For thinking DP is being really controlling here?

[CoffeeColdTurkey]

Firstly we don't live together, he lives about 15 minutes in car from me.
Now a few months ago I went on a night out with people from work. It was the first night out without him I'd been on since we got together. He insisted on picking me up for my own safety but I told him I was fine and would be getting a lift but he was going off on a major strop over it so I just agreed. Well within an hour of me being out he started texting me asking what time I needed picking up. I text back and said not for ages as we were going to a club (I said here if it was too late for him I'd get a lift, he said no, he'd pick me up). So 11pm came - another text "where are you? shall I pick you up now?" I text back "no, going to the club now" so he replied that I'd said I wouldn't be out late and he was getting worried. I ignored this and enjoyed my night. 1am I checked my phone and there were 4 text messages and 4 missed calls from him!!! so to cut long story short, he picked me up at 2am.

After this I said I would make my own way home in future.

Second night out I went on he again said he'd pick me up. I said no, it was fine - I could make my own way home. He got all arsey etc and asked if he could stay at my house whilst I was out so he was there when I got back. I didn't really know how to say no without it sounding like I was just being awkward for the sake of it so I agreed.

Trouble is now he's expecting this set up everytime. I went out with friends 3 weeks ago and he insisted on staying at my house whilst I was out and picking me up afterwards.

Now I'm going out this coming weekend, I tried to keep it from him but he found out and started going on about picking me up. I said no and that I was staying out at a friend's house (outright lie ) and he went in a massive mood over it, then started whinging about what I was planning to wear saying he wouldn't let me walk around like that and would insist on picking me up for my own safety etc and now it's basically gone back to him staying here while I'm out. I'm feeling a bit suffocated and as if I'm being watched over by my dad. He says it's purely for concern over me but I feel so controlled by it all.

AIBU?

Oh no! He is completely mad :(

You must give him a totally unambiguous - I am stopping seeing you, the relationship is now over. You now have no reason to contact me, goodbye.

If he approaches you in the club tell a bouncer you are being pestered by a man and get them to intervene.

No bollocking here... he just doesn't give up. It must be very hard dealing with someone this unhinged.

Ah you poor thing. Who needs some berk telling you what underwear you can wear though? You don't need us to tell you what you need to do!

Good luck and enjoy your night out (wearing whatever underwear/skirt combo you wish)!!

OP, no flaming here. He sounds awful - totally awful. Getting his colleagues to spy on you? Quizzing you on your underwear? I had a BF like that years ago; he thought he owned me. He used to get his mates to spy on me too.

I'm now married to a lovely man who trusts me entirely, and I trust him. It's so much easier.

Please consider dumping this loser OP, you are worth more than this.

And keep coming back - we're here for you x

Urgh - he makes me feel a little bit sick. You deserve better.

And it shouldn't matter what the fuckity fuck length your skirt is!

The length of your skirt isn't the issue - he's already got in your head if he's making you think it is.

You told him you were ending your relationship due to his behaviour around your night out on Saturday, rather than that being the wake up call to him that his behaviour was out of line, he's fixing up other ways to get to you on this night out, still obsessing about what you were going to wear. He's making no effort to amend his behaviour, just finding other ways to be in control of your night.

He doesn't see it's ok that you are picking your own outfit and having a night out with friends.

Good luck, he's not going to go easily. I suggest you end it today, at least that way you can enjoy your night out tomorrow.

The only person who ever got to tell me what underwear to wear was my mother. When I was 4/5. And that was generally, 'Have you remembered to put some knickers on?

Can you change where you go on Saturday night?
And then your numbers...

Well done for seeing clearly, OP - although you weren't left with much choice with how he has behaved over the last couple of days. Sorry he's a dick.

SGB - whilst I do think some of your advice is really very good, is it really necessary to tell every single poster that they will need to involve the police when they dump someone? It's quite rarely the case, and personally I think it's scaremongering. She can cross that bridge when she comes to it.

Coffee no-one here is going to flame you but you know you are going to have to be more assertive than you have ever been.
Scratched record. "This relationship is over. Please do not contact me again." Repeat ad nauseum.

To be fair to SGB, she wasn't the only one who talked about informing the police. I did too.

The police wouldn't do anything at this stage other than offer advice and make a note of the OP's concerns.

It's an option and it's up to the OP whether to take it. I don't believe it's scaremongering.

I ended up telling the police about a person, not someone I was in a romantic relationship with, who was harassing me with persistent unwanted contact.

Despite my asking her several times to leave me alone she insisted that she was entitled to contact me, needed to set me straight, was just trying to help me see reason etc.

The police told me I should have spoken to them sooner. They gave me advice on dealing with someone who won't take no for an answer - it boiled to advice on security and not to feed her demands by responding to her.

They added that I shouldn't feel in the least bit silly about dialling 999 if this person approached me in person.

That amazed me because I didn't feel physically threatened by her although maybe I was being naive. I'm pretty sure if the police thought a middle-aged woman was a potential threat they'd take a man harassing a woman even more seriously.

They had to intervene in the end and a chat with her was enough to end it. It was very useful for them to be able to list all the times she'd harassed me.

No doubt SGB will be along later with her own opinion.

Oh, btw coffee - sometimes I forget it's not all about me, oops

No flaming. Just tell him you don't want to see him any more and stick to it. Good luck.

What would you think if one of your female friends asked you what knickers you'd be wearing? And then went on about it??

I found your story enlightening, limited :) I hope to live a nutter-free live from here on but, if it happens again, I'll remember your post!

CoffeeColdTurkey, nobody here is going to bollock you! You are in a situation that many here recognise from personal experience, and the rest are thankful that they haven't had to deal with. We are strangers on the internet, providing a sounding-board for each other; not involved personally, and therefore standing far enough away to see the woods, not the trees. Because that's the problem so much of the time - when we're in the middle of it, trying to make sense of the details, beset by the abnormal for long enough for it to become our personal 'normal', it becomes harder to cling to a true normal. We start to question our own understanding - for example, in your case it becomes confused between whether he is controlling or protective. You're in the middle, getting bamboozled. We're at a distance, with no emotional attachment to your boyfriend, seeing controlling behaviour.

So he persuaded you, momentarily, to give your relationship another go. Many who have personal experience expected this. He's restarted his scary controlling behaviour almost immediately, and you can hopefully now recognise it for what it is. It's not about the skirt. It's not about the underwear (WTF?). It's about the fact that he feels entitled. Right now he feels entitled to ask, with the expectation on his part that it will influence your behaviour. Given time, he'll feel entitled to demand. And by then you'll be so ground down that he might not even have to, because you will choose all your actions in an attempt to please and appease him. My, doesn't that sound appealing? [sarcastic and scared emoticon]

There has been some good advice given here on what action you should take to protect yourself. Remember, others posting here have experienced this too, they are trying to help you. It sounds as if he has keys to yours, so despite the expense, change the locks. Even if he gave the keys back, you couldn't be sure he hadn't had copies made. Consider going to the police to report reservations - he has already engaged in stalkerish behaviour. Take their advice - like some of the posters here, they have experience in this field. limitedperiodonly 's post on the matter is helpful.

Good luck OP.

Sorry limitedperiodonly - I didn't really mean that - SGB tells everyone that wants to dump anyone that they will probably need to get the police involved. She also told me that when I was under another name. And that's no disrespect to you really, SGB - like I say, some of your advice is spot on.

Don't worry Abby

Actually maybe SGB has a point.

If every woman immediately went to the police as soon as people like this got all stalkery, maybe they would be stopped in their tracks much earlier on. We don't, because we don't want to make a fuss, waste police time, bother them with our little concerns when they have "real" crime to fight - but maybe we should. If it started to be a nuisance that so much time was taken up by women complaining about men harassing them, maybe something would be done about men who harass women - the government might start thinking it's worth while to build the issue into PHSE - you do not have the right to have a relationship with someone who does not want a relationship with you. If more people knew that and recognised the red flags, this stalkery behaviour would be seen for what it is, not misread as romantic, or insecure, or rather sweet, bless him.

OP i wouldnt flame you or bollock you because ive been there too. He is absolutely NOT right in the fucking head. You have given him another chance and he STILL engaged in this behaviour banging on about your underwear. Its none of his damn business.
Please dont give him any more chances. I cant help wondering what his work colleagues must have thought.
I just cant get over the underwear thing.Unfuckingbelievable.
And moaning about you not texting him back while you were working.
Proves he also doesnt care about getting you into trouble at work.
Please tell him to FUCK RIGHT OFF very firmly.
Otherwise you will end up living a half life if he has his way.

Good point Woooooooopty (have I got enough Os in there?).

I can only speak for my local police but they took it very seriously. Surely there are other forces that would do the same and those that don't need a kick up the arse.

Also my memory was poor when I posted and they acted more quickly than I remembered.

What happened was that I spoke to them because she'd done some damage to my house that I knew was her but I couldn't prove. I showed them a file of letters from her that were aggressive and insulting but made no specific threats.

That was enough to convince them that they needed to talk to her. The most they could do at that stage was ask her to attend the police station for a chat. She made an appointment but didn't turn up. They had no grounds for arrest but it did stop her.

Definitely in my case I thought I ought to deal with it myself and that the police wouldn't be interested.

As I said, if I was being harassed by a man they'd have taken it even more seriously. I'm not sure what they could do unless he committed an offence but it's worth talking to them.

Sorry if you feel hijacked OP but I do feel strongly about this.

The most important thing is for you to do what makes you feel comfortable. But please don't ever feel too silly to complain.

I do wonder (and hope not of course) whether the police might take it less seriously in a case like this, because there's a perception of this sort of behaviour being at least on the continuum of normal male-female relationships. Whereas it's obvious to anyone that it's abnormal from one woman to another, especially where there's no romantic involvement.

It doesn't sound like a police matter to me, I have to say, but I guess that's up to the OPs judgement. She knows him and what he's capable of better than we do, so best positioned to judge whether things are likely to turn nasty. Better safe than sorry though, I agree no one should feel silly about reporting something if they feel threatened or unsafe.

Actually that's a very good point Ephiny. The police can recognise harassment when it's not a man harassing a woman with whom he's had a romantic entanglement. Wd be interesting to know if there's a difference in how they treat harassment complaints.

That's possible. Without going into details I do know that the officers I dealt with - seven in total, including a woman - take DV equally seriously. Not DH beating me or any other woman up - sorry but the details of the case make it identifiable.

Because they were so great I feel obliged to cheerlead for them. I recognise though that they may well be unrepresentative of the police as a whole.

They definitely don't seem representative of the views of society as a whole - men and women when it comes to violence against women.

Again, I support the view that women should complain about male aggression and complain again and again until people start listening.

Love, no flaming from me, and don't you worry about AF, i peed on her matches I'm standing by with a tanker full of foam!

Sometimes you have to allow contact to truly understand what is going on, to test a scenario and look at it with new de-scaled eyes.

I think you have done that now, you can see what we are saying has a rather large grain of salt, in that he really IS a bit of a nutter and IS controlling, IS manipulative and feels entitled to tell you what to do, say and wear.

There is only the one option, and that is to dump him.

If you tell him to leave you alone and he won't, don't feel sorry for him, please call the police non-emergency number and ask for advice. If you are in immediate danger, naturally call 999.

I didn't say 'Call the police now!' I said the OP may have to involve the police. I point this out to OPs dealing with stalking nutjobs mainly in the hope of helping them see that they do not have to put up with this shit. The current law on harassment is AFAIK that once you have told someone to fuck off and leave you alone, more than one attempt to make contact that they have been told is unwanted is enough for the police to have a quiet word. And if that doesn't work, injunctions and non-molestation orders can be taken out. If you have been in a relationship with a controlling abusive nutter, you often get into the mindset that the nutter is all-powerful and will just do what he wants, and everyone else will say that you deserved it or that it's only because he 'loves' you. But this is not true, abusive men can be put in prison if they won't leave you alone.

Blimey he just doesn't give up does he?!