IS YOUR PARTNER DRIVING YOU CRAZY??

Get your own glass of water,” she replied—and that was the end of the relationship. She saw the request as an attempt to control her. She’d grown up with a military father who was always telling people what to do, and she was not about to enter such a situation voluntarily. He was astonished by her refusal.
Feeling controlled is one of the most common—40 percent, in one study—relationship complaints. “We human beings don’t like to be told what to do,” says John Jacobs. The real problem may not be your partner’s behaviour but the way you label it. “What one person experiences as control, another might experience as love and caring,” explains Madanes. “The art of relationships is turning things around even if the other is not collaborating.”
To make a relationship work, it’s best to attribute good intentions to your partner, says Madanes. Instead of seeing your partner as controlling, ask yourself what’s motivating them. A partner who doesn’t want you to go out with your friends may be scared of being abandoned. A partner who is second-guessing your decisions may be worried about you. “I never feel controlled,” says Madanes. “I never think in those terms. Instead, I would think he’s overprotective, or he’s driven by fear.”
Besides recasting your partner’s behaviour as well-intentioned, ask yourself what your partner needs but doesn’t seem to be getting. Expressions of love? Certainty that you’ll be there and not leave? Committing to satisfying your partner’s needs intensely and totally will most likely transform the whole relationship.
The woman who refused her boyfriend the glass of water might better have plumbed the underlying issue and discussed her upbringing. “She could have explained that his question triggered an emotional allergy and made her resentful,” suggests therapist Lori Gordon, “and it would help if he knew that.”

6: Not feeling intimate
A couple, both young, successful lawyers, wanted a baby. But they had begun fighting in a way that made them feel hopeless about the relationship. Once home from work, she wanted to discuss their money problems; all he wanted was quiet. She’d follow him from room to room as he tried to escape conversation, ultimately planting herself in his path. Then he’d push her. By the time they sought therapy, they’d concluded they couldn’t bring a child into such a violent environment.
Madanes said there was something the husband could do, but it was difficult and she wasn’t sure he could do it. “I can do it,” the husband insisted.
“In the future, whenever she begins to go after you and wants to discuss money—whether at home, at a party, on the street—put your hand under her blouse or her skirt and fondle her.”
“You’re not going to do that!” said the woman. “Oh yes I am!” said the man.
Not only did the tactic successfully interrupt the pattern of angry confrontation, it transformed it into a playful and warm dynamic. Within a month, she was pregnant.
Like all relationship irritants, lack of intimacy is a two-way street. If you’re meeting all your partner’s needs and filling him or her up with love daily, you’ll both feel warm and close. “I hear so many men say, ‘my wife suddenly left me, and I can’t understand why, I gave her everything,’” says Madanes. “I say, ‘You gave her everything except what she needed!’”
7: Flirting
Feeling a lack of closeness often manifests itself in flirting with others. The flirting may be innocent in that it doesn’t lead anywhere, but it can be hurtful and humiliating to a partner. “Flirting is a call!” says Robbins. “It says, ‘Please notice me!’ A partner who flirts is invariably searching for playfulness, attention and fulfillment.”
If your significant other is flirting with others, says Madanes, look beyond your own hurt feelings and ask yourself what your partner is looking for. And then ask yourself, “What am I doing to provoke this? What does my partner need?” For some, it may be having chores done unbidden, such as taking out the trash; for others it may be quality time; for still others it’s being prioritised. All may be paths to passion.
8: Personality conflict
Annoyance arises from difference. For every person complaining that a partner is a certain way, the partner may be complaining about the opposite. You may feel your spouse is too social, but he may see you as a hermit. Much irritation can be avoided just by understanding the differences between you and your partner—and accepting that it’s OK, even inevitable, to be different.
Almost invariably, says Gordon, we make the mistake of assuming that our partner has the same needs we do. Or we regard needs different from ours as less valid, less worthy of being fulfilled. Even the most well-intentioned among us has a tendency to give our partners what we want, not what they want.
You’re an introvert; you restore your energy in private. Your partner is an extrovert. After one hour at a party, you want to leave; she’s just getting going. “This sort of difference is the seed of countless arguments,” says Gordon.
To help couples understand how irritations arise from personality differences, Gordon gives them personality tests.
For many, seeing hard evidence that a partner has a fundamentally different personality helps them stop resisting the differences and become more willing to accommodate them.
When you want to leave early, it’s not because you don’t care about your partner, explains Gordon. When your partner wants to stay, it’s not for lack of caring about you. You could resolve the difference by agreeing beforehand to go home separately—you early, her later. Both of you have to accept the difference and not hold grudges about it.
9: Lack of fairness
One of the toughest aspects of a relationship is negotiating the competing interests that inevitably arise. Who does the household chores? How do you split holiday time with two sets of parents? Who decides where you go on vacation?
Such issues often manifest themselves in complaints about lack of fairness. One partner feels the other isn’t holding up the other end of the bargain. But as with all irritants, it’s a matter of perspective.
One irony is that couples who try to slice all responsibilities down the middle wind up the least happy. Research indicates that’s because in trying to be scrupulously fair, they spend all their time measuring, comparing, and arguing over where the dividing line falls.
It’s more important for each partner to feel like they’re giving and getting roughly equally, albeit in different domains. Dividing responsibility by preference and ability eliminates competition and opportunities for measuring your partner’s performance against your own. Madanes suggests that both partners agree on which realms each will be in charge of, allocating responsibility for the car, taxes, social relationships, and so on.
Far better, says Jacobs, is to adopt a quid pro quo system. Rather than seek a middle position that offends neither but pleases neither, agree to do it your way sometimes and their way other times. This time, your partner chooses the movie, but you pick next time.
You both have to surrender to the plan: When you’re at your partner’s movie, you try to enjoy it—and not complain or ruin it for your partner.
continues next week