To hate that he locks the door when we're home

Yes of course it is. Unless you live in a really dodgy area.

I always lock both front door and back door, but then I live in a house where the living room is on the second floor, so I need it for security. I think you should do the same, even the back door. Just because you're sitting 1 metre away from it doesn't mean that someone still can't open it from the outside.
I however don't like his attitude if you don't reply immediately to texts.

There's frequently reports on Facebook of people trying doors be it day time or night here in all areas (the posher parts of town as well as the more deprived areas). Unless we are expecting a delivery the front door is locked for safety. If expecting a delivery and you go away from the door for an extended time (a shower rather than just a wee) the doors are locked unless someone else is in the room too. The keys are hung up in the same place each time so no faffing trying to find them at anytime.

I can see both sides. Your hubby probably has OCD and needs to do this to
know you’re all safe. I’d be worried if he didn’t expect you to go out. My neighbours wife came to the door and she had to unlock the front door, she sighed and said her H wanted her to lock the door as he had a nice new car that he’d bought and there’d been reports in our (very quiet) area of car thefts. Anyone if someone wants to get in they will. Someone broke in to my neightbours house about a month later to get the keys and stole the car! He also locks his side gate!

Your DH might be overly anxious in some respects but this might be a reaction to how blase you are about, well, everything.

Of course, I lock the doors. Why would I want a random person to be able to get into my property, especially if I was home alone or with kids?

FWIW, I once lived somewhere very safe and an escaped convict briefly ran through my garden. If the door had been unlocked, he may well have tried coming into the house. It's genuinely not a scenario I would have predicted, but it doesn't bear thinking about.

The chances of a criminal entering your unlocked home might not be very high in a low-crime neighbourhood, but why wouldn't you reduce that chance to zero if you could, when it has no negative impact on you, and every positive impact on your DH?

I don't leave expensive things in full view of the window. That goes for both house and car. Shopping goes in the boot, not displayed on the car seats. Again, it's just common sense about reducing the odds to zero.

I don't have family text about drop offs etc but we do have shared tracking, so we don't need to message to see if someone has made it to their destination safely or hasn't been moving for a long time in an odd place. In your case, I don't think this would work for you as you already feel stifled, so a quick "All OK" text doesn't seem like a bad compromise.

I have a feeling you and DH have grown up in very different environments? I live somewhere with quite a high crime rate, so these sort of things are second-nature to me. I wouldn't modify my behaviour anywhere else because there aren't any disadvantages to continuing to make yourself less vulnerable to a passing criminal, even if the odds of one passing are low.

With the school thing are you driving on a road known for accidents. I must admit I used to be a bit ahh he hasn’t text and check the news for car crashes on a stretch of road that’s notorious for pile ups.

Heart used to fall out my arse seeing “multi car crash on (road) 3 cars and a lorry involved” be texting like.. you dead or good..??? 😅

This would infuriate me. Is he receiving treatment? Compromise works both ways.

It wouldn't bother me him locking when he leaves, but the questioning why it was unlocked when he got home would. It would make me feel like I was a child having to explain my actions.
We always have out front door locked as it's right on the street. Our back door however is pretty much always unlocked as the garden is not accessible, and if anyone did get in I'm sure a locked door wouldn't stop them trying to get in the house.

Our lovely but eccentric elderly neighbour let herself in a couple of times when we first moved here, shouting "cooey" as our front door has a handle. We started locking our front door after that but we are quite lax about it during the day.
I would be a bit concerned about his behaviour, sounds a bit over the top tbh.

We lock the door even if other people are home when we leave. We all do it. Me, DH, our teenagers.
Actually thinking about it I'm not sure why we do. Front door leads on to a main road but the back doesn't. Probably just got in to the habbit when the kids were young and going through a stage of playing with the door.
Don't think I'd care if the door wasn't locked though.

Possibly he is a little over-anxious with the calling thing if he doesn't hear from you after drop-off, but the door thing, why don't you lock it? Maybe you live somewhere nicer than we do, but there's no way I'd leave the front/back/side doors unlocked at all!

It is stifling. I only lock doors when I'm going to be asleep. Having been brought up by someone with OCD that bent everyone to their anxious ways I'm the polar opposite with my dc/partners/ friends.

Yes we don’t have locks which need an internal key here (except shops with glass doors). I think its very unsafe to have to know where the key is or leave it in the lock in order to be able to escape. Children can’t always find the key in an emergency. Our door licks automatically from the outside perspective but you don’t need a key to leave.

We also don’t leave our door unlocked at all.

I’m with him. Curtains closed the whole time, tree away from the window and presents can go under. They don’t go under if it’s seen from the window. My family are the same.

i lok mine but live in a busy town so it makes sense

my sil never loks her oor most of her life lived in the ountry i just coulnt ddo it

I agree with this, especially if the window is on the street. Could make you a target for thieves. I'd pop them under on Christmas Eve to find in the morning.

My doors are pretty much always unlocked. My ex used to lock them all the time and it used to drive me mad having to search for my keys if there was a knock at the door or something. But he was just trying to keep us/the house safe and never said anything about me always leaving it unlocked.. He’d just lock it!

Saying that, we were all sat watching tv in my lounge one day when a strange man just walked in and said “Oh! Sorry! This isn’t Claire’s house!?” And walked out again…

But I think your problems are not just about the doors, they’re about his anxiety that he is making you a part of. He needs to seek help about it and stop reassuring him all the time because it’s just perpetuating it.

This will sound dramatic but it is completely true. Many years ago, at least twenty five years, a colleague at my then workplace told us about an absolutely terrifying experience her neighbour had. Her neighbour was alone in the house one morning as her husband and children had gone to work and school. They had patio sliding doors out into a secure garden. She went upstairs to get washed and dressed and as she was nearly finished a man suddenly appeared in her bedroom doorway. His intent was obvious but by some miracle she managed to fight him off and get down stairs and out the front door. He had climbed over the garden six foot fence and come in via the unlocked patio door.

He was eventually caught and it was found he had a long list of victims. The police told her she had had a very close call. From that day on we have never left a downstairs door unlocked unless we are in the actual room with the door.

I know tons of people who’ve been robbed while in the house as they’ve left the door unlocked, during the day I always have the chain on at the very least, then lock and take key out at night, it’s hung right next to the door in case of emergency.

Our doors are always locked, even when we are in the house. There have been break ins in our area where someone has walked in through the unlocked door and stolen a handbag and one had their car keys stolen and they drove of with their car. He is trying to keep you all safe.

Why can’t you help the situation by sending him a quick ‘Drop off all fine. Love you’ text rather than waiting for him to message you and then getting annoyed about it. It’s a small, simple, easy thing to do, especially as you know that is something he worries about.

And this has never happened to me in 15 years of living here, or any of my neighbours, or any of my local friends.

It's about risk assessment, isn't it. OP's husband is very very risk averse and perceives that leaving the door unlocked is a massive risk, even when OP is in, and sitting 1m from the door. Then chastises her like a child when she doesn't agree to his risk assessment. Her risk assessment is that the risk of an intruder coming in is not high, given her personal situation/circumstances, location of house, environment, etc etc etc. But her opinion is dismissed by her husband, who insists he's right, she's wrong and scolds her for not doing what he tells her to do.

Not healthy.

Door locking seems to be a thing in UK, but i wouldn't want my only exit being locked if the key is not actually in the lock so i could get out in an emergency without having to put the key in the lock.

The constant checking? if he were my DH that would be knocked right on the head. (anyone calling me when i'm in a meeting for anything other than literal life and death would be getting very short shrift and i wouldn't be answering again)

Your DH may need therapy to handle your attitude to this if it is a compulsion in him though. (alternatively: he takes over school drop off so he can see for himself)

There seem to be a lot of different ideas on the thread, I'm wondering really if we all have different locks and set ups, how can there just be a blanket YABU to the OP? I explained a few posts up that a key left in the inside lock of our house front door would mean you'd need a locksmith to get back in, whereas others - the ex-police posters? - saying that leaving the key in makes it easier to break in.