Instead of thank you for starting her tea, I was told I was "too controlling". Ok... I guess I won't do nice random things like start your tea from now on.
In my last LT relationship, I was accused being controlling and the relationship was totally, impossibly screwed. This is a very serious accusation, and they were interpreting attempts to be genuinely nice as "controlling". I am actually pretty flexible and easy going, but no matter what I did or changed, there was always some other new way in which I was "being emotionally abusive".
I'm now in a new relationship, and a few times I've pre-emptively apologized to my partner about similar actions, because I was concerned about them being interpreted as controlling. I was floored when she responded with indifference, saying she always appreciates my efforts and that I don't need to worry.
Having a partner who "gets you" and appreciates what you try to do for them has been earth shatteringly beautiful in my life. Empathy unlocks the best parts of life and the human experience. I know I'm extremely fortunate to have eventually gotten to where I am, and couldn't be happier with her. Soon I should probably ask if she'll marry me, advice on this would be welcome :) we are 9 months in, see each other every day and never fight, it's always collaborative.
Anyhow, the conclusion is:
It's always a good idea to ask many questions if you're being told you are wrong a lot, in any relationship (private life as well as work life). Sometimes the real issue may turn out to have nothing to do with you, after all.
If she described that as "too controlling", that likely indicates she perceives you as too controlling overall.
Regardless of the truth of her perceptions, they're all she has to go on in life, so it's her perceptions that matter, not the "objective truth" of whether you're controlling.
I don't know you or your wife at all - my analysis could be way off in a lot of ways.
Whatever the issue here is, though, it's not the tea itself. There is some negative perception or idea she has that you triggered when you helped make her tea. I strongly recommend you try to figure out what's beneath the surface there. It could be rooted in your behaviors, or it might go back to how other people in her life have treated her, or some combination. It could be that she's a flaming control freak who can't stand anyone doing anything that seems to her like a threat to her agency. I don't have enough context to have much of a clue.
Writing it off with "Okay, not gonna do that again" internally was a dangerous pattern for me - it led me to ignore issues for years instead of trying to deal with them head-on.
Warning: For me, dealing with these issues head-on was a painful, difficult road littered with ugly realizations about both myself and my spouse. Dealing with the pain and issues now beats waiting until they're worse down the road, though.
I found Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication extremely helpful in learning to dig into what's under the surface of incidents like this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication
A thousand times this, yes.
I may start giving it to people as an engagement present, now that you say that...
That, or start communicating about what makes her get angry over stuff like this; what makes her feel ignored or under-appreciated that she bursts when you make a nice and very cute gesture for her.
My wife kisses me when she forgets about her tea and I do it for her. EVERY TIME, no exceptions, she kisses me and thanks me.
IMO either start chatting with her to pinpoint the issue and work on it, or move on. You don't deserve such an atmosphere, man. You deserve happiness.
Your analysis of the situation is problematic when you write: "I guess I won't do nice random things like start your tea from now on." It was your wife who started the tea-making process, not you. To somebody who already feels sore about this kind of thing, it may feel as if you're taking credit for her action.
Of course, normal people in a normal situation don't react in the way that your wife did. As others pointed out, there are almost certainly more issues in your relationship and your wife likely reacted this way because your behavior fit into a larger pattern that she is unhappy with.
Also please note, you absolutely cannot draw the conclusion that she doesn't want you to do nice things for her in general.
The conclusion was mistated. I meant I just won't make her tea unless she asks. If it make her made and she can't tell me why, then I'm just going to avoid that situation.
I notice that you argue that it couldn't have been about her wanting to put the tea ball in because whether you or she did it would have had no impact on the objective outcome of the tea. That makes rational sense and is how a normal person under normal circumstances would see it.
Then again, stuff like the IKEA effect is real: people feel differently about a piece of furniture if they assembled it themselves, perhaps there's a bit of pride and feeling of self-worth in having done that work. That feeling is independent of the usefulness of the furniture.
In a similar vein, perhaps your wife feels the need to do certain things herself to feel in control of part of her life. Everybody wants the feeling of agency to some extent, some more, some less. Again, it's almost certainly not about the tea, but if she feels that her life is "taken over" by the relationship (and so, explicitly or implicitly in her mind, by you) and that she doesn't have enough time and space that's her own, then something small like the tea could trigger a reflex in her along the lines of "why does it always have to be like this?"
The tea is an almost ridiculously tiny symbol for asserting herself, but it's possible that she feels she has already lost the bigger ways of asserting herself and reaffirming herself in the relationship, and so she reacts badly to that small thing being taken away.
If that really is the situation, it is already a very bad state for the relationship to be in. Of course, I may be way off base.
you think you were doing a random nice thing, she felt you are controlling, so clearly she didn't feel you did something nice to her.
this makes me think about the book "the five love languages". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Love_Languages
the idea is that we each have different ways in which we express and perceive love. so for you random acts of kindness are one way, but your wife may not be aware of that. i'd talk to her about that. maybe read the book together or at least talk about the different ways to show love and what you each prefer.
I tried. She simply said it was controlling and couldn't explain it further.