Editor's Note: Do you need sound, Biblically-based advice on an issue in your marriage or family?  Dr. David will address questions from Crosswalk readers in his weekly column. Submit your question to him at: TheRelationshipDoctor@gmail.com.

You know them by the way they hem you in, making demands upon you. They have a “right” way of doing things and you better do it the way they say is “right” or else you face their criticism, shame and even disrespect.

Even while they judge you, they condemn judgmentalism. Even as they demand you play by their rules, they don’t want to play by any rules but their own. If you resist their demands, they insist you’re controlling, though deny they have issues with control.

Such is their high level of denial and seeming inability to look critically at themselves. Such is the narrow and restricted world of the Control Freak—a term used, perhaps pejoratively, about those who want to micro-manage our lives. 

We’ve been talking for several weeks about CrazyMakers, and from the response I’m getting, many of you have one or more in your family, workplace, and even marriage. You have someone who makes you feel crazy, creating chaos in their path. We walk away from an encounter with an Egotist, Aggressor, Borderline, Sufferer and now Control Freak feeling tired, confused and angry. We wonder, “Is it me, or is it them? What just happened here?” as our emotions spin with frustration.

The Control Freak, the last of five Crazymakers we’re exploring, anxiously tries to hold onto the black and white world they have created. Often frustrated because people are not living up to their expectations, they hook us by trying to convince us their way is the only way to do things. Their narrow, rigid, dogmatic point of view can be the only way to see things, and if your point of view doesn’t match with theirs, you’re in trouble. 

A recent email illustrates the problem:

Dear Dr. David. I’ve been following your series on Crazymakers, but you haven’t talked about the one that tries to control everything you do. My boyfriend, who actually seems to fit several groups, fits that category. He is manipulative, angry and very controlling.