After Thoughts! - Do It My Way!! A group discussion about people who try to "control"!

He's helping, but it's actually a waste of time because I'm gonna have to redo it.

Or let me tell you what I'm good at so you can, you know, maybe there's some easy wins because I'm really smashing at cleaning toilets. Cool.

I know where I stand now. Way outside my boundaries.

Like, I've actually had that in a relationship where it's just like, oh my God, could you just adult?

Well, you know, often we When we feel like we don't have control on a lot of different things in our lives, we're going to try to grab it where we can.

Well, right, because we need to be able to let things go. Like, we need to know which battles to fight.

And I mean, I'm not, I'm not going to jump into a relationship seeing that, but if I was in one already, I've got the tools now to be able to, you know, try to figure it out.

If I have to ask you to help, that is not in fact helpful. That is in fact one more thing I have to put on my plate now. I now have to sit down And word vomit on a piece of paper everything that needs to be done. And then I have to mentally take time and divide up the things that you could do. And then I have to spend the time explaining the tasks that I'm going to divvy out to you. And then I'm going to have to continue to answer your questions about those tasks because you don't know how to do them. Now you understand that when a woman says, forget it, it's just easier if I do it myself, this is why. Because it is easier. Because we don't have to sit down and tell ourselves what to do and how to do it. Instead of coming and saying, "What can I help you with?" Come to me and say, "Let's break down these tasks more equally between us, and let's set a minimum standard of care so that we both understand what it means for this task to be completed." And I won't have to ask you any questions. I will just know exactly what needs to be done and when it needs to be done, to what standard of care it needs to be completed at. That would actually be helpful.

What's anybody think of that video?

Wow.

Yeah. Wow.

And agreeing to accept the result that they are able to get and vice versa.

What was that, Trace?

I said I thought it was very helpful. And you come to a place where you agree to what's going to be done, but how the other person is going to do it. So you're not arguing over which direction the silverware resides in the dishwasher.

Theoretically, she's correct. Is there a flip side? Anybody have a flip side?

Yeah, I was triggered.

I mean, did we notice that she is telling him— she's saying how she would want him to approach it, so she's not accepting how he's approaching things. She's saying that he has to do it her way, and that's very directional.

I, I thought she was quite demeaning. Yeah, even the opening statement where she says, as a woman, I have to tell you every single thing. And it's like, well, a man could say the same thing to a woman, right? Like, she's— it seems like she's a very angry woman to me. I don't know, did she come across like that to anyone else?

Yes.

Yeah, I think— well, I don't know about you, David. To me, that comes across as not somebody that I want to be with. When once again, it's not that what she's saying is— is if it's said in a different way, it would be fine.

I guess that's wrong.

And I think that's what you're noticing, Tracy, right? Is that theoretically the idea behind it is fantastic.

The presentation messaging was lacking.

The delivery was—

Yeah, delivery was poor. David, what did you think?

Well, yeah, I think that From the perspective of like, want of get wanting to get into a relationship with someone like that, I would not, I would not be attracted. But I recognize it's her, you know, it's her attachment trauma coming out, basically. And if I was in a relationship with, with her, then I would be, I would be really trying to get vulnerable, trying to encourage her to get vulnerable, I'd be trying to get into attunement. Because that the way she's behaving isn't really acceptable for, for a relationship. But, you know, it's because she's got issues that she's got to work on, and that we would have to work on together. So it depends on where we're at. I mean, I'm not, I'm not going to jump into a relationship seeing that. But if I was in one already, I've got the tools now to be able to, you know, try to figure it out.

I'd be curious what the group thinks. Don't you think whatever else is happening, it's not about the nail?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's not the first conversation.

Yeah.

And also, it's— there's personality in there as well. She could be someone who's very organized and likes things to be done a certain way, and perhaps her partner is completely different. Okay, so she wants things to be organized. This is the way I need things to be done. When you're making the bed, the corners have to be that way. It's very specific.

The towels have to be folded this way.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, you have to do the— the dishwasher has to be loaded this way.

Yeah.

I just had this conversation with somebody the other day, um, where they were trying to do something and they said, I'm never ever going to get all this done, but if I give it to somebody else, they're not going to do it the same way I do it. And I said, will it still get done? And she said, well, yeah, but not the way I'm going to. I said, well, if you want it all done and you don't want to do it all yourself, you need to be okay with the fact that somebody else is doing it and they're not going to do it exactly the same way that you would.

Yeah.

And she looked like a deer in the headlights because it never even dawned on her that it's okay for things to be done in a way that's different than the way that we would normally do them, except for the dishwasher.

For me, it's the way the towels are folded, right? The round part has to, has to be out.

Agreed.

Always out.

Yes.

So we all have our idiosyncrasies, don't we? What's that, Daniel?

I'm at the point with the towels where if we're going to be in a relationship and you need the towels folded a certain way, I'm just going to say up front, I'm not really excellent at that. So if you don't mind folding the towels, you can have them however you like.

You'll load the dishwasher then?

I'll, I'll, I'll trade you for some other chore. But if, if that's your pet peeve, that's fantastic. Yeah. Don't trust me with the towels.

Well, right, because we need to be able to let things go. Like, we need to know which battles to fight. And like, the little things that we often argue about or beat ourselves up about are just not worth it most of the time. They're, they're really not.

So I just want to go through this. I want to play it again to see if we got a different, uh, take on this at all.

If I have to ask you to help, that is not in fact helpful. That is in fact one more thing I have to put on my plate now. I now have to sit down And word vomit on a piece of paper everything that needs to be done. And then I have to mentally take time and divide up the things that you could do. Then I have to spend the time explaining.

I don't know what's everybody gets just at the first part of that.

What the first thing she started is if I have to ask for help, it's not helpful. And if you're in a relationship, why would you not be vulnerable enough to be able to ask for help if you need help?

Yeah, but, but her point here is what? Is that I don't want to ask for help because it'll take me longer to explain it to you than it will to, to get the job done myself.

Right.

So, but, and I run into this all the time. Why is it that her desire to have it done a certain way trumps her partner's desire to have it done a different way? Where the partner says, I want to load the dish— the dishwasher this way, and you wanna load it that way. It takes me too long to— and she's saying it takes me too long to explain how to load the dishwasher. It's easier just to do it myself.

The sense of control.

Mhmm.

Oh, yeah.

So is, is that what it is? I just— so where does that sense of control come from? You know, or that need to control?

What I find interesting about this video is The dynamics in the male-female partner relationship, like, it's almost like the parent-child. Like, if— would she talk to one of her kids this way about teaching them how to do laundry or whatever? And yet it's very demeaning spoken to a partner. And maybe that's just how she is. Who knows?

Yeah, I can relate to that situation. And the story in my head is that I frankly probably acted like a child. So, you know, at the time I didn't see that, but looking back, I can see how there can, you know, my, my behaviors and level of care about how things were done were very different and similar to what a child's would have been. So I, I kind of understand that.

Mm-hmm.

The thing that's interesting though is Well, for me, is like when it gets to this point, sitting down and just discussing this logically, and it's pretty hard because I think there's a lot of resentment that's been built up here.

Yeah.

On her, from her, she's got a lot of resentment in there, right?

Yeah, probably some degree on the other side.

Yeah, we don't know the other side, but chances are he's checked out because—

Because this is what he hears all the time.

This is what he hears.

Yeah.

Yeah. Why wouldn't he be?

Yeah.

There's no affirmation there.

Well, as soon as I go to help, she just tells me I'm doing it wrong.

So then it's best for me not to do anything, not to help.

Yeah.

I'll just do nothing.

And then she's going to be upset because he's not helping.

Right.

So it just continues.

Yeah.

And I've literally had a couple deal with this exact situation where he came in to help, and then he wasn't folding the towels correctly. And it went fine. I won't help then. And then she's mad because he's not helping.

And sometimes we miss the little things. Sorry, Danielle, didn't mean to interrupt. We miss the little things, right? Instead of being happy that he's trying to help, she's upset because he's not helping the way that she wants him to help.

Right?

So that folding the towels thing, but he's offering to help. Which is a good thing, right? But she's not happy because it's not exactly the way that she wants it to be done.

But then from her standpoint, though, that is something that— how do we overcome that? That he's helping, but it's actually a waste of time because I'm gonna have to redo it.

Well, that's, that's where we have to be flexible in life, especially in our relationships with our partners, is that We all have things that we like to do a certain way, but we don't always necessarily have the time to do it, and we need to be flexible enough to appreciate, to allow someone to help us and understand that they might not do it the same way. I think flexibility is something that is often missing in, in relationships. Like, I don't think this woman has much flexibility in her life at all from the way she sounds.

Well, that goes back to that control thing. And Bruce, I can't remember what question you asked, but I would be curious what the answer was. Why? Where is that sense of control coming from, I think, is what you asked.

The need to control.

Well, you know, often we, when we feel like we don't have control on a lot of different things in our lives, we're going to try to grab it where we can.

Yep.

So there might be a lot of other aspects of her life where she feels like she's, she doesn't have control. So then this she can be in control of, so she's going to grab it.

Right now, perfectionism— go ahead, Daniel.

Well, I would, I would imagine that we can compare her level of control compared to our perception, but she probably gives, releases a lot to her, a significant amount of control to her partner compared to maybe how she runs other things. So, you know, her perception of how much she's controlling might be dramatically different than ours.

Sure.

It's relative.

Yeah.

And you're not—

Yeah.

Yeah.

So perception, you're not getting the whole story. Like, I mean, quite honestly, we have no idea what the relationship is. I mean, maybe he's a partner that doesn't adult well and she's having to constantly do everything. So I can then understand, like, I've actually had that in a relationship where it's just like, oh my God, Could you just adult? Like, why is it I have to handle the money and I have to handle the house and I have to make the plans? And so, but I don't know where they are in their relationship when you see her frustration level. You know what I mean? Like, some people are just ostrich. They don't want to look after anything.

So, I both want to talk here.

Yes.

Giselle, you go first.

What I was going to say is that, um, those things were probably there when the relationship started, though.

Yes.

It's not just like out of the blue that the person didn't do this or didn't do that. So we can't overlook all those red flags and let the person be who they are. And then all of a sudden, now we're hammering on them and saying, well, you're not doing this the way that I want it to be done. Whereas we knew when we got together with that person that that's the way they were, right? So—

Well, we might not have known. But we may have been people pleasing.

We may have been people pleasing.

Or it would have been the rose-colored Cinderella first year.

But we didn't put boundaries in place.

Right. Yeah.

Press needs, right? So she let— if we assume that's the case, she let that happen, kind of setting a precedent that it's okay. And then to Giselle's point, all of a sudden it's not.

See, I'm red-green colorblind, so the flags are hard for me to identify that way. But in my mind, if I if I see the flag and it says if that's the red flag.

If what?

What does if mean?

This is great if she if they if if if something was different.

Does it my way.

This is yeah.

There's a great relationship if they only will change these seventy-five things.

Right. Am I well? If I got one if that's. My yellow flag, if I've got two, three, or four, I'm like, okay, let's stop and be real for a minute because I will end up with seventy-five if I don't stop.

Okay, let's just see if we catch anything else in here.

The tasks that I'm going to divvy out to you, then I'm going to have to continue to answer your questions about those tasks because you don't know how to do them. Now you understand that when a woman says forget it, it's just easier if I do it myself. This is why because it is easy.

The other side could say exactly the same thing with different tasks. It's always easier for one of us to do some things.

She said the tasks that I give to you. So it's not—

Oh, I missed that. Did she say that?

Yes. And also, and then she said, I'm going to have to ask the quick— to answer your questions because you don't know how to do them. So you're asking him, you're assigning to, to him something that he doesn't know how to do, but then you get upset that he asks questions about how to do it because he probably wants to do it the way that you would like to be. So he's asking for clarification, we're assuming.

So let's get into just— let's get the scenario down here. So what has happened is, as far as I understand it, is I'm, I'm her husband and I've come up to her and said, honey, can I help you with something? Is that what you guys got from this?

Yeah.

No, no, in the beginning, I think, doesn't she say, I have to ask you for help?

Oh yeah.

Yeah, something like that.

Yeah, let's just try it again.

If I have to ask you to help, that is not in fact helpful. Yeah, it is in fact one more thing I have to put on my plate now. I now have to sit down and word vomit.

Yeah, you're right.

On a piece of paper.

So if I have to ask you for help, so what she wants her partner to do is come up and ask to help. So she wants him to say, honey, can I help you with something? Let's sit down for a half an hour to make sure that I do it exactly the way you want to do it.

Or let me tell you what I'm good at so you can, you know, maybe there's some easy wins because I'm really smashing at cleaning toilets.

Yeah.

You know, the takeaway was that she didn't want to have to ask for help and she didn't want him to come up and say, what can I help you with? She wanted him to already know what to do and how to do it and be proficient at it.

Yeah.

Correct.

Yeah, she's upset that it's taking her time, right? In the time that she has to explain everything, she might as well do it herself. Yeah, I would say just do it yourself and leave the poor person alone. Leave the men alone, do it yourself, and you'll be happy, right? I think that there are certain things that we may be good at and better at, and if we're so anal about the way we want them done, then just do it yourself, right? And then appreciate the person for what they're good at. and what they would want to do. But we need to have a conversation, right? We can't be upset at someone because they're not doing something the way that we want it to be done. I guess I have to tell this story. So, you know, those, those Venetian blinds, you can open them or close them so that, you know, either the, the round part shows to the outside or the other part, right?

Yeah.

And I was having a conversation with someone, we're not gonna name the person, but And but the conversation was not about the blinds. They were very upset. And they were like, and they throw it in that conversation. And you don't even know how to close the blinds properly.

So there you were, the discussion was about something else. And then they just threw this in.

And they threw in the— and I said, you know, I don't think it's about the blinds. It's not about the nail. That's exactly what it was. You know, it was about a lot of other things that, you know, the person was upset about. But then they threw in the blinds telling you that you don't know, like we never had an issue. About how we close the blinds or open the blinds. But this time, this particular time, the blinds were not closed properly.

There was resentment building that was hidden.

Absolutely. Whatever way they were, it was—

They were wrong.

They were wrong. They were wrong. Yeah.

And I hear with this woman also, like, she is angry and resentful, but how she starts off, it's very victim mentality. Like, that's what I got from it too.

So if you're having this trouble with your partner, is it probably not the worst thing to do to go on the internet and make a video? Like, the amount of time I'm trying to make the video, she could have maybe written a few notes of instructions.

I mean, possibly it'd be fantastic because I've like Uh, cool. I know where I stand now. Way outside my boundaries.

Yeah, I'm not really sure how this would fit inside anybody's boundaries in a relationship, to have your partner going on the internet and explaining how deficient you are.