Who’s Your Daddy? I Was Married To A Control Freak Extraordinaire

My ex-husband wanted to be my daddy. And not in a fun way, mind you. He didn’t want to be my “sugar daddy” or “who’s your daddy?” he just wanted to be my dad and consequently, the boss of me. Unfortunately, this pernicious trait failed to reveal itself until after we had said “I do”, at which time, I came to realize that I was married to a control freak extraordinaire. It was something I thought I could handle. In the end, however, it was something that handled me.

At first, I just thought he was being bossy. Simple things like which movie we went to or where we should dine out were decisions he thought he and he alone should make and for a while that was OK. I saw this as a series of compromises rather than what it truly was and because I thought that a successful and sustainable marriage was all about the art of compromise I made the decision to go with the flow. That is until the flow began to drown me in unrelenting waves. Compromise, evidently, was not in the man’s emotional vocabulary.

As the years marched on so did my husband’s need to run the show and his control issues became more and more prevalent.  I could have played along with him, pretended to be Daddy’s little girl (which, once again, sounds like it should have been a lot more fun than it was) but instead I played the part of the rebellious teenager who had no intention of complying with his crap. This went over like a lead balloon and made him push harder, as he began to dictate what I could wear, whom I could have over to the house, where I could go and what time I was expected home as well as when we had sex and what we ate for dinner.

In my heart of hearts I knew the end was near but the final straw came in the guise of a lost puppy I brought home one rainy afternoon. When my husband told me “We’re not keeping that dog!” and I replied that yes we were, I decided to choose the furry bundle of joy with freakishly large ears over his demanding and unrelenting behavior and let me tell you, it was not a difficult decision to make. By the way, I still have the dog. My husband? Well, you know how that turned out.