So controlling, part 2

The other day I was browsing through some of my e-mails from D last year, and I happened upon one that caught my attention.  She wrote it last August -- maybe a month and a half after I thought I had broken up with her, but a full month before I remarked casually in an e-mail to her that of course our affair was over, at which point her replies stopped short. (I have heard from her exactly three times in the four or five months since, each note short and perfunctory: happy birthday, merry Christmas, ... that sort of thing.)

Anyway, the reason this letter from last August caught my attention is that D actually called me "controlling" -- D, who used to laugh at how Wife said the same thing and at how little control she (D) could see that I actually exerted in the relationship.  But in this case, she was replying to a line where I had mentioned how much I hate to be the center of attention; and D wrote back:

From my vantage point, you do insist on being the center of attention because you demand full control of so many aspects of our relationship. My desires, my needs, even my generous impulses are rejected unless they meet with your approval. There is little compromise. In part, I accept your control because there are aspects of my character that need reformation and work. But I might gently suggest that your fears are not productive or grounded in reality and that ultimately, your controlling side must collapse and accept some risk.

There it is, plain as day: "controlling".

When I first read that, I was just amused.  But then just recently, on my way to work one morning, I realized exactly what (I think) she was talking about.  The things she itemized that I was trying to control were all things she did that made me crazy, or that hurt me deeply in some way ... often because of her unspoken assumptions that in this context I ought to behave like that.  And so of course when one of these would come up, after the fight was over, I'd tell her "I don't ever want to go through that particular fight again, so let's not even re-create the situation that caused it. Please don't XYZ any more."  So controlling.

And in all this the real answer to it all is that I wanted out.  The affair had gone on too long and was too burdensome, D herself required far too much maintenance or management, and I just didn't want to be with her any more.  It was time to quit.

In retrospect, that's probably what it meant when Wife started calling me "controlling" too.  In the first years of our marriage, she complained (if anything) that I was too passive and exerted too little control, not the reverse.

But this is useful.  It tells me something about myself, and how I respond in relationships.  It also tells me (if I can extrapolate safely from only two cases) that when I start putting hedges around a girlfriend's behavior. it's a sign something bigger is going on and maybe we have to evaluate the whole romance.

If any of you ever finds yourself involved with me (I'm speaking to my female readers just now), and if you find that all of a sudden I am getting inexplicably controlling, maybe it's time for us to call the whole thing off.  Just a thought.


P.S.: I have also come to think, in retrospect, that I saw D exhibit a lot of the same behaviors which D herself called "narcissistic" when Wife did them.  Maybe I'm stretching too far there, but it has crossed my mind.  Of course, maybe I do the same things too without realizing it.