My Husband Could No Longer Control Me

When I hit my late 30s, I tired of my husband continually getting his way. He was no longer able to control me, despite having a personality susceptible to being controlled.

I was exhausted.

Keeping someone happy can wear a person out.

You learn things in counseling. You learn things about healthy and unhealthy relationships. We’re all human. We’re imperfect.

Human is simply a synonym for imperfect.

It’s the nature of the beast.

This means the vast majority of us didn’t grow up in healthy families. In healthy families people don’t play roles. In unhealthy families we assume roles.

I was a people pleaser.

I married a golden boy.

I’ve now spent years devoted to counseling, research, and writing about love and relationships. This moment was the infancy of my journey. I would no longer allow an individual to control me.

It was the first step toward healthier relationships.

My husband didn’t view it that way.

“Everything will be fine if you just go back to being who you were,” he would say.

“It’s not going to happen,” I would reply.

I wasn’t a difficult person.

It wasn’t my personality.

He thought I was being difficult. But I could no longer do every single thing he wanted me to. I was old enough to recognize the manipulation. Counseling solidified it.

I can’t be a martyr.

My husband did control me.

But back to those family roles we can play.

I chose a man like this. His familial role matched my familiar role perfectly. The people pleaser went out into the world and married a golden boy.

The golden boy who grew up doing as he pleased.

The oldest and only boy came and went as he wanted. There were little to no demands put on him. He could do no wrong. He had few responsibilities, others made things work around him.

The golden boy married me.

The people pleaser.

I assumed my role, he assumed his.

He came and went as he pleased. He worried about himself and work. I made sure everything revolved around him. As the marriage counselor once said, “You asked nothing of him.”

I didn’t.

My psychologist marriage counselor told me I was a fixer and a pleaser. He was correct. I had been a fixer and pleaser growing up. I wanted to make sure everyone was happy.

It wasn’t difficult.

By nature, I was content.

I was a happy girl. It seemed easy to make others happy. It’s what made me happy. I didn’t realize it wasn’t a healthy quality. I didn’t realize one day I would feel drained.

I would feel I’d given my own happiness to a man.

Or that it wouldn’t turn out well when I set limits.

“Isn’t it funny,” said my sister. “The few people in your life who controlled you are furious with you now that they can no longer control you. They won’t let go of their anger. They don’t like you this way.”

“I know,” I said.

Our relationships no longer worked.

My marriage no longer worked.

I’d upset the balance.

The people pleaser was no longer the people pleaser.

It was the price of continuing in marriage counseling alone. My husband made the choice to stop. I made the choice to remain in counseling. One of us wanted a healthier relationship.

One of us wanted things to stay the same.

But it was too high a price to pay.

This people pleaser wanted to develop boundaries, and self-protective mechanisms. She wanted to prioritize things that were important to her.

Being controlled had grown too demanding.

It had become too exhausting.

I should point out the obvious. I may have married a golden boy but there are golden girls. A man can be just as controlled as a woman. A woman can need the world to revolve around her too.

Gender does not dictate the roles we play in a family.

People pleasers can be men or women.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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