Reader’s Question

I have been dating this guy for about a year and a half. I am 19 and he is 21. Take into consideration that we are very young. He is way more wild than I am, drinking and hanging out with friends, while I am very domesticated, and want a clean and quiet house hold. We tried living together awhile back but his controlling behavior forced me to leave. When we got back together I was in no hurry to move back in, but now we have talked about it. He has always been the bread winner and showed (verbally) some resentment toward me because I am not financially independent because I am a full time college student. He expresses to me continuously my immaturity and how I always need to change — whether it be that I need to be more affectionate, more lovey, more outgoing, more sexual, less adult like, everything! It makes me think he does not like me at all! He also tries to make me feel bad about not having a very high sex drive and letting him down sexually. He even told me he feels he should get sex whenever he wants, no matter what! Of course I laughed.

He never takes responsibility for his wrongs, he always has excuses. And I have noticed over time that he may be a compulsive liar. He will lie about really dumb stuff like sending a letter off or who an email was from. He knows I would not be mad about any of it but he still lies. This makes me think he could be lying about bigger things. He is also still a bit controlling, not wanting me to be friends with males, and every time I see him (which is every day) he looks through my texts, asks why I deleted them, my call list, asks why I talked to this person this long. I tell him I am not giving up my friends because of his low self-esteem and lack of confidence. I have never given him a reason not to trust me but he really treats me like I am unfaithful. I do have to say my self-esteem is not affected: nothing he does threatens my confidence in myself, and I do not walk on egg shells. Although I have to explain some stuff I am not scared of him in any way, in fact I have more control over him then he does me. After reading your relationship stuff, I realized that I have some stuff to work on. But is it worth working on? Is it going anywhere? Knowing he is lucky to even have me, why does he not worship me as the wonderful woman I am? I know I am better than all the complaints that he tells me, so why does he have so many things about me he wants to change?

Salvagable or disposable?

It should be noted his father is a psychologist and runs a mental hospital, but I don’t think that his dad brought his work home with him.

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

What you see is what you get! This is his personality. He doesn’t really want to change you, he just wants you to be under his control…and he’s willing to chip away and destroy your self-esteem to gain control. Keep in mind that he doesn’t have low self-esteem or a lack of confidence — he considers your friends a threat to his control.

Controllers have little concern about the quality of their partner. Their concern is control and manipulation. You have your life and career ahead of you. Maintain your control of your life. If he’s not mature enough to accept your independence and respect you, move on with your life.