Everyone knew Melissa was fussy. In fact, all her friends were surprised when she finally found someone she believed was good enough for her. She had fallen hopelessly in love with Nicole, a playful woman who was as laid-back as Melissa was uptight.
Friends laughed about the differences in their attitudes and approaches, and hoped the couple's extremes would balance each other out. At first, Melissa and Nicole were too busy having a wonderful time to pay much attention to any differences.
Reality hit the day they moved into their new apartment together.
Melissa had noticed before that Nicole was a little lax about housework in her own place: the towels in the bathroom were hung at odd angles, there was always at least one dish in the sink, you could see lint on the livingroom carpet and the occasional dust bunny. Mostly small things, Melissa had thought, and therefore easy enough to remedy. After all, she assured herself, Nicole certainly loved her enough to make a few changes in her cleaning routine.
Nicole had seen how fastidious Melissa was at her own place, and Melissa had even cleaned Nicole's apartment a few times, which made Nicole feel a little uncomfortable. But she chose to let it go. After all, Nicole told herself, what did it really matter that they did a few things differently? Nicole felt that Melissa loved and accepted her "as is," so everything would be fine.
They had just hauled in the last box when Melissa began to make her expectations known. "Take your shoes off when you come in, OK honey? And throw out those ratty-looking potholders; I've got some really nice ones from Crate and Barrel. Oh, and sweetie, let me show you the best way to clean the wood floor-;that'll be your job and I'll do the vacuuming."
Nicole laughed out loud. She thought Melissa was kidding around. One look at Melissa's face disabused her of that notion-;Melissa was serious. OK, Nicole thought to herself, I know how to handle this. My mother's bossy and controlling too. So Nicole dutifully removed her shoes, threw out her potholders with a smile, and patiently listened as Melissa instructed her in the correct way to clean their wood floor. That was the moment Nicole's resentment started building.
Melissa didn't notice any trouble until later in the week when she came home to muddy shoeprints on the carpet and a stack of dirty dishes and pots in the sink. When confronted, Nicole fixed the problems with a shrug and a mumbled apology. But the trend continued. Every time Melissa scolded Nicole, she would comply with Melissa's wishes, but the apartment would look worse the next day. Nicole's disregard for housecleaning felt like disrespect to Melissa, whose anxiety was spiraling out of control. Meanwhile, Nicole was filled with silent fury, masked with a calm-looking smile.
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Uh-oh. Passive aggression meets controlling perfectionism. Without some dramatic intervention, this painfully destructive dance could continue for years, with Nicole's resentment quietly growing to Jurassic proportions and Melissa's controlling behaviors intensifying until she becomes an ever-vigilant tyrant, dictating Nicole's every move.
Even when they see what's happening, they may not be able to just change their behaviors. Melissa had grown up with a tyrant father and a subservient mother. She decided long ago that she would never be a dishrag like her mother. However, like most of us, her model of what a relationship looks like came from mom and dad. She was horrified to realize that she was acting like her father. But letting go of control felt impossible. Melissa's underlying belief was that, if she truly let go, everything would fall apart. Everything, including her own life, she felt, would simply shatter.
In Nicole's corner, we have her anxiety-laden, controlling mother, whom Nicole learned to placate by doing whatever mom said—while she was looking. Without supervision, Nicole did as she pleased. And, as her unexpressed anger grew, doing as she pleased meant being more and more disobedient and disorderly, which drove her mother—and later her lover —into fits of rage. Nicole's response to these angry outbursts was to always appear calm and somewhat amused, which only made matters worse.
Nicole, just like Melissa, was fighting against her childhood demons and saying no to being controlled. As a child, she probably had no other choice—her mother had power and little Nicole didn't. So little Nicole did whatever she could to feel less powerless, which meant acting out while pretending compliance.
Both Nicole and Melissa did what they felt they had to do as children just to get by. And, in fact, both made the same life-affirming choice: to not be controlled. The irony is that both are now being controlled by that choice. What was once a survival mechanism is now a surefire way to destroy their relationship.
To reverse the trend, each of them must really try to understand themselves and each other, and make some changes in their own behavior to reduce the distance between their positions. Unilateral disarmament won't work here—they both need to see that the other is moving toward the middle.
Nicole and Melissa shouldn't expect the process to be easy. But even a little success in this area will help break up their frantic dance, and ultimately free both of them from being controlled by their desperate refusal to be controlled.
Please e-mail questions or ideas for columns to paulajean@msn.com .
Paula Walowitz, M.A., LPC, is a counselor in private practice who works with couples and individuals. She can be reached at 773-293-3688.
