A marriage counselor may help point out that you’re controlling. She might show you how to say things so that they don’t seem controlling—but they still are. It’s disappointing when you get a negative reaction from your husband after you’ve used the exact words the way the counselor suggested. The counselor may encourage you to stop controlling, but without a system and the knowledge of what to do instead to meet your own needs, that’s as unhelpful as saying, “Don’t think about elephants.”
Intimacy skills lead you to a new way of thinking and dealing with the fear that’s underneath the urge to control. From there you can make a different choice, one that helps you preserve the intimacy in your marriage and be your authentic, relaxed self.
For a long time I didn’t even realize I was controlling. I thought I was just smarter and more honest than my husband. Little did I know that I was shooting holes in the bucket of our intimacy for no good reason. It wasn’t until I learned to recognize my controlling behavior and make a different choice that the romance returned.
On the road to giving up my controlling ways, one thing I tried was to control “politely.” I thought I could package the control so that it didn’t seem like control—sort of like switching to “healthier” cigarettes. It seemed like progress to me, but let’s face it, I was still controlling.
My goal was to control him without him even knowing it. This seemed like an improvement to me, but his response was as hostile as ever. All of it got me to the same lonely spot: wondering why my husband was withdrawn, distant, and defensive.
I’m not an irrational person looking to ruin my marriage. So why did I (and millions of other women) think trying to control things I can’t control seemed so irresistible?
The answer is that I was afraid. All control is based in fear. If you’re not afraid, you don’t have to try to control anybody or anything else. There’s no reason to control people unless you think you’re going to have to wait longer, pay more, lose sleep, gain weight, be embarrassed, drive further, go without, or work harder if you don’t.
If you identify with being controlling, that means you’re afraid of something. Fear comes up for lots of different reasons. For the record, here are many of the embarrassing ways—none very effective—that I tried to control my husband, followed by the sometimes irrational and often ridiculous fears that were underneath my actions.
1. Making helpful suggestions
I’ve said things like “If you put things in file drawers, you’d be able to find them more easily” and “If you didn’t fall asleep with the radio on, you’d sleep better and be more rested.”
Fear: His office (and therefore our house) would be messy. John would be tired and grumpy.
2. Speaking on his behalf
People would ask him questions—doctors, waitresses, delivery people—and I would answer for him to make sure that everyone got the right information and impression of our family.
Fear: He would leave out important information and embarrass me.
3. Making decisions for him
I told him how much to contribute to his 401(k), which clothes to get rid of in the closet, and which phone he should buy. Since I believed I was smarter than him, it was only logical for me to make those decisions.
Fear: He would make the wrong decision—i.e., not the exact one I would have made.
4. Shooting him disapproving looks
I frowned at the lettuce he bought (too wilted), grimaced when he talked about buying a new car (too expensive), and rolled my eyes at the shows he enjoyed (too lowbrow). I was quieter but just as bossy.
Fear: Our food would go bad too quickly, he’d spend too much money, and he’d embarrass me by liking The Three Stooges.
5. Asking leading questions
I’d say things like “Is that what you’re going to eat for lunch?” “Do you have to leave so early to get there?” and “Does that shirt go with those pants?” (Does this line of questioning make you want to smack me?)
Fear: He wouldn’t be healthy, we’d have to be apart longer than we need to, and people would think I dressed him funny.
6. Announcing that “we” need to go to counseling.
The underlying message, no matter how you look at it, is that he’s a failure as a husband. In my experience, this wins hands down for the most expensive way to try to control your husband.
Fear: I married the wrong guy and was never going to have the life I craved unless he changed.
7. Telling him how I would do things
This would be something like “I usually go slower on this road because it’s so narrow” or “I would take my car in for service if it was making that noise.” It’s amazing just how much I knew about practically everything back then.
Fear: We would crash, or we’d end up with a big unnecessary car repair bill that would put us in debt and I’d have to skip my pedicure.
8. Criticizing him
Saying things like “Don’t you see you’re being passive-aggressive?” or “It’s just that you’re such a slob.” As if my insights would help him finally understand the error of his ways and he would correct them right on the spot. Isn’t that how human nature works?
Fear: I wouldn’t get a tender, thoughtful, attentive husband until he changed. And I’d have to clean up his messes.
9. Making demands
I told him, “You need to call your mom” or “You have to diversify your portfolio.” I felt this was okay because clearly I was right.
Fear: I would be embarrassed in front of his family and we’d be broke when we grew old.
10. Undoing and redoing things he’d just done and then showing him how I did them.
I’m talking about important, earth-shattering things like emptying the lint filter or making the bed. If I didn’t constantly show him, how would he ever learn? Poor thing!
Fear: I would have linty clothes and a lumpy bed or have to do everything myself.
Just by reading this book, you’re cultivating a new awareness. The next time you try to control your husband, you’re going to realize what you’re doing. You might decide, as I sometimes do, to pretend that you’re not, but you’ll know that you are. It’s actually pretty uncomfortable at first. Okay, it’s excruciating when you first realize you’re doing it. But here’s the deal: You’re making progress because you’re aware. From there it’s just a small hop to empowerment, where you can make a conscious choice instead of being stuck in a lousy rut.
If you find yourself tempted to say something controlling, frown at the produce he bought, or refold the laundry he just folded, just telling yourself to stop is not very effective. So what should you do instead?
Ask yourself some questions. Even better, get a girlfriend to ask you. The answers will help you figure out what you really want to do in that moment and then do it. This way you won’t end up thinking, Hmmm, maybe I should have kept my mouth shut.
These are the four magical questions to help you decide whether you’d rather act on your fear or choose your faith.
1. What am I afraid of?
2. Is my fear realistic?
3. Can I actually control the situation?
4. Is it worth the intimacy it would cost me to try to control?
Let’s say I’m tempted (as I still am from time to time) to tell my husband that he should call his slow-paying clients to collect from them. Here’s the conversation I have with myself before I go down that old road:
1. What am I afraid of?
I’m afraid that if he doesn’t collect from those clients, it will hurt his cash flow.
That’s not a great response, because I still have to ask, “So what if his cash flow suffers? How does that impact me?” So I rephrase the question using my first answer as a setup: “If his cash flow suffers, I’m afraid….”
My answer: I’m afraid that he’ll go out of business and we’ll go broke.
Now we’re getting somewhere. The fear that’s pushing me to want to control my husband is that we’re going to run out of money and have to go without.
Could I have come up with that answer on the first try? Sure, if I was really in good form. But it’s human nature to try to distance myself from my vulnerability at first. I got there eventually and that’s what counts, but sometimes I spend a little time trying to pretend it’s about someone else first. It’s not. It’s always about me. So I keep examining the question until I show up in the answer.
In this case, since our finances are combined, if my husband’s income goes down, it could affect me for sure. I might have to cut back on things I like to spend money on, like volleyball league fees, lunches out, and fresh flowers. That would be uncomfortable and I would rather avoid it, and since our financial fates are intertwined, it seems only logical that I would do my best to make sure his finances stay strong.
But let’s go through the rest of the questions and see what happens before I march in to tell him to make his clients pay right away.
2. Is my fear realistic?
Is it really true that I would have to cut back on volleyball, lunches, and orchids if my husband doesn’t collect from his clients promptly? It’s certainly possible, but when I consider the facts, it’s probably not likely. My husband has had his business for more than a decade, and he does pretty well. He’s had very few accounts that he never collected on. Most of his clients have worked with him for many years, so it’s the same bunch of companies that have been paying him on the same schedule for a long time.
So is my fear that my husband’s cash flow will suffer and I’ll have to make sacrifices because of it realistic? Nope. It’s more like a monster under the bed that turns out to be a sock when I put on the light. And asking this question “Is my fear realistic?” is a great way to turn on the light.
Often when I ask myself this question, the answer seems pretty ridiculous. Like, “No, it’s not realistic that if he wears the wrong socks to the party it will ruin our night.”
Usually it makes me laugh, because it’s obvious I’m being controlling. My fears tend to seem a little silly in light of this question.
One of my certified coaches, Tatianna, taught a workshop where she brought these questions to the participants. One woman in the workshop was trying to get her husband to drink lots of water because she was afraid he would get a urinary tract infection (UTI). When Tatianna asked her whether this fear was realistic, the woman had to admit that her husband had never had a UTI before. Suddenly something that had seemed so serious a minute ago became hilarious in light of this question.
So the control urge might die right here at question #2, because your fears aren’t always realistic, and when you realize that, you feel silly and back off. Suddenly you’re free to make a different choice—one that makes you much less controlling. In that case, you’re done. No need to ask yourself anymore questions.
But that’s not always the case, which is why we still have two more questions.
Sometimes you might be trying to control something because it already happened once and you’re afraid it’s going to happen again. Maybe your husband has already had a fender bender. Maybe he already forgot to pick up one of the kids at school one time. Maybe he already paid a bill late. So your fear is not unrealistic.
What do you do then?
Move ahead to question #3.
3. Can I actually control the situation?
In the past I have tried to tell John that he should call his clients to collect from them, but that never worked. I can’t make him collect from his clients, and it’s just as well—maybe some of them choose him because he gives them lenient payment terms. How do I know? It’s not my business.
Kenda was frustrated because she felt her husband Jack was overindulging his grown son. She had asked him in every possible way to stop giving his son money, but that only resulted in Jack giving him money on the sly. Terrified that she was going to have to go without something because of this financial drain on them, Kenda wanted me to coach her on how to express her desire to get her husband to stop sending money to his kid.
She was trying to disguise her fear and urge to control as a desire.
I totally relate to that, because I used to think I wasn’t being controlling if I was just asking a question—even if the question was, “Don’t you think you should clean the garage today?”
Kenda felt her fear was realistic, but when it came to the question “Can you actually control it?” the answer seemed to be no.
The problem is, I don’t know a way to actually control husbands. They usually resist mightily. In fact, the more you complain, remind them, encourage them, leave little notes, and politely follow up, the more likely they are to resist—even though you think you’re being perfectly logical and they are not.
No matter how logical you feel and no matter how much you tell yourself that you’re on the side of right, you can’t control your husband. It just doesn’t work. I’ve tried and tried and have never been successful.
Kenda had already tried to get her husband to change dozens of times, so there was nothing more to do.
“But he’s not setting any limits with his son,” she told me. “He’s making him financially dependent and spending money that I want him to keep in his bank account!”
“I hear you,” I told her. “But is it something you can control?”
It wasn’t. The only option we could come up with was for her to accept that he was going to make his own decisions about his financial relationship with his son. Forcing him to do what she wanted was not an option, which meant it was time to move on to question #4.
4. Is it worth losing the intimacy it’s costing me to try to control?
Since Kenda couldn’t get her husband to budge on subsidizing his grown son, the only realistic outcome of continuing to try would be to cause tension in her marriage. Trying to control was going to cost her intimacy and peace, and it wasn’t going to make her feel any safer.
When I asked her if it was worth the intimacy it was going to cost her to try to control this issue, especially since she had agreed that she couldn’t control it, Kenda admitted that continuing to insist he stop giving his son money was a lose-lose proposition.
Here’s the twist: That acknowledgment turned into empowerment when she realized that by not trying to control his contributions to his son, she would free herself from NET (Needless Emotional Turmoil). It was the best option available to her. Instead of being a victim, she was making a thoughtful choice.
There was one more benefit of Kenda leaving the topic of her husband’s financial relationship with his son alone: Soon after she had apologized for being controlling, her husband said, “That kid is costing me too much money. I’m going to let him know he needs to start paying his own way. I’m not doing this anymore.”
It’s not right and it’s not fair, but it is human nature that when people feel controlled, they sometimes dig in their heels and do the opposite. By stopping her controlling behavior, Kenda gave her husband the best chance of being able to make his own thoughtful decision.
By the time you answer the four questions, the urge to control has typically subsided. In the beginning, you may forget to ask yourself these questions, particularly if you’re in the habit of controlling your husband. But if you do it a few times, it really changes your perspective. It’s not so hard to resist going down a dark alley once you’ve thought it through.
Sometimes you’ll ask yourself all four questions and the desire to control will not have abated.
Sometimes I can’t get myself to go through the questions. Sometimes I just blurt out, “Hey, you’re overcooking the carne asada!” and I cause a loss of intimacy in my relationship.
In those moments, I guess you could say the answer to question #4 is “It’s more important to me to pretend that I’m in control than it is to preserve intimacy.”
Fortunately, I don’t do that very much anymore, so even though I’m not perfect, the intimacy is really good around here.
The really great part about relinquishing inappropriate control of your husband is that your life gets a lot more exciting.
It can also get terrifying.
In fact, one of the hidden benefits of controlling someone else, I’ve discovered, is that it’s less scary than focusing on your own life. Even though I felt like I had made a huge leap when I stopped controlling my husband, it was really just the warm-up for the scary stuff that was ahead.
Michelle felt the same way. After nearly divorcing her husband, she discovered the Six Intimacy Skills, which she found frightening. But she practiced them anyway, and her life was so transformed, she decided to train to become a coach with me. During training, she was scared about passing certification. It really meant a lot to her. She studied hard, and…she passed. Suddenly facing and paying attention to her own purpose instead of being lost in what her husband was doing was a whole lot scarier.
In fact, one of her first coaching clients, Gina, was pretty hostile. She kept saying, “I don’t think this is going to work for me. I’m sure glad there’s a money-back guarantee,” which was completely nerve-wracking for Michelle. While she and I were talking about how to best support Gina, I admitted that I’m scared all the time too.
I started running my coaching company without really having any idea how that’s done or having the kind of business experience many people start companies with. It was pretty terrifying, especially at first. I was making things up every day, having no idea if they would work. But my purpose, my mission to end world divorce, is so inspiring and motivating that I keep going in spite of my fear.
Writing this book was scary too; I knew it was going to make some people mad. It still often seems much easier to focus on my husband’s business than my own purpose in the world.
But that’s been my experience with the Six Intimacy Skills: They opened the door to a scary but very exciting world—and that’s the one I really want to live in.
When you find yourself tempted to control someone else, another question to ask yourself is, “What am I trying to avoid in my own life?” or “What am I afraid to face?” Chances are there’s something scary in front of you, and your urge to control someone else is just a distraction that seems less threatening.