5 Signs that You Are Micromanaging Your Significant Other

And how to stop the micromanagement before it wrecks your relationship

Photo by Andrik Langfield on Unsplash

I’ve been talking to a friend who is on the brink of another break-up. As we talked for hours for the nth time about her situation, I had to make the decision: Do I guzzle wine with her and agree that her significant other sucks?

Or do I risk being the messenger who gets shot by telling my friend that the reason her significant other is sucking might be because of her, that she is micromanaging her significant other?

Here I’ll show how 5 complaints she had about her significant other could actually be signs that she’s micromanaging her relationship. Then I’ll give suggestions on how to stop micromanaging relationships.

1. “S/he doesn’t do what s/he said s/he’d do.”

Here’s what micromanagement looks like in a relationship: A couple agrees something needs to be done, and he’s the one to do it. After he agrees, she then checks on him and sees he hasn’t done it, didn’t do it soon enough, or didn’t do it ‘right’ according to her version of right. Then she radiates disapproval towards him and keeps telling him to correct this, don’t do that, do more of this instead of that.