Quote: Here's why, distilled from the resulting conversation: She thought I was being "paternalistic." She thought I was being controlling, by dropping off and picking up DD5, and even by putting my arm around her. WTF?
Here's what I told her: I really like that place. I feel comfortable there. What you're seeing as controlling behavior, is confidence. You just aren't used to seeing it in me.
She "kind of" apologized, in that she said she was kind of stressed and probably over-reacted; but she also said that I needed to be sensitive to that, and "tone it down."
My opinion is that you should revisit the conversation, HD. Because your confidence needs to extend into your marriage.
"Now that I am aware that you find my arm around you as insulting, I will not do that again during service. But, when it comes to my daughter, I am her father and I am going to express my fatherhood in my own way. I am not going to squelch my relationship with my daughter to fit into whatever your current sensitivity might be. I am not going to allow your personal sensitivities to control my reletainship with my daughter."
It's bad enough that she insists on forcing you, squelching you and squeezing you into some convuluted mold in order to bypass her irritations in your marriage.
But, I would make farking sure that she doesn't extend that crazy-making control into your relationship with your daughter.
And I would let her know it. This would be one issue that I wouldn't passively avoid. I would be farking raging at this.
Daughters need dads, and they don't need their relationship with their dad to be forced through some maternal filter.
Whatever you do, don't willingly give up the church attendance, because I can see this becoming a wedge in the missus's control issues and she's not going to like it.
