Husband keeps tracking our daughter on find my friend on iPhone

[staraw]

If she goes out, it's every 15 minutes he's tracking her. I'm not too sure how to address this, thanks.

Sounds like you need dump him and get on with a real life too

This man thinks he owns his family, his children, and all their possessions. He has stated that his wife has no right to any input, because when the children were small she didnt work.
This is a red flag for someone who will become dangerous when crossed.

staraw Please, talk to Women's Aid, and take the Freedom Program. You can take the program online.

So Ansumpasty does your mother track you because she wants to know who you’re with and what you’re doing in order to control it (as the OP implies that her dh would intervene if his daughter was somewhere HE decided she shouldn’t be or with whom) or just because it makes her feel closer to you. There’s a difference.

I agree with Gablilan this can be tremendously disempowering as the message is that you need looking after even as an adult. My mother was like this. Before tracking she once rang me up at a school friend’s house when I was 18 to check where I was (it was about 10pm!). She also told me she knew better than me because she had more life experience. I’m only learning to be assertive now in late middle age after lots of Counselling (and I wish I’d learnt to lie and be sneaky like the other PP instead as it would have at least not been so damaging).

The fact that your dh throws back in your face that it’s not really your roof is a massive red flag to me. It suggests that he thinks even the ‘adults’ in your family are not of equal importance (ignoring the fact that your daughter is an adult anyway ).

Of course I understand that it’s hard to give your older children freedom. I still get nervous when my teens go out late etc. But I wouldn’t stop them (taking into account what is age appropriate) because this is how they learn independence and assertiveness. My fears are MY issue to deal with, not theirs.

What is the use of knowing that she's at bars/clubs-or indeed of knowing where she is at all?

Does he not trust her to be where she says?

What if she/her friends change their minds about where to go?

Surely having a phone on you so that you can contact/be contacted lessens the "need" for tracking?

This isn't about love and concern, it is about control. Your DH risks losing his relationship with his DD with this behaviour - does he realise that?

My DDs are 15 and 17. I don't track them. I trust them instead.

You say he isn't controlling in any other way but you have given several examples of his controlling behaviour. This is awful behaviour from him and I really think your daughter should be blocking him from find my friend as should you. Although this sounds as if it's the least of your problems with him. I am still shocked about him bringing up you not working in an argument, that is him.showing his true colours and feelings IMO.

Oh goodness. I was sort of nodding in agreement until you mentioned the part about how you didn't work when they were little so it's not your roof.

He sounds like an irredeemable twat, I'm sorry to say.

I have an almost-16 year old and I do track him when he's out late in far flung corners of London, but you can surely see the difference.

Good luck OP, I hope you find some resolution.

It's just completely pointless anyway. The tracker might show she's in Costa but she could be there on a date with the local drug dealer. She'll just make things up.

Our DD lives away from home most of the time. Therefore, most of the time we have no idea where she is! She could be at the gym, in a lecture, in her bed, in someone else’s bed, at a nightclub...... she is an adult (admittedly we support her financially but that is our choice) and if she wants us to know where she is she’ll tell us.

When she was 17 she went off around Europe for a few weeks, we knew from Facebook roughly where she was and that she was having a great time.

I wouldn’t dream of tracking her any more than I would contemplate tracking DH (or him me).

Sorry OP but you’re DH is controlling and has no respect for his adult daughter.

Also I don’t think you’ve actually answered a question asked earlier.. “can you track DH?” How would he react if you told him you’d been watching his movements?

So he sees it as his roof and whilst you are all under it you have to toe the line. The fact that you are afraid to have this huge argument shows that you have been conditioned to accept this. Of course he's not normally this controlling, he doesn't need to be because you know your place most of the time. It's when you want to challenge him, and are reluctant to do so, it becomes a problem. For people in healthy relationships, this would just be a case of telling him he's being unreasonable and is his behavior is likely to drive her away rather quickly.

How often do you challenge him op? And what happens when you do?

But if you're an adult and you like having your mother watching you, well that's your decision.

Is it as simple as that? How did she get to the point of accepting that this is OK whilst most people would consider it weird? Possibly through a lifetime of having her mother's controlling and intrusive behaviour normalised.

I suspect we have quite a few people on this thread excusing and minimising the OP's DH's behaviour because what he is doing is their normal. They are likely victims themselves or even perpetrators of controlling behaviour motivated be good intentions, but good intentions doesn't make it healthy or right.

Totally agree

If she's going away to university it's very likely she'll switch it off and not come home very often. If I was married to someone who alienated my children, I would leave them.

That is totally out of order & actually very creepy. He sounds horrid.

TooTrueToBeGood

But if you're an adult and you like having your mother watching you, well that's your decision.

Is it as simple as that? How did she get to the point of accepting that this is OK whilst most people would consider it weird? Possibly through a lifetime of having her mother's controlling and intrusive behaviour normalised.

Not true, at all. I had a tremendous amount of freedom growing up. Too much, to be honest. Think drinking in the streets aged 14, out till 2 with boyfriends at 16, etc.
It’s not a trust issue. If you have a close relationship with your mother and speak every day, you would say ‘we are going the zoo tomorrow and out for dinner’ and call her in emergencies.
When you live on the other side of the world with a very different time zone, you feel completely disconnected. My mum is able to have a look where myself and my siblings are, rest assured that we are just going about our normal lives and not in the hospital, etc, and that’s all there is to it.
I might get a message to say, ‘I see you went the zoo yesterday, did you and the kids have a nice day?’ There is NOTHING controlling about that, or weird, for that matter.

The way things are with attacks and rapes in the city centre clubs, too right I will be checking where my 18 year old daughter (and son!) are when they go clubbing. Perhaps not every 15 minutes, no, but to check their whereabouts.

If the father was a DP instead, and was watching his GF every 15 minutes 'because he loves her sooo much and worries about her' would that be OK? All those saying he's a concerned father - Every 15 Minutes?????

And even once an hour - marginally less creepy and controlling, but the questioning afterwards if she doesn't want to say where she's been? Can she not have boyfriends? Can;t she not have a drink? Can she not see friends, or drive just for the sake of a drive?

She shouldn't have to submit to questioning from her father. Unless she is drug dealing or doing something else illegal, he has no right to demand to know where she is at all hours. Or s=what she's doing.

You need to present a united front with your DD on this one.

What's he going to do if you both refuse to obey him? What's the problem with a massive row? unless you're actually scared of him.

The tracking and 'wanting to know where you are' is a huge red flag in a relationship. Even when it is dressed up as 'worry' and 'concern' and 'I love you so much', and 'it's sweet, innit?'.

Controlling. And the consequences of NOT being controlled (turning it off) are enough to make her submit? Agree with PPs, she is ripe for another controlling man. Because he'd love her so much....

The way things are with attacks and rapes in the city centre clubs, too right I will be checking where my 18 year old daughter (and son!) are when they go clubbing. Perhaps not every 15 minutes, no, but to check their whereabouts.

there are none so blind as those who will not see.

Ansumpasty - that is definitely not normal. I am really close to my mum and we speak almost every day, I tell her where we are going as it interests her, I may tell her before or after what we're up to not because she needs to know just because it's normal to chat about stuff you're doing. Her tracking me to see where I've been would definitely not be normal.

If you were in the hospital for something routine you'd have to make sure your mum knows otherwise she'd panic surely.

I am shocked you can't see that it's weird but essentially it doesn't matter if you're fine with it but if you that to your DCs they may not be ok with it!

Wierd. We have teenagers snd we trust them. I am very anxious about them after one was injured in a major incident but no you can’t go down that route.

He sounds dangerous op.

The way things are with attacks and rapes in the city centre clubs, too right I will be checking where my 18 year old daughter (and son!) are when they go clubbing. Perhaps not every 15 minutes, no, but to check their whereabouts.

Er it just shows location not what exactly is happening to them.

Wierdo.

I don't understand why you feel you have a right to snoop on adult children. Unreal!

I think your DH is doing this out of concern and he probably feels totally out of control now that she has a car. I would guess that the threat to take back the car is his stressed out way of trying to keep in control. He is obviously going about things the wrong way though and I feel sorry for you and your DD having to put up with this - although I don't think it is necessary to call Women's Aid.

From what I know about my DD's (similar aged) friends, a lot of them hide their whereabouts from their parents when they are out. I think there are more parents out there tracking their teenagers than many comments on here would suggest! In your case you probably need to work out what works for you as a family. If you are generally happy with your lives together you could adopt a policy of what he doesn't know won't hurt him...which seems to be very common amongst the teens know!

OP my dad was like this. He would drive around and check my car was parked where I said I was going to be. He would constantly try and catch me out. Thank god I didn't have a phone he was able to track.

It has given me a lifelong fear of plans being changed. I get very anxious if we don't stick to the plan and update me DP with numerous details if we do. I also give him all the details of who I am with and where we are going wherever I go. He is baffled by my behaviour and doesn't request the information, but I can't break the habit.

Writing this down makes me sound crazy and to be fair I can accept that am.

Please stop him doing this to your daughter it is so unhealthy for her and could give her lifelong issues about controlling behaviour. My first boyfriend was very controlling, and I let him because I had come to accept the behaviour as normal as I had learnt it from my father.