I am so so so fed up with this! I don't think H feels good about himself until he can find fault with something I am doing! I NEVER used to second guess things I did until I met him. Now every time he shows up in the kitchen while I'm trying to get something ready I basically freeze and wait for him to leave because no matter what I do he will tell me it needs to be done differently. I don't think he could find anything wrong with what I was doing a few weeks ago but then he just had to turn the burner down EVER so slightly to feel good about himself. We were playing darts at a bar this past weekend and he says to me "When you hand these to me can you PLEASE grab them by the tips so I have something to grab onto?" You are joking right? You are going to berate me for how I am handing you the darts??!! I was winding up the hose yesterday after watering the yard (I apparently watered correctly as I heard no comment on how I was doing it wrong!) but of course he is watching me wind up the hose and goes "Can you PLEASE make the loops longer? You make them so small when you wind it over the holder." Then he proceeds to take it out of my hand and show me how to do it like I am a total idiot! Why the HELL does it matter if the loops are big or little?? We went to the zoo on Saturday and it is a maze of pathways and I never knew which direction to go. He always wants me to walk ahead of him and so when I take a wrong turn he puts on a big production of "Where are you going? Geez you are going to get us lost?" You know where you are going so why the hell don't you lead! Or do you enjoy berating me for going the wrong way?
And if I hear "What ARE you doing?" from him ONE MORE TIME I am going to lose it! If I walk in and out of a room more than twice while he is sitting there, I'll hear it. If I go out into the garage and don't come out after 30 seconds he'll come in and ask it. If I walk in and out of the house a few times doing chores I'll hear it. It's like if I'm not sitting still in the living room in front of the tv where he knows I am then he's always suspicious of me. I even told him "You should just get that tatooed on your forehead!" which he thought was hilarious! I don't care if he's trying to be funny by saying that all the time, it's not funny. It's annoying as hell to constantly be asked what I'm doing!
(((hugs))) mapper.... I can
Submitted by copingSAH on
(((hugs))) mapper.... I can relate to a lot of what you are going through. I sometimes have to go through an entire day of micromanaging for no reason and find I wake up the next day with severe aches all over my body from depression.
I sometimes need to call him out on it in public, then he leaves me alone because I've embarrassed him. I find my spouse will simmer down when he's embarrassed,.. He honestly doesn't seem to be aware of what he's saying/demanding, let alone what others are saying to him when he's in public and distracted. It's more like puffing himself up and needing complete strangers to validate him. It almost sounds as if he's repeating what his own father said to him and his mother as a child... just overlord of the family and your basic tyrant from another generation....
my father is a narcissist and he watches me and my mother preparing food like a hawk and then he comes to the "rescue" by calling us idiots or shaking his head as if we've done something outrageously stupid. There have been so many times I have been ridiculed in front of relatives as a child that I still freeze up whenever there is someone who exhibits similar behaviors as my father. My father, too, will never ever take the lead. He will wait on the sidelines and all of a sudden be the hero micromanager because we are just so "clueless". Or he'll say, "you do whatever you want but if you make a mistake don't come running to me. I have nothing to do with your choices." After decades of this I know beyond a doubt that there is no help for my father who must hate himself so much that he needs to inflict confusion on others to feel a little better but we all know that is the not the approach to healing oneself (ADD or not). My mother is just a shadow of a person because of this abuse.
My ADD spouse is a micromanager too. More in the slug thread :(
Control
Submitted by Standing on
Well it's to the point now
Submitted by Mapper (not verified) on
Well it's to the point now where I just bite my tongue and say "Oh thank you dear" when he tells me something.
He tells me that he wishes I knew how to ride a motorcycle so we could both have our own and go on trips. Are you kidding me?? If I can't wind up a hose correctly what on earth makes you think I can even begin to ride a motorcycle correctly!
Bloody and bruised
Submitted by Standing on
All that tongue biting hurts. I still recommend something like cat-puffing and at least learning to smile inwardly to yourself, rather than absorbing his stuff into yourself and stewing about it. Find something funny to think of! Years ago, I read a comment about dealing with narcissists: when he starts carrying on, recite that old rhyme in your head: Fuzzy wuzzy was a bear, fuzzy wuzzy had no hair... lol. It works!!!
Motorcycles - o yes. He is going to get the longer seat on his, so I can ride along. Nope, not happening. Around and around goes his talk about it, but my response is always the same. "Not my thing. Not into it. Nope. Not happenin."
You must intimidate the beans out of him, Mapper, for him to be so fixated on teaching you something so that he can feel one-up on you! Maybe if you can grow past the stuffed anger, he will change his tune!
Micromanagement.... UGH!
Submitted by Icefishinglady on
I've moved away now but sure can relate to this. There was ALWAYS a "better" way to do something - "why don't you - this is how I do it - blah blah blah".
I felt like a child being instructed in things I've been doing for 40+ years. Laundry, cooking, etc. It was ridiculous - and despite my assertively saying that I was perfectly fine doing it the way I was accustomed to doing it, and that the end result was what mattered, and that I felt annoyed and irritated - he kept doing it. I guess he just could not help it; part of that impulse control problem.
Most of the time, I'm glad I left. It's hard, but I have a lot of peace in my life now, and the pain will pass.