Do you find that your relationship partner (partner, spouse, lover… or even your roommate, mom, dad, or sibling) is overly controlling? At the lower end of the spectrum, they might express their opinions about your work or relationship choices and enjoy sharing their profound wisdom. Maybe they just point out that you are doing it all wrong and should do it differently. Maybe they are intrusive and make unwanted suggestions while you are cooking, tell you what is or is not a weed in the garden, or ask you where you want to go for dinner before complaining about your choice and advocating something else. As you move up the spectrum of control, they might try to dictate if and how you spend money, how you generally organize your finances, your health care choices, or who you can or cannot have as a friend (among innumerable other examples). In this post, I am not going to be talking about abuse. Controlling your physical movements, scary or threatening coercion, or physical assault fall outside the range of normal relationship functioning and deserve to be addressed separately.
In normative romantic relationships, people sometimes find themselves feeling bothered, resentful, or irritable with their........