That is rude. That is not acceptable. We all wish that the people in our lives would “do what they are supposed to do” and stay on script! However, they don’t. WE do not get to decide who someone else is supposed to be! I only get to decide who I am supposed to be, and that is not always easy. What if Einstein had not had a mother who allowed him to sit on the floor and pour flour through his fingers for hours every day? Most of his teachers thought he was mentally deficient, because he was different. Thank goodness his mother let him be himself. Yes, I know, your spouse is far from Einstein, but I’m sure he was not always a joy to live with either.
The point I’m trying to make is that we are all different. Let’s not pathologize where there is no disorder. Some people are just engineers! They are different. Different from what? From me, of course. I am the default person. I am normal. Everyone else is weird to the degree that they are different from me. We all think this way. And it is not easy to live with someone who is “different”. It is tempting to remodel them to fit with what would make us comfortable. But let us understand that it is WRONG to remodel another person.
Instead of going in that direction, let’s practice accepting people for who they are. It will get easier with practice, and over time, we may actually do more than accept people. We may actually appreciate them! Crazy, no? As hard as this is for us, it is easier than taking people apart and trying to put them back together in a way that suits us.
In the meantime, if we really need to be “in control”, we can rearrange our sock drawer. That will calm us down.