man there is a lot of truth in what you just said about control. There was one woman that I was dating that things seemed to be going pretty well but then one time when we were walking somewhere I was telling a funny story and she was laughing and I got a bit animated and she told me "don't do that, don't act like that in public around me" and I was taken aback a bit by that. Then later on about a week later we had plans to go have lunch together and then got to a lake on with my boat, a kind of whole day together thing - I popped her a message at around 11am or so telling her that I needed to take the dogs for a walk before I could go and meet her. I left my phone at the house to do this and it took about half an hour, by the time I got back to the phone there was more than 10 messges from her getting increasingly angry about having to wait talking about how "starving" she was and when it went to ALL CAPS about how she won't be second place to a fucking dog I knew that this woman was not for me. I called her up and didn't just call off the date, but called off any chance of us continuing to do so.

It was clear to me that she wanted to control me and all aspects of my life. I don't know how it got to women in this country that they should or can control a man in their lives but you are correct, a lot of them seem to have that idea in their heads as well and it simply isn't going to fly with me.

Overseas isn't an option for me, but perhaps that could be an interesting thing for you to try if you can.