# Question about Controling Personality



## dante (Jun 2, 2011)

Okay. I have been thinking a lot about some things that my W said to me the last time we talked about the relationship and I wanted to get the input of you all on the board. Here is the cliff's notes version of the story.

She said I was controlling every part of her life. The example she has used more than a few times is towels. I know, sounds odd, but that is what she chose to focus on.

We have a ton of towels. Somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty to thirty. Some were mine and some were hers from before the marriage. We got around 12 sets (bath, hand, and washcloth) for our wedding. She then bought more after we were married. Neither of us were big towel users. For me it was one a week and her it was two a week. We didn't have guests very often and for the most part the towels didn't get used. In fact, we only used about six of the towels ever. Three for one week and then those would get washed and the other three would come out.

Despite the fact that we had so many towels she always wanted to buy more. Or at least look at more towels (she said she didn't want to buy more, just look). So here is the question. Was I being controlling for saying to her whenever she wanted to look at towels, "why do you need to look at towels? We already have towels." 

Is it just me or is it weird? Especially when we didn't have money to buy more stuff. We were living paycheck to paycheck (and we both make good money for this part of the country). Now I am faced with splitting the debt for the marriage, of which there is a lot, because of things like towels, jewelry, heath and beauty products, and other stuff. I admit that I bought stuff as well, but I have a closet full of towels, blankets, pillows, and other stuff that forced us to use credit cards to pay for the other things we needed. 

If I get into a relationship in the future, how do I approach this kind of issue without seeming controlling. I am only trying to learn what I did wrong. Thanks for any help anyone can offer.


----------



## everafter (Mar 10, 2011)

I'm no psychologist, but it sounds like deflection to me. Saying you have an issue in order to take the focus off of hers.


----------



## caughtdreaming (May 30, 2011)

I have the very same problem. Apparently I'm emotionally controlling. It's so hard to pinpoint what you are saying/doing wrong when you are this type of person. I don't really understand it much myself. 

In the towel scenario it was probably the fact that you insisted she needn't look at towels since you have so many already. She said all she wanted to do was look, and you didn't even want her to look. 

I know this sounds miniscule and you may have been right that she didn't need to look at towels, but apparently other people take offense when you shoot down what they want to do and see it as a way of controlling them. 

I know for me it was asking questions all the time. It doesn't matter what the answers are, they are the answers. 
I don't know how to explain that one.


----------



## njpca (Jan 22, 2010)

Dante, I have been reading your posts and can relate to some of the things you have said.

My biggest questions are what have you found out by yourself that could have led to her to been so critical in such a situation?

I totally agree with you on that it shouldn't be a big deal to say something like that, but usually that means there is a bigger issue that makes her more sensitive in incidents like that?

My wife have been in such difficult situations and it's been the big choices that I couldn't cooperate with that have led the little things seem like a battle.

Now my wife and I have been separated for seven months. You should be thankful that at least you can go to your own therapy. My wife doesn't work and it's left me with no chance of being able to go to my own psychologist.


----------



## Sparkles422 (Jun 3, 2011)

dante: It sounds comical on the surface: towels. But there is an underlying bigger issue.

I am a controller and usually I begin to control small things when I feel unable to control or am scared of the bigger real things. I controlled how to plant bushes (and this angered him because he was born on a farm) but the real issue was that I felt (with my big fat ego) that I knew better. What really burns is that one palm that he planted now needs to be staked.

It is fear that guides my controlling defect. I knew the relationship was in trouble so I started my controlling perfectionism defects. They give me a semblance that my world is not crumbling: see how I can control things I say in mind. That make me believe differently and divert the real issues to the background. It is a defense mechanism gone nuts.

All I can say is that this is part of the complaints that my stbxh took issue to. To me, it is resolvable or was, not to him. He's moved on and I am trying to.

BUT: it is 50/50 shared miscommunication. I think the biggest problem I had is we stopped talking. Oh we talked about superficial crap but not the real stuff. We drifted away. Now we are oceans apart living in the same house, waiting for sale of the albatross. We are chained together until that happens. Both of us scared, confused and wondering how this freight train picked up so much speed.

The reason: we stopped talking.

Lesson Learned!


----------



## nowthinkpositive (Jun 18, 2011)

Sparkles422, 
You said: BUT: it is 50/50 shared miscommunication. I think the biggest problem I had is we stopped talking. Oh we talked about superficial crap but not the real stuff. We drifted away. Now we are oceans apart living in the same house, waiting for sale of the albatross. We are chained together until that happens. Both of us scared, confused and wondering how this freight train picked up so much speed.

The reason: we stopped talking.

Lesson Learned! 

...and in a nutshell that is exactly what happened to me in my 23 year marriage. You go through the motions not realizing you stopped really, truly communicating. And then it is too late. As you said lesson learned!


----------



## Lon (Jun 6, 2011)

dante said:


> Okay. I have been thinking a lot about some things that my W said to me the last time we talked about the relationship and I wanted to get the input of you all on the board. Here is the cliff's notes version of the story.
> 
> She said I was controlling every part of her life. The example she has used more than a few times is towels. I know, sounds odd, but that is what she chose to focus on.
> 
> ...


Actions speak louder than words, and maxed out credit cards combined with an overflowing linen closet means you were not trying to be controlling just trying to express your concern. It may have been taken as criticism, but clearly there were some major psychological issues at work (in both of you).

I know because it was exactly the same for me. It was multiple times worse supporting her spending when she decided to startup a business with no actual business plan in place - what started as a "I just need to take over the spare bedroom, and maybe a couple hundred dollars for startup supplies and equipment" to years worth of frivolous spending, two remortgages on the house, thousands upon thousands of interest paid to the credit card companies and a house full of useless sh!t that cost a fortune but has little value anymore.

I was afraid of being TOO controlling, so never complained about her business - that strategy obviously didn't work out for my marriage either. So Dante don't worry about it, that is not the real issue, like others said it is a communication thing and when she calls you "controlling" she has simply found a word that she can attribute some meaning to, whether its accurate or not. In my wife's case the only thing I ever said negative about her business was one particularly financially hard day where I suggested to me it felt like her business sometimes seemed like a hobby (I didn't even outright say so, in fact had praised her on how much her customers loved her because of the amazing effort she puts in)... well, I have never heard the end of it since, "you called it a hobby wah wah". So obviously if these are sensitive issues then our W's must be having a lot of guilt about their own personal demons and struggles regarding these topics.

In your case she probably felt she WAS out of control, thus she is deflecting the blame to you by calling you a control freak. Don't believe it.


----------



## brighterlight (Aug 13, 2009)

Sparkles422 said:


> dante: It sounds comical on the surface: towels. But there is an underlying bigger issue.
> 
> I am a controller and usually I begin to control small things when I feel unable to control or am scared of the bigger real things. I controlled how to plant bushes (and this angered him because he was born on a farm) but the real issue was that I felt (with my big fat ego) that I knew better. What really burns is that one palm that he planted now needs to be staked.
> 
> ...


Also the reason we will try to reconcile! We both realize the communication is where our major breakdown occured. We both agree that we just never really kept the deep communications open. After a while, it does become just communication on superficial stuff. Communication break downs do lead to feelings of lack of affection, intimacy, etc. I mean, we just quit talking about real deep personal feelings because I think somewhere along the way, those types of communication attempts were met with insult, disrespect, lack of empathy. So we just lost that skill. Learning to re-establish those channels will not be easy, but for some reason after so long a dry spell, it is something I am looking forward to and missed very much. The "lack of attention," stems from lack of communication.

Learning to communicate PROPERLY seems like a no brainer and something that is just a natural instinct in all of us, but it isn't that simple. Proper communication is learned; how you say something, the inflexion in your voice, body language, it really is a skill that needs to be learned. What you say, how you say it. Man, that takes work! LOL!

Really though, using more "I feel" words or "when you did this..., it made me feel like this..." words, rather than "you made me feel" or "you did this to make me..." words goes a long way.

It's like you have to take frick'n classes so as not to say the wrong thing. Lord almighty I think I'm doomed!


----------

