I was in a business meeting when one of the attendees began to correct some of the other attendees when they weren’t participating in the timely manner that was expected.
She had always been such a warm person it surprised me that she made such verbal point of correcting others because they asked a question before the “question” time period of the meeting.
About a month later she and her husband asked me to meet them at a restaurant down town. The first thing her husband did was to criticize the glasses she was wearing. He made it much more of an issue than it deserved and wouldn’t stop harassing her about them.
Then a few weeks later they invited me to have dinner at their home and then it became even more obvious how overbearing he was. He picked on her because she hadn’t set out the right water glasses. The napkins didn’t match. The salad wasn’t chilled enough.
Honestly it was exhausting and made the entire evening one of the least enjoyable I had ever had.
I couple of weeks later I asked her to meet me for coffee and I talked to her about how she might begin to deflect her husband’s negativity so she could begin to feel more confident at home and out in public.
It did get much better, but they moved out of the area before the issue was completely resolved.
When you witness people who are overtly controlling in public you can be sure they are not in control of their home life.