Month: June 2024

“Dear Dr. Kim,

“I’ve been dating my girlfriend for five years now, but for four of those years we were long-distance while we both went to college in different states.

“We found a great place that was within our budgets and I was so excited to finally be together all the time after years of working around our crazy schedules and having to travel back and forth to enjoy just a couple of days together at a time.

“But now that we’ve made the move, I’m starting to think it was a huge mistake. She’s always been a control freak, but it seems to have trebled in intensity since we moved in.

“She obsessively vacuums the couch – THE COUCH! – every day, freaks out if there’s a single sock on the floor, or a towel that isn’t hung up on the right hook, and when we both get home from work, all she wants to do is clean and tidy, or talk about bills and budgets.

“I know I can be a bit messy so I’ve really tried hard to keep our place as tidy as possible. But I don’t want to live in a show home! I want to be able to come home and kick off my shoes by the door without panicking that she’ll get annoyed.

“It’s only been three weeks, but it already feels like moving in together has killed the romance in our relationship, and I’m scared that if we keep going down this path we are going to end up as resentful roommates rather than boyfriend and girlfriend.

“Dr. Kim, what’s the best thing to do?”

— Controlled, USA

Dear Pussywhipped:

Let me tell you:  control freaks / obsessive neatniks / do-what-mommy-says types are incurable.  All that bullshit is a great big searchlight shining away from some repressed nonsense from childhood or other serious mental issues, and it’s being directed at you.

You haven’t mentioned whether your sex life is any good.  It had better be the “blow the top off your head” kind, because otherwise you need to reconsider your relationship.

Actually, forget I said that.  No sex (of whatever excitement or variety) is worth putting up with control freakery.  Because one day the desire for sex will diminish if not disappear, and all you’ll be left with is Nurse Ratched.

Just get out now.  It’s kinda sad that it took you five years of your life to find this out — and by the way I think you’re an idiot for not having seen all the warning signs long ago — but at least you’re not married yet.  If you think Miss Controller is bad now, you have no idea what awaits you on the runup to your (actually, her) wedding day.

Oh, and ignore all the bollocks that idiot Jane Green suggests, because she’s a chick and chicks think that everything can be resolved just by talking about it.  You need to know that talking to your Controller will not achieve anything.  She is not going to change, and if you try to talk to her, all that awaits you is misery and humiliation.

You didn’t say whether the apartment is in your name or hers, or jointly.  Either way, one of you has to leave.  If the apartment is in your name, it has to be her;  if in her name or jointly, pack your bags and GTFO.

Once away from this minefield, find someone more agreeable, and start to enjoy your life.  You have no idea how much more pleasant that is going to be.

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