Ah Ha, lets take this a step further. This is enlightening for me as well, as I was the "controlling" spouse.
He/I/We get short fused and distant, because we need you to need us. That's how we define our self worth - through you/her. Or at least that's what I think was happening, until I got turned on by detachment. And yes it is a controlling thing. The moodiness and anger are controlling behaviors.
We know the buzz words "Ooooh, yes, I want an independent wife. I want you to be strong and self-sufficient." We say it but we don't believe it. We say it because it's PC, it's what you want to hear from us. But really what we want is for you to be miserable with out us, that way we can go fishing, golfing, drinking or whatever and our dutiful little wifey will be sitting home with our kids too afraid to say anything for fear of losing a loser like us.
Yikes, C4H is starting to bring himself down. F that let's talk about sex.
