Am I seeing a red flag or should run or am I being too picky?

My boyfriend has a habit of sometimes telling me what to do. Example is I’ll start to drink diet ice tea and he’ll say do you know how many chemicals are in that drink and I’ll say yea but I don’t drink too much and he’ll say don’t drink it because it’s really bad for you look at the ingredients. Another recent time as I was getting in the bed he asked did you brush your teeth and wash your face? He’s done this before and I responded that I have an account not be concerned about that. However he still does it on occasion. It’s this kind of behavior that drives me nuts. I do care for him and he is very very affectionate and loving but I’m not sure I can deal with this type of behavior even if it only happens once a day or every other day. Because of this I’ve not been feeling as good with him and frankly not sure I even want to be with him to deal with the next “directive”.


So my beloved cat of 17 years died a few weeks ago. While my bf seemed concerned for me, he was never nice to the cat and the cat hissed at him until the cat was too ill to do so. My bf even tried talking me into putting the cat down before he got sick or kept on telling me that my son should take him (my son was very fond of the cat). Once I put my cat down, I was devastated.

So I was ready to talk to my boyfriend about his control issues and before I could he already critiqued the fact that I didn’t blow dry my hair all the way. That was enough to set me off. I told him everything that was on my mind including the fact that he was over controlling, over opinionated, and said things that hurt unnecessarily and didn’t need to be said in a matter what he says it. I gave him specific examples of all of this behavior and I was quite to the point raising my voice during much of the discussion since I felt so strongly and I was so angry. I also mentioned to him I did not appreciate the way he treated my late cat. To my surprise, he mentioned that he did actually owned two cats sometime ago and what I said look I might just get a cat again and I don’t wanna hear anything from you he said of course I’ll support whatever decision you make. That was a surprise! I let him know that I wasn’t going to stand for any of this behavior and that if I wanted to have an opinion that I would ask for it and that otherwise he has to keep his mouth closed but any decisions I might make. He sort of apologized just saying look I’m just just trying to help or be of some assistance to you and I told him I don’t need any of his help and if I do need help I’ll let him know. He seemed to understand and be receptive and did not argue with me but we both ended up with tears. He was crying telling me how ill his adult daughter is right now and he hasn’t really told me all that was going on with her and he knows she may only have another 10 years or so with that condition (I feel really bad for his daughter although I know she’s getting proper medical care she had a stroke at 35 and is married with a few kids. His ex wife has been living with the daughter and takes care of them full time.). But really what does that have to do with what I was talking about? So he ended up crying about that and I was crying about the way he has hurt me. After all that he goes ahead and makes me a nice dinner and I really don’t know where to go from here. On the one hand I know he really does love me and he wants to be a good partner but on the other side I’m not really sure he has the capability to do so since he clearly has an issue with control. If nothing else. I did tell him I thought he was partly narcissistic and he still didn’t flinch when I told him that which makes me think that someone’s already told him that his prior relationships. In any event I don’t know if I’m hoping for something that it’s just not realistic in terms of the check any change in his behavior and or sensitivity.

Not sure it changes anyone’s opinion there was something else my bf said to me last weekend that’s really bothering me and I’m ashamed to admit. Here it is... I got my cat cremated and so I have the urn and a paw print they took ( paw print is in a frame). I was saying to my bf I thought the place did a nice job in terms of sending everything to me and sending a hand written card. He says “I don’t want to upset you but most likely the cremains in the urn are not just your cats but also other cats too”. He went on to tell me when he had his dog cremated he didn’t see a metal piece that was in his body so he knew that wasn’t all of his dogs cremains. He also told me that the paw print is probably some generic thing they use even though I paid for my cats print. Wasn’t sure what to say other than this was a private cremation. Now when I look at these items I’m not sure what to think.