Why do people want total control over others lives?

I've been left alone for a few days now and I'm re-learning how to have fun on my own.  I used to stay at home and not go anywhere when Rick was at work, and I enjoyed that, but now I'm not satisfied with remaining at home alone without adult company to talk to.  There is just so much TV and visiting friends online that I can take.  I want to see and talk to LIVE people in person.  I want to live a full life again without any restrictions or rules.  I'm not saying that I want to go out with someone of the opposite sex.  No!  That's not what I want.   I'm just saying that I want to go out and do things that I love to do.  Things that I used to enjoy.  I'm not getting any younger and time is short for me, so I have to do this now while I still can.

I miss my family,  I miss my kids.  We used to go places together and we spent a lot of time together, but it all stopped with Jimmy's death.  It wasn't their fault that it stopped, but mine, and mine alone.  I couldn't cope with Jimmy's death, so I turned to strangers.  Why strangers you ask?  Because strangers didn't know Jimmy or remind me of the precious thing that I had lost.  I buried my grief because I couldn't handle it, but it surfaces from time to time and lately I feel it almost daily.  You'd think that after almost 4 years that the hurt wouldn't be so bad, but I still miss him even tho Rick is here.  Rick is about the farthest thing away from Jimmy, he's the total opposite.  Rick is so uncaring and takes pride in being a bully.  He even brags about it.  Rick likes no one, I mean no one.  It's like going from being with a saint to living with the devil himself.  I guess I put up with Rick because I need to be punished because I'm still alive and Jimmy is dead.  Maybe if I had been more loving and taken better care of Jimmy, he would still be here.  I know this really isn't true, because I loved Jimmy with all my heart, and I took very good care of him.  Sometimes I just feel that I need to be punished for just being alive, so I let Rick treat me shabbily, call me awful nasty names and walk all over me.  I'm not dumb and I know what he's been doing all this time, but I don't really care so I put up with it.  Don't get me wrong, Rick has his good qualities too and that's the Rick that I first fell in love with.

When I first met Rick and got to know him, he stole my heart even tho we were just friends at the time.  I spent a year being his friend and sometimes I feared losing his friendship more than I feared losing the relationship that I was in at the time.  At first I didn't realize this until one day Rick threatened to stop being my friend.  I remembered that Steve had broken up with me that day, and I called my brother Ron at 2:00 a.m. in the wee hours of the morning sobbing about the breakup, but mostly about losing Rick's friendship.  My brother listened and it was that night that we both  realized that it was Rick that I was really crying about and not the breakup with Steve.  

Rick was a real gentleman in those days, and a very good friend.  Rick has continued to be my friend, and I have continued to love him.  My relationship with Rick has always been one-sided.  I loved him and he didn't love me.  I thought that this would change after time, but it hasn't changed one bit.  He has grown meaner and more distant, and treats me like a child who knows nothing about anything.  I live under strict rules in my own house with his threats of leaving if I don't obey them.  Lately, and from time to time, I buck the system and it all goes haywire.  Rick can stay mad and refuse to talk to me for days at a time, but at least on those days I don't hear the bad names or the bullying.  The verbal abuse stops. I used to cry when Rick would do this, but now I have  gotten hardened to the verbal abuse and I speak my mind to him when he spews his constant sarcasm over me, and anyone else he knows.  Lately my mouth is what starts the arguments.  To be honest, it has always been my mouth that starts the arguments.  I've always expressed my dislike for the name calling and those ridiculous rules that I must live under.  

Even tho I still care about Rick, I refuse to be treated like scum and if he can't stop, then he knows what he can do about his living arrangements.  I won't ask him to leave.  That will be his choice alone, because I still have hope that one day he will treat me with the respect and love that I deserve.  I'm a nice person who helps him in any way he needs help.  I work alongside him when needs me, and I ask for nothing in return but a little respect.  Surely that's not too much to ask for?  

So for now I am enjoying my quiet time away from the abuse and I'm talking with family.  I hope that this time Rick really realizes that I won't tolerate his verbal abuse or his rules any longer.  I love him, but I have my limits.  And besides that, my stress level has been so high that it is not good for my health.

Here is sweet me

and,

below is the bully.

(I know that's not fair.  Rick was acting silly at the time and making me laugh.)