BPDFamily.com

Hi.

Simple question. My now ex BPD gf has consistently accused me of being controlling. Eg cant tell her she looks nice in something cause that implies i want her to wear it so its controlling. Putting my arm around her is controlling. Asking what she did with her day is controlling. The list is endless.

Is this common and why do they accuse other of it? Its her big weapon to beat me with and theres absolutely no way of countering it.

"Controlling" is so nebulous it can mean anything to them.  The only (only) reason my xW could give for destroying the marriage and family was that she had to get away from my "control".  I really reflected on this, dug deep, but could never really understand what it was that I "controlled".  She had her career (I helped start and build it, but then bowed out), we bought a house 3 blocks from her FOO, sent the kids to the schools she wanted to, etc.   I could never come up with anything of substance that I controlled.

"Controlling" to me always reflected restraint, maturity, responsibility and integrity.  The opposite to "out of control".

For her, it clearly meant something else. 

Yeah, I got that a lot, toward the end, and I never really understood it. Early in my dating days, I had some controlling tendencies -- quizzing my girlfriend about where she had been and with whom, demanding responses, and the like. Bad habits that I chalk up to immaturity and inexperience, but ones I cured myself of (after being dumped several times) in my 20s.

My BPDw has called me controlling for: 1) offering to set up a phone app that she asked me to purchase, 2) asking to hold off on a topic she was arguing with me about until our MC session, 3) suggesting that she drop off our daughter at my house. The only pattern I can see is that any time she feels that she's not in control of a situation, it's because I'm somehow taking that control from her and withholding it out of malice.