Never Enough

Her reasoning didn’t leave any room for different opinions or compromise. One day, she spent some time on writing a grocery list. I told her that it doesn’t need to be a complete plan for the whole week, as we could just pick up some items spontaneously while at the supermarket. She replied, whether she should stand in the supermarket like an idiot not knowing what to buy. It was a black or white thinking: either the list is perfect or she will have no clue what to get.

Another time during grocery shopping, she considered buying packaged sliced bread from the supermarket. I told her that this is processed food and doesn’t taste so good. Given that she likes fresh food, I suggested to get fresh bread from the bakery instead. She put the sliced bread back on the shelf. Days later, she got mad at me for suppressing her will to buy the bread. I was confused. While I may have been persuasive, by no means I had told her to put the bread back or prohibited her from getting it. Stating my opinion had influenced her, which triggered days later a deeply-rooted hurt, which she externalized by blaming me of being controlling. I adapted to it afterwards by holding back my opinion whenever we went grocery shopping.

Contrast this with another example, where she stated her opinion. I texted my Ex that I had success with a short-term investment that generated a bit of pocket money as profit. She responded by texting not to invest this much money, only ¼ of the amount. After a brief pause, she added: “well done.” I’ll leave it to the reader to decide, whether this was an attempt to control me according to the reader’s standard and according to the standard that my Ex established in the bread incident.

When I loaded the dishwasher one time, my Ex told me that she observes a rigidity in my behavior. She’s not wrong, I am stubborn at times–or determined, to phrase it nicely. She argued that she used to be more rigid in the past, but has worked to improve on that. I perceived it as a way of her telling me: something is wrong with me, because I have this rigidity, impatience, and temper, and I should do therapy. I believe that she used shame as a method to make me adapt to her needs. In her eyes, determinedness was rigidity, being energetic was being stressed, and stating an opinion was being controlling.

If controlling personality traits were distributed on a bell curve, my Ex claimed that she would be on the lower end of the curve. This is a bold statement in retrospect. She controlled what we eat, when we marry, had shown attempts to control how my apartment is arranged, how much of my money I save, and what emotions I express. On a weekend afternoon, I went to hang out with my buddies at a barbecue. I invited my Ex to come with me, but she preferred to stay at home and study. When I came home later, she dropped a comment that I should have stayed with her at home. It was an unobtrusive remark, not demanding like the other examples, but I believe it shows where our relationship was headed: she expects me to arrange my life around her needs.

She often described her idea of marriage as follows: “I want to be spoiled–and I want to spoil my husband.” I believe the order matters a lot in this sentence. Her needs come first. Although my boundaries slowly eroded, I still kept resisting. She wanted to have a dog, to which I didn’t give in–at least not yet while we haven’t moved in together. She asked me about my opinion on a balcony umbrella, to which I protested by saying: “I hate it.” I already had a balcony umbrella and my Ex stated that she doesn’t like mine. I had gotten the feeling that I would need to give up everything I like, unless I resist. In retrospect, such a thought was a sign for an unhealthy relationship.