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If you live with a bit of a control freak – someone obsessed with tidiness and needing everything to be done a certain way – you at least probably had a break from the person before the stay-at-home order. You had your disagreements about how the household should look and be run, but you didn’t have to have them that often because you barely saw each other. At least one or likely both of you left for work every day.
Now, you’re both there, all of the time, meaning whatever messy habits you have, you’re bringing them to the home front 24/7. And whatever OCD tendencies your quarantine partner has, they’re coming out in full force. Remember that people who like to control things often tighten their grip during times of stress. Micromanaging everything is how they deal with the anxiety and stress they face in normal times, and now the whole world is stressed! So they’re in hyperdrive mode.
I don’t envy those quarantined with a control freak. My partner has some of those tendencies, but since he’s my romantic partner, I get more sway in telling him things like, “You’re being crazy and I’m not doing what you just told me to do,” and it doesn’t have to be a whole thing. A quick hug and kiss smooths it over. But if your live-in control freak is just a buddy or Craigslist roommate or family member, the issue may be more delicate, and you may be tiptoeing around their behaviors.
Here’s what it’s like being quarantined with a control freak.
Too many family meetings
Every week or even every day, there has to be a family meeting where everybody in the house gets around to discuss things that really do not require that much discussion. Like how much lettuce should be bought at this shopping trip versus the last one—there wasn’t enough lettuce bought during the last one. And which rooms are best to take FaceTime calls in. Of course, the control freak runs the meeting and has a full agenda of items to discuss.
