I think I'm controlling

[Needtounderstand]

DH and I are have just had our second relationship counselling session. There are multiple issues but something he has said is that he finds some of my behaviour controlling. I'd genuinely never thought that about myself before but something has clicked today.

I need to work on this and have done a referral to find a therapist for myself via the NHS locally. In the meantime are there any resources such as books or podcasts that anyone can recommend? Understandably there's lots of support for victims but less for perpetrators.

Thank you.

I think the way OP writes is with insight and trying to work out where she might be going wrong. That to me doesn't sit with the characterisation of someone who's too organised, too rigid, lacking spontaneity etc.

Or if she is like that she might have been made to be, through DH whinging and complaining all the time and her trying to second guess what he wants.

The most massive signal though that it's not OP who is the problem.... he's just LEFT! Hasn't thought about the kids! Isn't planning to do anything with them this weekend!!

Oh dear. If my dh was still moaning about frozen sausages 6 years down the line I don't think I'd be wasting money on therapy. Good for you for trying OP.

I wrote a longer answer about your examples and my own experiences of being in a relationship which I found controlling versus what might reasonably be described as routine you need as a working parent of small children.

But I have deleted it as I think it is besides the point. For whatever reason, he has checked out if his response is to go to stay with a friend. At that point, I think it’s fair to assume that the charge sheet he is bringing against you is because either there is someone else so he is trying to justify leaving by making you the bad guy, or he just wants out. I would judge a man who walked out for the weekend and left his wife to deal with two small children because apparently she froze sausages six years ago and suggested mushroom gnocchi on a week night was not the best idea for small children.

I agree.

Cherchez la femme.
She is there somewhere. This is classic script. He is setting the scene.

Op, if you're controlling then I'm the pope. You sound reasonable, organised and measured. He sounds like a whiny baby.

Who remembers whether sausages were frozen or cooked 6 years ago?? If he has to dig that deep for instances if you being controlling, then I can safely say you're not.

Your dc2 - if you and your h were having unprotected sex, what did he think would happen? Regardless of whether or not you had agreed to ttc??

And the beard. It's not controlling not to kiss someone if you find it unpleasant. You weren't withholding sex; you were expressing how you felt.

It sounds as if he's checked out, op.
I hope you have RL support. You sound like the good guy in this. Your h, not so much. 💐

It sounds as if he is manufacturing reasons to leave you. Mushroom gnocchi - a case in point.

“For whatever reason, he has checked out if his response is to go to stay with a friend. At that point, I think it’s fair to assume that the charge sheet he is bringing against you is because either there is someone else so he is trying to justify leaving by making you the bad guy, or he just wants out. I would judge a man who walked out for the weekend and left his wife to deal with two small children because apparently she froze sausages six years ago and suggested mushroom gnocchi on a week night was not the best idea for small children.”

This.

This. THIS.

Your therapist sounds shit. Did they berate your h for shouting at the Dc, or were they focusing on your misdemeanours?

But his issue is that he does not want to assess the options and potential outcomes or wants to go with an unsuitable option because it's what he wants without considering the impact on everyone. This. He just wants to live his life without having to think about anyone else.

A therapist is not there to apportion blame. She may not be "shit".

Thank you, this is the type of reply I need so the thread doesn't turn into an echo chamber. I do think there are two ways to view my actions.

I've never consciously wanted to be controlling but I can see why some things might make DH feel controlled. These are the situations he has raised but the more I reflect there are other situations which I wonder could have made him feel controlled too. I don't want to make anyone feel like that, so I need to understand.

It sounds like your DH and the therapist have done a number on you.

None of the examples that your DH gave are controlling. He needs to take some responsibility for his life, he is an adult and he can't blame you when things don't turn out the way he wants.

It is not controlling to not want to have sex with someone that you are not attracted to.

It is not controlling to become pregnant as a consequence of unprotected sex with your husband.

The meal thing really takes the biscuit though (no pun intended). Did any of his solutions involve him doing any shopping and meal preparation?

The first 2 examples, he doesn't want you to have any opinion at all, the 3rd, he wants a surrendered 1950s housewife.

Thank you.

You're right, there's no harm in eating separately or the kids having an alternative, and I would have expected him to suggest that if it's what he wanted. I plan in this way because saves me cooking twice, cleaning up afterwards twice and because we were eating so late in the evening that both of us were tired. I had a chunk of time off work last year due to a back injury which was (work) stress related, so I thought cooking and eating together would simplify things. And this is something that could make him feel Controlled, with hindsight.

I think I may have some similarities with your Mum. I am OK with not getting my way, I just maybe don't get that across.

Is there anything you've read or listened to that you wish your Mum would take on board?

@Dredel - suggesting that someone may be controlling for not wanting to have sex with someone because they're not attracted to them is NOT good counselling. The therapist should have challenged the h's view. She should also have said that eg the sausage incident was not controlling.

She didn't say it was controlling. She asked if the Op could see why her dh thought it was controlling.

The Gottmans say that when a relationship is failing, the first casualty is the past. He definitely seems to be rewriting the past based on the resentment he feels about you now.

Decisions that he felt at all uncertain about from the monumental, like having unprotected sex and conceiving your second child, to the utterly pointless - whether to cook and refrigerate leftovers or freeze them are now up for blaming upon you, and completely ignoring any agency he had to do things differently. He is resenting any compromise he has ever made with you or any negative consequence of any decision or indecision on his part.

Maybe there are underlying communication issues where he hasn't expressed his needs/wants well and has passively gone along with your decisions - but I don't understand how you were meant to know.

When he cared about you, these compromises may have been because he loved you and wanted you to be happy. But now he's looking back on them with a more selfish perspective he cannot reconstruct his reasoning at the time, because it is blocked by resentment. So it looks like you made the decisions, and he went along with them unfathomably, so you must have made him.

Even things he didn't do but maybe considered - like shaving the beard so that kissing was more pleasurable to you seem controlling because he has forgotten that your pleasure was ever a factor to consider. Now it's a transactional choice between having his preferred beard and getting his preferred level of kissing intimacy and he couldn't get both.

I also suspect he has a 'friend' who is telling him how sexy his beard is, and is comparing you and married life unfavourably to rationalise his faithlessness. Sorry.

He's got you performing mental gymnastics ( were you controlling to freeze left overs from 6 years ago? ) trying to figure out what is wrong with you, when really he just wants out and wants to not be the bad guy.

Take the the meal planning thing. I get that in order to keep everyone fed that you are perhaps a bit rigid in your thinking about this one. But if he had said: "Listen, I know you have a logical plan for how to do dinner, that works and gets everyone fed. But sometimes I just want to be a bit more spontaneous and cook something different. How about on Tuesdays you pop that on the planner as "Dad's Special" and I'll buy any special ingredients I need on my way home and cook something I fancy, and if the kids don't fancy it I'll make them pasta."

Would you have stopped him? You might have said "I reckon Thursday's would work better because of x" or "okay, we'll need to budget £5-10 of the grocery money for it" but would you have really tried to prevent him having a bit of spontaneity in the kitchen? I don't think so. You've seemed self reflective here.

He could have done things differently if he wanted to. He didn't choose to because it didn't seem important to at the time, but now he's looking back for things to feel dissatisfied about.

I'm sorry that he's made the conception of DC 2 one of these things, that seems particularly cruel. He chose to have unprotected sex with you, you didn't force him. I don't think I could forgive that particular rewriting of history.

This makes a lot of sense, thank you.

If I served up a meal the children won't eat there will a fraught meal time, they will be hungry and DH will shout at them for not trying / eating it.

I'm happy for DH to cook something else, but frequently he isn't home in time or I don't have the right ingredients in for an alternative. Which is where he finds the meal planning controlling.

Can you tell me more about how you've worked on this?

This thread is frustrating. Your examples are of your husband being controlling, not you. You also describe your therapist as taking part in your husband's controlling narrative.

However, when pp have responded to this view of the situation which you have described, you've ignored their comments and focused again on giving more examples of your husband's controlling and bad behaviour, whilst maintaining that you are just trying to explain how you are the controlling one.

So now I am starting to wonder if this really is a form of control from you. You are presenting yourself as the injured party, while at the same time claiming to be the one in the wrong. It's like a mental sleight of hand that would do anyone's head in after a while.

Yes, this is correct Dredel.

If this thread is an echo chamber, it might be worth considering why.

Another way to look at it is that if he wants to go, let him go. That would be completely uncontrolling. Let him go off into the sunlit uplands of freedom from household routines and meal plans and crack on with what you know works for your family. If he wants to work things out with you, he will come back and tell you that and ideally in a way which involves constructive conversation and not one-way blame.

And if he doesn’t want to come back, you make arrangements for co-parenting where he does his thing and you do yours.
I couldn’t be doing with this level of analysis of who said what when years ago. The question is how you want to move forward.

You are tying yourself in knots. That example about a bbq 6 years ago is so trivial. He is rewriting history about your 2nd child which is very low.

But a more pertinent question would be just where is he this weekend? Why is walking away from his family a reasonable reaction?

E.g. your level of meal planning would get on my nerves too but I wouldn’t strop off for a whole weekend to stay with a “friend”.

Thank you, I don't want this to be a thread of people telling me I'm blameless. I have a responsibility to understand how my behaviour comes across and affects others.