Their first anniversary and he booked a table at a neighbourhood bistro. They liked it there. The hostess was a lovely young woman from France who kissed them each time they came and wore beautiful dresses and just the right amount of décolleté to elevate the experience. Evan and Annie admired her beauty. She was maybe 25.

They ordered bubbly to celebrate their first 12 months of being the perfect couple. They beamed at each other across the table. Against all odds they had found each other.

“I really admire you,” Franklin had told him one night, in recovery from his imploded love affair. “You’re living proof that us old farts can find love and be happy, if there is such a thing as happiness. But you’re making it work. It gives me hope.”

Once dinner arrived the table was set for an issue that was burning Evan’s tongue. He had rehearsed how to say what he was sure had to be said. They wished each other bon appetit, Annie poked and prodded her food with her fork, making sure everything on the plate was dead. Evan ate a few bites of his gigot d’agneau and put his fork down.

“Annie, I love you but I thought we could talk about how … you’ve criticized just about every aspect of my life. What I read, how I work, how I exercise, the films I watch, how I write, how often I go in and out of the house, how often I eat, how much clothes I have, my shoes. Can you maybe cut back on the criticism a bit?”

She put her cutlery down, took a sip of wine and walked out. He waited a few minutes and paid the bill and left. The only imperfections permitted to be pointed out, it seemed, were his.

He stopped planning weekends with her, stopped planning vacations with her, stopped relying on her. It was too much stress. Each summer she said she was looking forward to the cottage on the lake Evan rented, but as the date approached, the time she could sacrifice shrank. It would be two weeks, then 10 days then maybe a week but it usually ended up a few weekends. But he had stopped caring. The last time she came up she spent a week on the computer at the dining room table, the radio on constantly. She didn’t want to eat on the table because her work was spread there.

She had no interest in going into town for a meal, no interest in taking a drive through the mountains, no walks to the back lake. She had too much work to do. She had moved her office from town to the mountains and Evan was again trying not to disturb her. She had a five-minute radio bit to do at the end of the week and she was stretching the research out to fill the week. When she told him not to eat lunch at the table while she was working, he lost it.

“Get your stuff,” Evan said. “I’m taking you to the bus. Go home. I’m on vacation and that includes a vacation from you. Let’s go.”

“I have a lot of work to do,” she said. “I need to …”

“I don’t care,” Evan said. “I’m on vacation. And if that means vacation from you and the radio and your need for quiet and your addiction to work, than so be it. You’re not fucking up my vacation.” He had no idea what she saw in his eyes but she put her things together, the papers, the clothes, the computer and followed him to the car. He drove her to the bus stop in Saint Sauveur and left her there. He had nothing to say.

“I’ll call you,” she said. Evan put the car in gear and didn’t look back. His fingers started drumming on the steering wheel, he started to sing and he smiled all the way back to the cabin.

He never asked her to join him at the lake again and never planned another holiday with her. But he ratcheted up his women shopping. His night time indulgence with the scotch bottle became increasingly important. And there was Danny. An e-mail or a phone call and she would come to the country. Danny got to prove to him over and over what he was missing and Evan immersed himself in the sexual abandon he craved. It was their unspoken pact. Evan felt no guilt. An evening with Danny was his reward for the multiple evenings with Annie’s disorders.

He was making dinner and turned to see her on the floor on her knees with her head in the freezer. She was in a panic, close to hysterics. There was too much food in the freezer, she hissed, and she began picking through it manically and sliding it along the kitchen floor. Frozen chops, steaks, sausage, a chicken were slid like curling stones along the hardwood, under the island counter, twirling into the dining room.

“What are we going to do with all this? It’s going to just end up in the garbage. It gets freezer burn and then it’s useless. What is this? And this? It’s just going to go to waste, we’ll never eat it.” What would her audiences or her friends say if they could see her like this, her head in the freezer, on her knees, raving?

Evan took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. He could have explained that it was frozen for a reason but he learned it was best not to try and be rational during moments of obsessive panic. He pulled her to her feet gently, turned her around and hugged her, stroking her hair. She slowly calmed.

“Bad attack of freezer fear,” he said, smiling. “Killer freezer fear. We’ll have a barbecue, invite the kids, eat it all.”

“Freezer fear,” she said smiling. “Gets me every time.” She held on to him. Then they made a game of it, him sliding the slabs of protein along the floor to her and her putting them into the freezer, pushed as far back against the wall as she could so she wouldn’t have to see them.

As a fun stress-relief mechanism, he started baking cakes. His first carrot cake cost about $25 in ingredients but when he pulled it from the oven, steaming, he was jubilant. It smelled great. Looked the way it was supposed to. He was king of the kitchen. His first cake. Annie came in and took a knife from the drawer and cut it in half.

“It’s just going to go bad if we don’t give it away. I’ll give it to Francine, she’ll like it.”

Before Evan could say anything she was pulling plastic wrap from the cupboard and encasing his masterpiece. All he could do was stare. He wasn’t even sure who Francine was or why he should give her half of his magnificent creation. He was speechless.

They sat in the two white Ikea armchairs in front of the fire. She was watching him intently. He had asked to talk. And she was listening.

“You know when I was editing the magazine, I was the boss,” he told her. “I was the boss when I produced the radio show, when I was editor at the other magazines I worked, and I had people to talk to, work with, discuss ideas. I had some control. Now that’s gone. In our little publishing business you insist on controlling almost everything.”

“That’s not true, I let you …”

“You let me … That’s the problem. You think it’s up to you to give me permission. It’s the same in the house. You allotted me closet space, told me where to put my clothes, gave me a few shelves in the bathroom, told me where to store my coats. You control it all, even where I hang my pictures, my paintings, whatever. It seems I control nothing and I’m feeling angry and I think that’s why. I have no say in anything anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize. I’ll be more careful.”

“Thank you.” He got up and pressed her head to his belly and she put his arms around him and he loved her again, love renewed.

For a day or two. He was reading again in the middle of the night, the birds yet to wake, the sun, still far in the east, Fritz asleep beside him. He had googled abusive behaviour. Evan still believed knowledge was power.

An exaggerated emphasis on control is part of a cluster of behaviours that can be labelled as compulsive generally characterized by perfectionism, orderliness, workaholic tendencies, an inability to make commitments or to trust others and a fear of having their flaws exposed. These people are riddled with anxiety, fear, insecurity, and anger.

To keep this anxiety from overwhelming them, they try to control the people or things around them. They have a hard time with negotiation and compromise and they can’t stand imperfection. Bottom Line: In the process of being controlling, their actions say: “You’re incompetent” and “I can’t trust you.” (This is why you hate them).

Ah hate, that word had surfaced during a few arguments. Workaholic tendencies? Absolutely. Stress, yes, it was a constant. Criticism? Another constant. Annie could have given a seminar as long as the humidifier wasn’t on.

The noise of a humidifier in winter drove her nuts but she had to have the sound of the fan in summer. Evan was too dense to figure out the difference. The humidifier gurgled, the fan whirred and clicked, somehow more of a pacifier for the constant ringing in her ears.

“It’s amazing,” he’d say from time to time. “It’s been two … three … four … five years and I love you more than ever.”

“Me, too,” she’d say. “I’m always going to love you.” These were times when the wounds had healed, the scar tissue had formed or they donned blinders. But increasingly, when they exchanged daily, “I love yous,” he would be thinking: Sometimes love isn’t enough. The realization cut deep. But didn’t Franklin say he was an inspiration? He was going to hang in to the bitter end. But then the real craziness began.