Wondering if You're Marrying a Control Freak

I hear that you feel controlled by your fiance's behavior, hence your labelling her a control freak. What you need to understand is that her controlling actions are a symptom of a deeper problem. That is, she is trying to control your behavior towards her in an attempt to manage terrible feelings inside herself. She thinks that if she can get you to stop doing what is upsetting to her that her own inner pain will cease.

What are these terrible feelings that she's trying to escape? I can see that she is hurt and angry when she feels neglected and she is terrified to be rejected by you. Notice that both examples you supplied show that she becomes upset whenever you behave in a way that makes her feel dropped or disregarded. Instead of owning these feelings, she tries to control your behavior (to get you to stop what you're doing) in order to make the bad feelings inside herself go away.

It sounds like she is no stranger to rejection. She watched her mother being cheated on and then her husband cheated on her. There is no doubt that she is frightened that you are going to do the same. That explains why she vigilantly scans the environment for signs of your disinterest; it's as if she is waiting in the bushes, fully armed and ready to jump on you when you show any hint of disinterest. Your fiance acts like a trauma victim: she is hypersensitive and intensely reactive to actions that happen to be reminiscent of her previous trauma. Each time you seem to not care, she is reminded of previous rejections. What's more, she is braced for the trauma to occur again, which explains why she often reacts to you as though you were on the verge of dumping her.

Now the question is what can you do with this understanding. Use your feelings as your guide. Whenever you feel controlled, get her talking about her fear of rejection. You might help her to identify her feelings using the following question. 'I'm trying to understand how you feel when I do or say X, Y or Z?' You might also say, 'I have the impression that you think that I am not interested in you when I do or say X, Y or Z. ' If you focus on getting her to talk about how she feels when you say or do something and focus off of her demand that you stop behaving in a certain way, you will feel less controlled and furious and she will be helped to address and resolve the real issue.

I think you would also be wise to develop better partial identification skills. Partial identification consists of keeping a permanent finger on your partner's emotional pulse. By this I mean, before you say or do anything, you want to be thinking, 'How are my words or actions going to land with my mate? How will he/she feel if I say or do X, Y or Z?' This is a very cumbersome process at first, but it eventually becomes second nature. When you hone this skill, you will soon realize before it's too late that many of the things that you feel tempted to say or do might land as rejecting. Had you been more skilled at partial identification, you might not have chosen to get up and leave the room while she was speaking to you; or you might have thought to say, 'I'm listening. . . I just need a glass of water.' 

I also need to make you aware of another relationship hotspot that you may be stepping into without knowing it. When you announced your decision to stay at your own house one night, you presented your intention as a fait accompli decision. The problem is that this decision had an impact on her--she felt dropped, rejected, unconsidered, etc. . Mind you, I am not saying that you need to ask permission to go home. I am saying that it's important to discuss all matters, big and small, to ask for your mate's input and feelings before taking actions or making any decisions that impact on your mate.

To do what I am suggesting sounds like this, 'I was thinking about staying at my house tonight and wanted to know how you feel about this. ' Making room for your partner's feelings makes her feel loved and cared for and heads off a sense of rejection. When a woman feels considered, it is easy for her to give you your space. When she feels dropped and unconsidered, she becomes clingy, controlling or demanding. Even a woman who isn't sensitive to rejection would have problems with a unilateral decision like the one you made. So work on your partial identification skills, make no more one-sided decisions, and use your feeling of being controlled to encourage her to talk about her own feelings of fear and you should be fine.