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 The Dating Doctor
The Dating Doctor, Serena Mackesy, brings her hard-won dating wisdom to bear on your problems. You can drop Serena a line about your own dating conundrums and catch up with her words of wisdom here every week. Read her latest advice here.
How To Disguise Your Control Issues...
October 30, 2006
LW writes:
"He just baffled me. He went all out and spent a small fortune on me but we couldn't connect intimately for anything. He would do all kinds of chores for me: cooking, fixing my car and so forth. But very little time was spent in bed and when it was, he complained. He also complained that I was too tall, that my legs are too long... Twice he threw me out of his place after failed sex. On three occasions - out of about 7 total, believe it or not, we did have good sex - but he just kept ignoring those and grousing about the bad episodes. I remember one time in bed he said, "I dunno what the problem is here with you - I could f*** a stranger easily. I've been known to go all nite with other women..." Do you think he did all the chores and the gifts to win me over and then when he couldn't perform, just kept doing them slavishly to somehow keep me interested?
No, I don't think he's that calculating. But he has massive, ugly intimacy issues and you should run a mile, because though people with them aren't as dangerous as, say, psychopaths, they can only damage the people they get involved with. The guy's not meaning to manipulate and confuse. Hell, he's probably even keen on you. But he's never going to be able to express it without a good deal of therapy, and everything will always be your fault.
People with intimacy issues often use helpfulness as a way of disguising them. After all, you can't have too many profound conversations with your head stuck down a u-bend. One should also be wary of people who are over-keen to fix you up when they first meet you because it's usually a sign of some pretty profound control issues, as well. By coming in and finding all these things in your world that need fixing - and not waiting to be asked - he's basically saying that you can't fix them yourself, or even notice that they need attention. Think how annoying that would be, long-term.
Here, also, is a simple rule that no one, of any gender or sexual persuasion, should ever ignore: if someone makes a big deal of the great sex they have had with strangers when they're in bed with you early on in a relationship, run for it. It's not just bad manners; it's a big statement of attitude. It's basically saying this: "I can't do sex with people I know. It's too dangerous. It makes me too vulnerable. Get too close to me and I will punish you. And in the process I will undermine you sense of self-worth, your sexual confidence and probably your body image. And once I've done that, I'll be able to say you're not the person I thought you were and I can get out and go back to having sex with strangers again."
Sack him. And stop beating yourself up. The "real" him was the complainer, not the helpful handyman. You've had a lucky escape.
Read Serena's latest advice here.
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