GF who likes to be in charge

[Green Tea]

I noticed that my GF often tries to be charge. Examples:

We are walking along a street and I hold her hand. Now, I lead us to cross the road. She challenges me with something along the lines: "Why cross now?", "Why not cross there?", "Why do we have to cross the street when you want it?". Or when entering a building and I open the door, go through and lead her by the hand: "Why didn't you open the door for me?". Sometimes she just rushes somewhere so as to make me the follower.

I dismiss this kind of crap, but when it happens every other day, there are only so many witty/smart responses I can come up with. I ignore it and am generally unresponsive, but this behavior just doesn't go away. It also does not make much sense to me as for her motivations.

 

[AFCnoob]

Hey Green Tea,

Back after a long time, I noticed your post only because I'm just coming out of a relationship where I had the same exact problem. I'm sure someone more experienced, or one of our resident gurus will weigh in on this, but I thought I'd toss out a theory of my own:

It's really good that you notice this, because it's critical. Before I discovered GirlsChase, I thought that the ideal relationship was one in which both parties shared responsibility and discussed decisions openly, like the one (I thought) my parents had*. The truth is, this is just not the case.

Girls like their man to lead, that's the deal. Man leads, girl follows. You have to establish this solidly right from the beginning of the interaction and never let up; girls will challenge you constantly, throughout the entire arc of your relationship. They're programmed to, they have to constantly check if the "man" they got with is still on his man-game. Ideally, you would have established from the beginning that you're in charge, and if that's not the case then you should reestablish that fact post haste.

Now, your girl can do one of two things:
(1) reject that and threaten to leave the relationship, in which case I think you should end it immediately. Really, you'll be much happier in a relationship with a girl who lets you lead, and she'll be more happy in a relationship with a man she's willing to follow. You don't want to be the beta boyfriend, you really don't.

(2) be pleased with your new-found assertiveness and stop challenging you (so frequently, or overtly, but she'll still challenge you, just to be sure).

I realize it's easy to give out cut-and-dry advice while sitting on the sidelines, but as I said, I just got out of a relationship where I had this same exact problem. I didn't solidly establish myself at the outset, and I spent the *entire* relationship trying to steer things back to where I was leading--no questions asked.

I wrote about this several months ago [here].

*looking at my parents' relationship as an adult, I realize that my dad *always* lead, no questions asked. Sure, my mother gave opinions, and put her foot down here and there, but there was never any question who was leading--and that's the way my mom wanted it.

 

[Chase]

Green Tea-

Sometimes she just rushes somewhere so as to make me the follower.

Only thing to add here to what AFCnoob has said - when girlfriends run off ahead of you, just plod along slowly and don't bother trying to catch up. Let them dash ahead.

Result of this is that at SOME point, they have to stop and wait for you, or else you get completely separated. If they're being deliberately bitchy and racing off and you don't know where they are, just text them something like, "Can't see you anymore and don't know where you are, so going home," and usually they'll realize they were out of line and will come back and apologize and be sweet again and knock it off for a while.

Chase

 

[PinotNoir]

I call these women bossy or assertive, and I actually quite like it (as long as she is cute).

I personally just laugh it off and continue. I don't talk about it. Like in your example, I would just smile and keep crossing the street the way that I want. I really don't get bothered by it.

However, there is a fine line between bossy/assertive/blatantly-honest and rude. I think this varies from person-to-person. When a woman crosses that line for me, I tell them; it's that simple. Basically, you don't want your life reflecting a sitcom (i.e., Everybody Loves Raymond or The King of Queens).

I think the main positive of bossy women is honesty. When other women would hold their tongue or lie, she tells the truth. It's refreshing. Of course, sometimes it can be too harsh or controlling; that's when you just have to be "bossy" back and tell her.

I also quite enjoy when bossy girls are bossy to my friends. It cracks me up because they're not used to it.

 

[Green Tea]

Guys, thanks for response. Chase, I owe you for getting a hot girlfriend in the first place, so thanks again for showing up in my topic.

In the meanwhile, I broke up with my GF. It was due to some other reasons, which I will probably discuss in another topic, but since such behavior became more prominent in the recent time, I would associate her challenging me on such stupid crap with her falling out of love and generally being unsatisfied.

AFCnoob: Surprisingly, my parents have the same relationship - my father leads completely. I was not able to lead consistently all the time, since she was my first girlfriend and I was simply lacking experience and was sometimes overwhelmed by the amount of things to handle. However, I noticed that being anything less than 100% confident in your words and actions would stress her a great deal. And true, it mattered little what I said, but more how I did it.