repair can soften hostility. Small, fair and generous choices, whether practical, financial or emotional, can sometimes “pop the bubble” of antagonism and help both people move towards a calmer resolution.

About Colette Bane

Colette is a family lawyer who brings emotional intelligence, clear boundaries and strong advocacy to the divorce and separation process. She supports clients through complex family law situations, including high-conflict separations, gaslighting, controlling behaviour and difficult communication with ex-partners.

In this episode, Colette offers a grounded legal perspective on how to distinguish between anxiety-driven urgency and coercive control, and why clients need a support network that understands the emotional reality of separation as well as the legal process.

You can find Colette on Instagram at @Colette.familylawyer.

About Your Host
Heather Garbutt is a psychotherapist, love coach and accredited Calling In The One practitioner with over twenty years of experience working with women on love, relationships and the interior work that makes lasting change possible.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📩 JOIN THE NEWSLETTER
Each week I write about conscious love, the interior work and what calling in a real relationship actually takes.
Join the community here: https://heathergarbutt.com/newsletter
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
💛 CALLING IN THE ONE
If you are ready for structured, supported work to understand your patterns and call in the relationship you deserve, find out more about working with me here: https://heathergarbutt.com/services/
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
This podcast is brought to you by Boost and Bloom: https://boostandbloom.co.uk/
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
See all podcast episodes here: https://heathergarbutt.com/podcast/