Can You Control Another Person’s Feelings?

Feelings may be superficial or they may come from deep inside a person.  At times they can be overwhelming.

It’s common a person feel something (or not feel something) in the way you want them to. For example, I can’t seem to get my husband to obsess over the same things I do.

You may want someone to love you or love your idea… but they don’t.
You may want someone to trust you… but they don’t.

When a person’s feelings are hard to accept, people will do various things to try to alter them.  This is almost always a waste of time.  You can’t really talk a person out of their feelings.

You can punish a person who expresses their feelings, but most likely the only thing you’ll succeed in doing is to make sure they share their feelings with you anymore. They’ll still have those feelings.

People think they can control another person’s feelings when they can’t control their own. Let’s say you want someone to love or trust you, but they don’t. Now you’re mad and you may lash out. How dare they provoke you to feel!

Are you upset when people feel differently than you do, or feel in a way that is different than you’d like?  Where is the Moon in your chart?

35 thoughts on “Can You Control Another Person’s Feelings?”

  1. My moon’s in Virgo, sun sign’s Gemini. I actually had trouble with a bit of this in a not to far off time. If I didn’t like the way a specific person who also had their moon in Virgo “felt” about something I would feel as though I was being attacked and get really defensive. All that accomplished was making them feel as though I was punishing them for expressing their feelings. Doesn’t help that his sun sign was Scorpio, fragile little bastards beneath that hard exoskeleton. Also, trust has kind of been broken with that person, they don’t necessarily trust me much anymore. I would get extremely upset about that because I wanted them to trust me but I’ve realized that’s something that can’t be said, it needs to be done by building it back up. Actions speak louder than words. I’ve come to the realization, with age, time and mistakes, that everyone is entitled to feel however they want and express it and that I just have to be accepting of it because not everything can go my way. Also, I’ve learned to look through other’s perspectives and not just my own to rationalize and understand what makes them feel the way they do. You can’t change the way a person feels but you can influence it depending on the types of interactions. Sorry for babbling!!

  2. Definitely no. Aries moon. I think because I’ve had such a wide variety of feelings, there’s almost no feeling someone else could have that I haven’t felt at least an inkling of, at some point.

    Plus, it’s hard to get into making someone feel as you do, when you feel differently every day! Which feeling of mine, would I want them to share, lol…

  3. I used to get that way. Libra Scorpio wants Agreement and shared emotion. Never got it though so I gave up. This is the other half of wanting someone to understand you and they just do not seem to ever be able to do it. Eventually gave up there too.

  4. I don’t care if someone feels the same way I do, I just want people to stop invalidating my feelings. Fuckers.

    They’re mine! Trust me, I know what I’m feeling and why and I don’t need you to come around and tell me I should be feeling X because feeling Y is dumb / wrong / pointless.

  5. This is a boundary I have an easier time abiding by but it took some time and effort for me to understand what was going on internally. Once you understand it though, it’s liberating. I have Moon in 9th house Leo. My feelings are accessible for the most part, and I support people’s right to be individuals.

  6. I feel similarly to SaDiablo. It’s not enough to disagree, but you also have to say ‘I disagree and you’re ridiculous for your feelings’? Gee. Thanks! lol
    I agree with so much of this post.

    1st House Capricorn Moon sextile Uranus/11th. Trine Chiron/Mercury/5th.

  7. Moon trines 5th House Sun, too. I am my feelings. You negate them; you negate me. You try to change them, you are trying to change me. Good luck with that.

  8. If there is an instance when I have felt urges to control other people’s feelings, it’s when they are upset. With my Moon in Sagittarius, I sometimes don’t fully grasp why people can’t snap out of a funk. I have to learn to acknowledge that people can feel that way, and that I can’t do much to help those negative feelings pass sometimes.

  9. My moon is in Gemini and I fluctuate, between caring about people not thinking my way and understanding why they feel the way they do.

  10. can’t stand it … Aries moon, I’ve been waiting to see a post about this, but couldn’t seem articulate what I wanted to hear for me to ask. This is SUCH a helpful perspective, & a topic that I don’t think enough people are even aware of. This was a great way of seeing it & explaining. It is especially useful for us cardinal folks

  11. Everyone is entitled to their feelings, so it doesn’t bother me when people feel differently than me.
    I figure it’s a combination of our experiences and how we react to whatever we’re faced with – that’s what provokes a “feeling”. The other person has no right to ignore or invalidate your feelings, no more than you have the right to do that to them.

    Libra Moon, Mars/Mercury conj. in Pisces

    The most disingenuous thing to say to someone is “..don’t feel like that”.. ::grits teeth::

  12. i don’t expect to always understand my own feelings, let alone anyone else’s. though i’ll listen. but it seems ridiculous to try to force emotion. it is its own validation and needs no justification.

    moon 6th/aquarius, wide orb to both a pluto trine, and a cardinal square (10 degree orb.) sextile my sun.

  13. I stubbornly tried to make someone feel the way i did…it took a while to give up the idea of how something should feel, and to understand that they won’t see it, just because I do…because not everything is about what I want to see. Now it’s much easier, tnx God. It was growing up i think in an emotional way. But it took me some hard time…(Taurus moon:)

  14. my moon is in Libra conj neptune in the 8th. On one level, of course, I want someone to feel the way I do but often, more importantly, I just want them to “feel”…

  15. I have this problem with my mom a lot. This is why periodically we need to go to group therapy. She will push and push you to feel as she does about things.

    She has the moon in her seventh house, I wonder if that’s what it should be blamed on.

  16. This is a lesson that I learned in my last relationship. We had this crazy dynamic, where we would try to control eachtothers emotions and expressions of those emotions. It combusted, of course. I know now that the only person I can control is myself, and that takes all of my energy.

  17. I have moon in Leo in the 1st house. I do not expect others to feel as I do; this isn’t an issue for me. What is an issue for me is that my feelings are received by others and I am allowed my feelings and not criticized or given the 10-foot-pole treatment for being “emotional” and “sensitive.” A 1st house moon makes me pretty transparent.

  18. I loved that sentence: “You can punish a person who expresses their feelings, but most likely the only thing you’ll succeed in doing is to make sure they (don’t) share their feelings with you anymore. They’ll still have them!”
    It’s brilliant.
    Every person has abitlity to control their emotions, yet some seem to be more succesful than others. I believe that cancer ascendants have much more trouble maintaining a cold appearance(I house) than others since their ruling planet is moon.

  19. I recently had someone try to do this to me. It was really bizarre to observe. And hurtful. I’ve had people want me to change their feelings too. That’s even more bizarre. You handle yourself and I’ll handle myself!

  20. Facebook seems to specialize in trying to control the emotions of the collective. I’ve noticed this has become a trend there lately–people post emotionally manipulative stories that may or may not be accurate, followed by “SHARE IF YOU AGREE!!” Grrrr!

  21. Avatar
    ScottishFoldSoul

    People who try to control the feelings of others seem to almost always have an agenda, even if it’s only to calm their own anxiety about not being able to control how you feel or how you make them feel.

    1. Right on! Safety in numbers. Never mind learning to share feelings learn to be with your own and then perhaps an appreciation if others feelings might happen. They really are a happening when they erupt.

      1. Computer does not allow me to put my reply “right” under the right comment.
        I wanted to say I agree with Scottish

  22. Avatar
    ScottishFoldSoul

    I have a Scorpio moon and think people who take it as a personal insult that you don’t feel the way they want you to feel need to get over themselves.

  23. I’m not upset when people think/feel differently from me, or in a way that I don’t like – otherwise I’d be upset very often! Usually I try to understand why they feel that way, but that’s about the extent of it.
    It’s useless and a waste of time trying to change people’s emotions, and to what use anyway? They’re allowed to feel the way they do. (As long as they don’t bug me! If so, i try to keep away.)
    Like several posts above, I don’t like it when someone thinks I should think/feel like “this”, or like “that”. So, I don’t do it unto them.
    Aqua Moon.

  24. It’s easier for me to feel another’s feelings than my own with a Pisces Moon in the 2nd. I’ve always been able to empathize and then build on that empathy to help shift the other person’s perspective, so long as they are willing. This gift requires a great deal of personal integrity and honesty.

  25. Yes, I find it difficult to accept that others do not feel as I do. My moon is in Scorpio,and is conjunct natal Neptune which is turn is conjunct natal Mercury. That might explain the fixed or stubborn opinions that I can get caught up in 🙂

  26. This is happening to me right now, someone wants me to like them (love them…worship them even)but I don’t and I have other things to get on with, like my family and healing my sick son. This is on a social scale and I am doing my 12th house thing and disappearing. I thought it through – why is this person ‘pushing’ me to ‘worship’ him, work with him, especially as he has a violent streak, when not appeased. I know it’s a creepy, egomaniac thing, a lusting for power that my support could bring. But I can’t do it because it’s against my values. And he’s angry at me, ragingly so. But I will not be forced. Simple as that, it would be so weak of me to suck up and bow down. No way. It’s a power struggle and I choose to be free to own my power, which means isolation and the quiet life with the people I truly love and worship – my family.

  27. anonymoushermit

    It’s a normal human reaction to have your ego not like it when someone doesn’t agree with you, doesn’t agree with your point of view, or doesn’t like you. There’s nothing wrong with feeling that way, as an initial reaction. Also, I don’t mind if a person feels that way the first few days after I tell them I don’t agree with them.

    But if they start doing weird, passive-aggressive, things, to get me to do what they want, that’s when I run for the hills!

  28. I did try to control the feelings of others in the past.
    I have a mom though, who wants to control my temper. She can not abide by any negativity. And so, when I show my negative emotions, she just give me the cold shoulder.

    Both her Moon and Sun are square Pluto in Leo. Classic “Obey me now!” anxiety control issues in regards to things being just peachy (Sun and Moon in Taurus). She just want the status quo, not the storm. So I give her the storm…

    My Sun, Venus and Jupiter is in Scorpio (9th house – I give her my truth) and Moon in 8th house. I am not afraid of getting my hands dirty. But she wants nothing of it. So I am left with a huge and bruised ego, as well as feelings. It has not been going well for 20 years. I might now be on the brink of cutting everything off with her, I am so hurt every time she leaves me hanging with all my feelings onto my clothes and give me no reaction to anything I have said or written. She clearly has such huge issues I can’t deal with this silent treatment anymore. And I have a serious gripe with people who thinks I am too sensitive, when in reality it often shows how sensitive to bullshit from others – and being shamed for it or accused of just feeling so much.

    Go to H… all of you morons who are so afraid of feeling anything.

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