Being a Control Freak Made Me a Better Mother and a Worse Wife

As season 3 of “The Valley” comes to a close, Janet Caperna spoke publicly about a need to be right that has at times made her unlikeable. She’s a self-admitted control freak, a label to which I can very much relate. Whether it’s an admirable trait or not, I share the classic traits of impatience, urgency, and elevated levels of stress and anxiety associated with a Type A personality. 

While fans and viewers have witnessed (and harshly criticized) the reality TV star’s disposition and its impact on her relationships, being a control freak has had a positive effect on my marriage. 

My husband has an uncanny ability to coast through life with the chill nonchalance often associated with bohemian flower people. Very little rattles him, and there’s rarely any sense of urgency to making decisions or getting things done. I am by default the decision maker, the planner, the coordinator of our lives and the lives of our children. We could not be more opposite, which is, in part, what makes our marriage work. 

An electrical engineer, he holds two master’s degrees, one of which is an MBA. He understands how to communicate with satellites while I’m still dumbfounded that music comes through the radio. For all his smarts and charm, though, it’s often a mystery to me that he’s able to get anything done at work because he doesn’t seem to understand how to use a calendar. 

As our children’s lives became increasingly over-scheduled, I insisted that we use Apple’s shared family calendar to track everything from dentist appointments to gymnastics and cheer practice. Still, my husband asked, “Do we have anything going on this weekend?”

“Are you kidding me? You know what I have to do? I have to pull out my phone and look at the calendar to find out,” I barked at him. 

He looked at me confused as if he had no idea why the question enraged me. 

“Okay, geez. Sorry,” he said and he meant it. This is a problem of my own making. I am the family organizer, yet I get angry when my husband and children come to me with questions that they should be able to answer on their own with the information I have shared with them in our common space. 

When technology failed to solve the problem, I turned to hanging a massive dry erase board on the wall of our kitchen that lists out–in different colors–everyone’s schedules for the entire month. Now, he will look at the board and kindly point out things that I have missed (without grabbing a pen to fill in said event). 

“Check the big board,” has become the running joke in our house, but it’s less funny when I’m the one saying it. 

“Instead of getting mad, you could help the situation by just reminding me that it’s on the board,” my husband recently said.

“That’s funny because no one is reminding me to check the board or to fill out the board in the first place,” I snapped back. 

In her interview, Caperna admitted, “there were parts of myself that I saw that were absolutely who I am that I didn’t necessarily like…I gotta watch how I’m speaking to people, because that isn’t coming off very likable or fun.” It’s conversations like these–in the quiet solitude of our marriage–that I’ve had that same recognition.

But there have also been those nights when my husband’s inaction makes the case for my controlling tendencies. Unlike me, he does not worry about much, and that laissez-faire attitude can sometimes be risky.

Like the time our then two-year-old daughter was running a fever and not taking any liquids. 

“I think we should go to the emergency room,” I said.

“It’s a fever. It will work itself out,” he said.

My powerlessness and inability to help my daughter consumed me, and I wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“I’m taking her,” I insisted.

“I don’t think that’s necessary but ok,” he said dismissively.

An hour later, I called to let him know that we were being admitted to the hospital. They were administering an IV because our daughter was so dehydrated. We spent two nights in the hospital.

My need-to-control in one situation got my daughter the IV she needed, but it is, unfortunately, the same trait that made me snap at my husband for asking what we're doing on Saturday. 

Not being liked, especially by my husband, made me reflect on what it’s like to be on the receiving end of my words. I’ve learned that I can be right or I can be married. If I want to be happily married, I have to focus on the only thing I can actually control: my own behavior.