My Boyfriend Is Turning Me Into A Control Freak & I Hate It

I’ve always been somewhat of a “my way or the highway” type girl but I thought I was growing out of it—that is until I started dating someone who made me feel like in order for stuff to get done, I was the one who had to make it happen.

  1. He can never make a decision. Which means it’s always up to me. I have to decide where we’re going, when, what time, and with who. Don’t get me wrong, there are times when I like having this power, but I don’t always want to be the one calling the shots. I want him to come at me with a concrete plan, not a barely thought-out idea that took 30 minutes and several “umm”s to communicate.
  2. When he tries to change plans, I freak out. When I make a plan, I expect it to go ahead as scheduled, but sometimes my boyfriend will get himself all juiced up and decide to alter the plans I had to make because he couldn’t make them himself. This turns me into one of those annoying moms who freaks out at her kids for saying one little thing she didn’t want to hear.
  3. He’s a literal mess and it’s gross. My boyfriend doesn’t even live with me and I still find myself constantly cleaning up after him. How wild is that?! He comes over after work, takes a shower (after he throws his sweaty clothes on my floor), dries off (and proceeds to throw his wet towel on my floor), grabs a beer, and then plops on my couch. Not only is there always a slightly musty smell in my apartment that I don’t enjoy, but his crap is everywhere and it’s like pulling teeth to get him to clean up after himself.
  4. I feel like I’m always nagging him. I’m not one to suffer in silence—I’ve never been attracted to that lifestyle. When my boyfriend leaves a mess, I tell him about that mess because clearly he has selective eyesight and can’t see it. I honestly feel like I’m the most annoying person half the time when I talk to him because of the stuff I’m saying. Pick up your clothes. Use a coaster. Did you wash your hands? It’s endless.
  5. His spending habits don’t make sense to me. I’m sorry, but I can’t help myself from judging the way some people spend their money, especially my boyfriend. He has a habit of dropping thousands on what I deem to be random crap—old-school antiques, car products, hiking goods, etc. I wouldn’t have a problem with this if he wasn’t constantly telling me how he wanted to buy a house together, get married, and so on. These things can’t happen if he’s dropping his savings on unnecessary items!
  6. I don’t completely trust him. I don’t think he’s going to cheat on me or anything, but I don’t trust him to make certain decisions. When it comes to planning for a trip, I’d rather do it because he has issues making decisions. When it comes to finances, I’d rather be in charge of those because he never seems to think things through. It almost feels like I’m dating a kid or a man with Peter Pan syndrome.
  7. He’s kind of a liar. Not a huge liar, but he definitely doesn’t always say things that are 100% true. For example, when we started dating, he told me he was going to start lifting weights to get his muscles back (where they went, I couldn’t tell you). He made this huge deal out of wanting to eat healthy, workout, etc… but I never saw him do it. He wasn’t going to the gym, he was stuffing his face with fried food every chance he got and that drove me insane—not because he wasn’t eating healthy, but because he kept saying he was even though he wasn’t.
  8. He rarely opens up. He’s been hurt in the past, so he’s not exactly the most vocal guy. I try to be understanding about his inability to express his feelings aloud to me, but sometimes I get annoyed. After a year of being together, I’d like to hear how serious he is about our future and how much he loves me, and I’d like it if he could express those emotions on his own without me having to ask… and ask… and ask…
  9. I have a hard time supporting him. I want to support everything he does, I really do, but it’s not that easy because what he wants is constantly changing. One day he wants to be an entrepreneur, the next he wants to work for a tech company. I can never keep up and it gets exhausting trying to do so. I feel like I’m nagging him whenever I ask what his plans are but it’s scary to emotionally invest in a guy who doesn’t seem to know how to make the decisions adults need to make.
  10. I hate that I have to be on his case all the time. Contrary to what people might think about me, I don’t enjoy feeling like I’m in control of every situation. I do like having the knowledge and street savviness to make big decisions, but I want my partner to do the same. We should be equals and feel like we’re in this together. I don’t want to baby him any more than he wants me to.
Jordan White is a writer based in Scottsdale, Arizona with more than 8 years of experience. She graduated from Northern Arizona University with a degree in Rhetoric and Creative Writing in 2015 and while there, she wrote for The Daily Wildcat. She has since written for sites including FanBread, and, of course, Bolde. You can find about more her on Facebook. She has a passion for giving her audience something to laugh about and despises the heat more than anything.
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