We all have personal preferences regarding how we like things done: I know I prefer to fold my clothes a certain way, and my partner has her books arranged by color rather than author or size. That’s one of the ways that people express their individuality.
What’s more, for some people, this is less about preference, and more about need. People with anxiety, and those who are autistic, for example, are neurologically wired to need predictability. It helps them to feel safe in a world that is often uncertain and confusing.
As such, if someone’s need to do things a certain way isn’t harming anyone, and it helps them, it’s really not an issue.
Problems can arise, however, when we also insist upon others doing things our way, or when our need for things to be done a certain way clashes with someone else’s need or desire for things to be done a different way.
In fact, certain behaviors that arise from this need can sometimes make forming and maintaining close relationships difficult and fraught with misunderstanding.
Understanding these behaviors can therefore help people on both sides of the equation to have a little more compassion for one another, and hopefully build closer connections as a result:
1. Correcting other people’s methods when the outcome is the same.
A friend of ours (let’s call her “R”) recently came back from a trip to Europe, where she stayed with someone she’s known for over a decade.
While she was there, R helped her hostess with various household tasks, but was disheartened when said hostess essentially sighed, shooed her into the living room, and redid those tasks herself.
She even went so far as to take a plate out of R’s hands and rewash it, shaking her head and sighing.
Now, R is in her 40s and has been washing dishes since childhood. She has even worked in professional kitchens. It wasn’t that R hadn’t done the tasks well; she’d just done them differently. The outcome was the same; it was only the process that differed.
R’s friend was obviously very particular about the way she does things. That’s understandable. But the way she handled the situation really put a damper on their friendship.
It’s one thing to let someone know that you usually do things a bit differently, and another to treat that person like an incompetent child, particularly when they’ve done a good job.
2. Always expecting the other person to be the one to compromise.
In a similar vein to the example above, I remember living with a girlfriend who was extremely particular about how she wanted dishes and cutlery put away.
For example, I put the spoons and forks in the wrong divider tray slots, and that caused a huge fight between us.
In hindsight, it was probably the crack in the foundation that led to our eventual breakup, as every difference between us led to a battle of wills over what was the “right” way to do things.
The reality is that sharing a life with another person does require some adaptation and compromise.
As such, expecting that one partner is always the one to adapt, for example, expecting them to remember to turn can labels outwards or fold towels so the edging faces left, is unrealistic and isn’t going to lead to a healthy relationship dynamic — romantic or otherwise.
3. Struggling with emotion dysregulation when things aren’t done their way.
As we already mentioned, a lot of people who are very particular about the way things are done behave that way because of severe anxiety or neurodivergence.
Maintaining order, or a certain type of cleanliness, or having specific methods of doing things can all be ways of managing racing emotions or feeling more control in an uncertain and overwhelming world.
As a result, when someone does things differently than they do, or creates disorder in an area that they tend meticulously, it can cause them severe distress.
This is difficult for both individuals in question: the one who’s feeling intense anxiety about changes they can’t control is trying to do everything they can to feel safe and secure. But in the process, they may inadvertently push the other person away or make them feel under attack if emotions become volatile.
This is particularly true if, in their distress, the individual becomes cruel or starts yelling in an attempt to regulate themselves and get their surroundings back under their control.
4. Shaming people if things aren’t done the “right” way.
Whether a person has perfectionist tendencies due to their neurological wiring, or because they were raised by people who punished them if they did things wrong, they may be extremely critical of both themselves and anyone who doesn’t do things to their exact specifications.
Though it’s often unintentional, this may cause them to be hostile or unkind to those around them when and if they get frustrated by what they consider to be lessened competence in their eyes.
For example, I remember a classmate’s mom insulting our intelligence because we didn’t scrub dishes with hot water and use the “right” scrubby before loading them into the dishwasher.
There were three of us, all of about 13 years old at the time, and two of us didn’t have dishwashers at home.
We were doing our best, and even though there was probably a better way of doing things, screaming and calling us stupid wasn’t the right way to teach us otherwise.
5. Not allowing others to have a say in shared spaces.
This often happens if a person moves into their partner’s space, but can also occur if two people move into a new home together.
In this instance, someone who finds solace in order and specific protocols may try to insist that their partner do things the exact same way that they do.
The problem here is that said partner is an autonomous human being who has their own preferences with regard to how they like to do things. And if these approaches differ, one may try to dominate the other to gain control of the environment, on their own terms.
As you can imagine, this may result in damaging the relationship and either alienating the two partners, or creating an unhealthy power-seeking dynamic between them.
6. “Fixing” things in order to “help” others.
Those who take great comfort in doing things a particular way may sometimes take it upon themselves to redo things that those around them have done in order to do them “properly”, from their perspective.
They may convince themselves that they’re doing this to be helpful, but that narrative is often a cover story to explain their need to do things the way they prefer.
In some cases, this kind of “redoing” may even be a form of OCD; for example, because the person fears contamination, they have symmetry/ordering compulsions, or they fear harm will occur if things aren’t done “correctly.”
These compulsive urges are not something they have control over. It may even embarrass them that they feel they have to do this, so they’ve come up with different reasons to excuse such behaviors.
While some people on the receiving end of these gestures may appreciate them, many end up feeling frustrated, insulted, or even a sense of violation — especially if it’s a case of a housemate going into their room uninvited to tidy up their underwear drawer, or a partner organizing their food cupboards a different way.
Many people interpret behavior like this as having their boundaries overstepped, even though that wasn’t the intention behind the action.
7. Not being willing or able to change their opinion, even when presented with new information.
Believing that there’s only one correct way to do something can make it difficult to be close to a person — especially if their view on what’s right isn’t necessarily factually correct or doesn’t update when new evidence is presented.
For example, someone may be dead-set on washing chicken before cooking it because that’s what the advice was when they were raised, even though science now says it’s unnecessary (and potentially dangerous).
In my partner’s family, for instance, her mother insisted on rinsing all the starch off cooked pasta before adding the sauce (thereby eliminating the very thing needed to adhere to sauce to said pasta), so that’s the way her sister does it too. No amount of reasoning otherwise will get them to change their minds.
A person who needs things done a particular way, even when new evidence contradicts said way, can be immensely frustrating to deal with.
They are unwilling or unable to listen to logic or reason. They have their way of doing things, and won’t be budged from that method at all.
In addition to this being frustrating behavior in a partner or other family member, it can also cause issues in the workplace.
For example, a colleague or subordinate who steadfastly refuses to learn a new technique or approach can throw the entire workflow process into disarray, cause unnecessary tension, and it may even result in costly mistakes in certain circumstances.
Final thoughts…
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting things done a particular way if that’s what brings a person emotional stability and a sense of safety. In fact, if it’s not harming anyone, and it’s helping them, it’s important to support them.
That said, there’s a difference between saying “this is what I need for myself” and “this is what YOU need to do”.
One is a type of self-care, while the other can feel controlling, even when that’s not the intention.
The key here is open, patient communication between individuals so they can determine the approaches that work best for both parties: that way, everyone involved feels both supported and respected.
