No offense, but you and I are very much alike. My wife is also very controlling. I have ratcheted up my assertiveness over the years to hold on to what little control I thought I had. She on the other hand says I have all the control. But we are both right in that we each have the majority of control over different issues. She controls the kids. I control the finances. And until we each control everything, we feel the other has control.
What I have learned (and am still trying to pound into her thick head) is that I do not have bad intentions. Because of her FOO, she assumes a male with control is a disaster waiting to happen. Her parents divorced and her father abandoned the family. So she thinks I will do the same, and the more dependent she is on me the scarier this all seems. So like Happy Giant’s wife, she engages in a certain amount of self deprecation in order to stay off the pedestal and focuses on the negative in order to create and maintain distance and thus safety, at least in her mind.
I have a narcissistic mother from whom I have learned control tactics, deflection, deferral. This meshes nicely with my wife’s FOO to make an intractable mess. What I have had to do is confront my behavior exactly as you are doing, hold onto myself when I felt the panic of separation and abandonment breathing down my neck, and assure myself it would all pass and things would be fine in a few days. After noting this process a few times, I can to realize this was true and I did not need to push to “resolve” a dispute. That push always made things worse. My wife always said she needed space. My read of that was so she could further distance, further build her defenses, further prepare for divorce.
Learning to differentiate and to let her steep in her pain and anger, knowing that is it her problem, not mine to fix, helped me deal with these blowups. Now she is able to resume cordial conversations the next day, rather than being cold, angry and silent for weeks (at the beginning of our marriage, the normal length of this was 2-3 weeks!) She may still be upset and angry, but she is learning to hold onto herself.
I have also placed some of my faith in her by assuming she will not do anything bad, that she does not have evil intentions, and give her the benefit of the doubt. Without his “leap of faith” I could not move forward. It is a necessary condition.
One other thing… the danger with throwing around power is that you just might achieve what you threaten to achieve. Equally dangerous is that you do not achieve what you threaten. Having your ultimatum called without following through leaves you powerless. The next time you need to up the ante. At some point, your spouse will just not respond, like your wife is doing now. If you decide to follow through on your threat, the damage can be irreversible. That is why setting boundaries and letting your wife hang herself is so much better. She has no one to blame but herself. You are off the hook. (When she does hang herself, don’t be happy about it, at least on the outside. That will only tick her off, thinking you somehow trapped her.)
So you seem to be faced with the same model. Perhaps my path can help you. It’s a very hard, complicated “game.” Schnarch can REALLY help. The good news is that you are now approaching the bottom, if you aren’t there already. You have confronted the hard realizations about yourself and survived. You are now unchained. Any further self evaluation will be much easier to deal with. While the future may hold a lot of hard work and frustration for you and your wife, you are in a MUCH better place now to deal with it in a constructive manner. Look up, the sun is coming out!
