AIBU to resent DH's new job and how he's changed?

You sound as if you have some social anxiety issues and it would help you and your relationship to address those. You can’t expect the man not to make friends in his new job or want to socialise with friends. Thats completely unreasonable.

I think it's really important to de-stigmatise this phenomenon and show appropriate compassion without normalising it or playing down the risks of living this way.

I can see how it happens because I think that building a social life and finding compatible friends can be really difficult these days for a variety of reasons. Pretending not to want something that you feel like you can't have is a common coping mechanism and I think that's behind some of this.

I've said before that I have some close family I'm worried about. The suspicion and distrust of the wider world is getting worse and worse.

My DH is a genuine introvert with a very peoply and exhausting job. He still loves to travel, go to plays, visit museums, eat out and meet a few friends. Just avoids large gatherings and needs a Sunday to recharge.

I am an extrovert, sort of. He doesnt stop me from doing stuff or cling to me. I don't stop him from taking alone time. We both travel together but also solo.

This is why we have been married 30 years.

I completely agree with your assessment and with your perspective on genuine introversion vs situational anxiety manifesting as introversion.

My point is that very often when people present as “introverts” they are not introverts, they are people with high levels of social anxiety (such as the OP). But there are so many fellow travellers on here who will fall in with this analysis and persuade them that this is normal and sustainable when its not.

There are a lot of people still living in these self imposed “bubbles” that you describe. Its very understandable that this has happened and these people deserve compassion and support but encouraging them to think they can sustain this indefinitely under the banner of “being an introvert” is irresponsible.

Living a quiet, home based life with family is absolutely fine but there is a huge amount of gathering evidence to show that cutting everyone other than immediate family out of your life and living in a state of suspicion and distrust is profoundly unhealthy. We have to stop telling people its OK and normal to live like this and even celebrating it.

He has seen there is more to life amazing places to visit .
Go along with him or you risk losing each other.
Maybe sitting in his parents home has become boring to him maybe he was always this way and just went along with life and its yourself who is the homebody not him.

For you.
Not for him, obviously.
It sounds a very narrow way of living TBH. I'd be bored shitless.

Of course it’s valid and if that’s what she chooses for her life, that’s absolutely fine, but she can’t expect her husband to live that way if he doesn’t want to (not saying she is, but they probably need to have a conversation and agree on some compromises).

I don’t think it’s fair to say her DH has moved the goalposts; we don’t know what we don’t know and going by OP’s description of his mother, it sounds like he’s never really had the opportunity to explore a different kind of life. He now has that opportunity and realises he enjoys it, which is fine. People change and grow during a marriage, and it’s not fair for one partner to try and keep the other back because they want to keep the status quo.

Neither the OP or her DH are wrong here - they might be incompatible, but equally, if OP is at least willing to try and go outside her comfort zone, she might find some activities she enjoys and be able to compromise with her DH a little so they can both feel comfortable and happy within the relationship.

Thank you, I think its really healthy to discuss different view points and considerations, its only from doing so that we can change and shape our own worlds.

Your post is really thoughtful post, and I agree with a lot of the underlying point, especially about how lockdown shaped people’s sense of what “normal” social life looks like. A lot of couples formed their entire relationship inside a bubble that was artificially tiny, and it did create dynamics that feel safe but aren’t sustainable once real life resumes.

But I think it’s important to separate two things:

• Genuine introversion, which is a stable personality trait.
• Lockdown‑shaped social anxiety, which is what many people are actually describing.

OP sounds like someone who built her whole emotional world around a lockdown‑style relationship and never had to stretch beyond it. Her DH has simply re-entered a normal social environment and rediscovered parts of himself that were dormant. That isn’t betrayal, it’s development.

Where I’d be a bit gentler is the idea that she’s “fetishising introversion” or that her MIL is “manipulative.” It’s more that OP is frightened by the shift, and the MIL probably liked the old dynamic because it kept her son close. That doesn’t make her evil; it just means she’s invested in the old pattern too.

The core truth remains: A marriage built in a lockdown bubble will eventually have to adapt to the real world. DH is already doing that. OP needs support to do the same, not to be told that the old bubble was the only valid way to live. Lockdown was a very strange period of our history and will have adversly affected some more than others.

There was a recent post where the husband never wanted to go out, the replies were in fact the same.

I see my adult daughter about once every 8 or more weeks if that. She has her life, friends and career and that makes me so happy. I would be distraught if she came home every week.

Your life sounds suffocating limited and repressed.

Your DH has discovered the door with a confidence boost from his promotion and you either follow him out through it or loose him.

if you end up separating, where will you go on Saturdays? Still his parents?

please try and build a bit of a life of your own

I can understand why you’re upset that the life you enjoyed has changed. But a lot of people want to explore the world and try different things and meet new people. I know it might take some time to come round to this new version of life but I think you probably need to accept it and maybe try and go to some things with your DH or potentially risk losing him.

The mother in law is an awful controlling woman.

I have young adult kids. They are out living their lives on weekends. Of course I miss them. But I have thrown myself into new creative activities and hobbies. Insisting on seeing your kids every weekend is not love.

Sorry but it sounds boring as hell. Don’t you ever go out anywhere? Even to a restaurant, a museum, a gallery, a walk? What do you talk about?

@PrettyPickle this is a really insightful post.

I see so many posts on here from people whose personalities were shaped by or radicalised by the COVID experience and who have grown to see near total social isolation as the norm. They fear and distrust people outside their own families.

I think this is behind this fetishisation of “introversion” (which isn’t actually introversion at all, its social anxiety).

People built lives and relationships on an incredibly small and limited scale out of necessity during the pandemic because they were being told to by the government and its medical advisers and a lot of people leaned too far into it and never came out.

We are still dealing with the after effects of it now in the large numbers of children who struggle with school and adults who are allergic to any social interaction outside of their own families.

It sounds like OP and her husband are classic examples of this and their marriage was shaped by this closeted and highly restrictive world which they normalised out of necessity. Now the husband has got a taste of what normal healthy social interaction is like he’s not going to turn the clock back.

Its actually quite sad that so many people have grown up to think this is what a normal young marriage looks like. The mother in law is old enough to know better though and should be ashamed of herself; she sounds suffocating and manipulative and took advantage of OP’s naivety and anxiety.

I wonder if the parents ever leave home and visit people or do stuff outside their home @newlifeoldme ?

is it always others visiting them?

And this.

This.

This.

This.

Really? I suspect posters would be telling her to call Women's Aid if she said she wanted to do things with her friends but her husband wanted her to stay at home all the time and only go out to see her mother, with him present! It then takes on quite a sinister tone.

What was he doing instead? What does he do at wknds? You said he’s pencilled them In in a months time - what are his plans? Has he delegated any time to you and your relationship? Has he expressed he’s unhappy with it?

His mother sounds overbearing - losing her son? Aren’t you married?! Was he living at home when you met him? How far away does his family live? Do you see yours in equal amounts?

I hate to say it but do you think he’s met someone else at work? Has he changed his physical appearance since starting his new job in any way or lifestyle habits?

Yep, it truly is awful. I wonder how much control his mum had over his life before he married OP.

Sounds like he’s been under the thumb for a while, which wfh hasn’t helped, and then he married someone who was happy to keep that bond with his mum going. How refreshing it must be for him to live a little.

@newlifeoldme I appreciate its unsettling for you, but he loves you, he comes home to you and you want to share your life with him, but you need to share his life with him too.

You don't need to go out with him and his mates, but just you and him, just occasionally. I think it would make him even happier.

Its a bit of a mind shift for you but I believe it would be a healthy move for you too.

Go on, you know you love him!

why? she likes her life as it is.

I do wonder if this was her saying she wants to go out and he wants to stay home the answers would be different.