Am I being controlling or are they?

Control is a pattern that shrinks someone’s world: watching where they go, deciding who they see, holding the money, and making them pay for saying no. Two people with kids, exes and two calendars arguing about schedules is usually friction, and if you’re asking whether the pattern is yours, the honest way to find out is to look at what you do, not at who started the fight.

Why does it feel like you’re both doing it?

Meet Femi, 44. He runs operations for a regional hospital network, has his kids (9 and 12) every other week, and has been with Simone, 45, for fourteen months. She has a 16-year-old son and a standing Sunday call with her ex about him.

Lately the arguments go like this. Simone moves their Friday because her son’s game was rescheduled, and Femi asks, more sharply than he means to, why her ex can’t cover it. Femi spends twenty minutes talking with his own ex at the Sunday handoff, and Simone asks why it takes so long. He pays for most of their dinners and has started commenting on what she spends. On a Saturday last month, he texted three times to ask where she was.

Lying awake, he typed the question into his phone. Am I the controlling one, or is she?

Here’s the useful part. The fights about Friday and the handoff are about scarce time, which is ordinary when two co-parenting calendars meet. The three texts are a different kind of thing. They’re about her movements, not the schedule.

What separates friction from control?

Friction is a disagreement about something you share: a date, a budget, a holiday. Control is about the other person’s freedom, and it usually comes with a cost for not going along.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline, on a page written for people worried about their own behavior, suggests asking yourself whether you get angry or possessive about your partner’s other relationships, frequently monitor where they go, feel they need your permission to go out or see people, or get upset when they won’t act the way you want.1 Notice that every one of those questions is about the other person’s life, not your shared calendar.

Money belongs here too. The National Network to End Domestic Violence describes financial abuse as gaining control over someone’s economic resources, for example by taking over the household finances, withholding money or keeping a partner from having their own account, and reports that it occurs in 99% of domestic violence cases.2 Covering more of the dinners isn’t control. Using that to comment on, approve or restrict how she spends her own money starts to point that way.

Then there’s the phone. In a national survey of 4,562 Australian adults, monitoring and controlling behaviors were the most common form of technology-facilitated abuse, and it happened most often between current or former partners.3 The same research estimated that about one in four adults will perpetrate it at some point.3 It isn’t rare, and it isn’t only something other people do.

So be plain about it. Checking a phone or location without asking, controlling money, cutting someone off from friends or family, threats, intimidation and punishing with days of silence are not normal relationship friction. One sharp question on a bad Friday is a moment. A month of tracking is a pattern.

Who gets to decide about the kids?

Mostly, each parent decides about their own children, together with their other parent. Who the kids see, when they meet a partner and how they’re disciplined starts there. Michigan State University Extension advises that in blended families the biological parent should handle most of the discipline while the new partner builds a relationship, in a mindset of “connection versus correction.”4

So if you’ve started setting rules for your partner’s kids, or for when they see their other parent, step back, even if your intentions are good. If your partner is the one deciding who your kids can see, or treating a co-parenting call as a betrayal, notice that too. Contact with a co-parent is part of the arrangement, not a threat. Using kids to carry messages, keep tabs or win an argument is something else, and worth taking to a professional.

What if you think it’s you?

Then you’re already doing the hardest part, which is looking. A respectful path tends to look like this:

• Name the behavior without the reason attached. “I texted three times to ask where she was,” not “I was worried because…”
• Stop the monitoring now. If you track a location, read messages or ask for passwords, stop. You don’t need anyone’s permission to stop.
• Take responsibility without asking to be comforted. An apology that ends in “but you…” or needs reassurance puts the work back on her.
• Get help on your own. A licensed therapist can help you understand where the urge comes from. The Hotline’s advocates also talk with people concerned about their own behavior and can help find an intervention program nearby.1 As the Hotline puts it, reaching out is a first step, and changing the behavior is what matters.1

None of this erases harm already done. It makes it less likely to continue.

What if you think it’s them?

Don’t confront it. If your partner monitors you, controls the money, keeps you from people, or you feel afraid of how they’ll react, a confrontation can make things less safe. Talk to someone you trust, and contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline linked on this page. Its advocates can help you make a personal safety plan, whether you’re staying for now, preparing to leave or already out.5 You don’t need to be sure it’s abuse to call.

What to do this week

• Write four lines about the last tense moment. Femi’s: what happened, “I texted three times on Saturday.” The reading, “She’s pulling away.” The fear, “Being left the way my marriage ended.” The next step, “No more check-in texts. Call a therapist Monday.”
• Ask the Hotline’s questions of yourself first, honestly, before you ask them of anyone else.
• Turn off anything that tracks someone without a clear, freely given yes.
• Tell one person: a friend, a therapist or an advocate.
• Get licensed help if the worry is constant, or it’s affecting your sleep, work or patience with your kids.

What doesn’t the research show?

• The Hotline’s questions are prompts for reflection, not a test that labels anyone.1
• The 99% figure comes from an advocacy fact sheet, not a study you can review on the page.2
• The technology survey was Australian, and its estimates may not match the U.S.3
• The stepfamily guidance is practitioner advice, not a trial.4
• None of this can tell you what your partner intends, or settle who is “the controlling one.” It can help you see what each of you is actually doing.