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.

I had a lot of freedom, and she trusted me. At 16 I was allowed our with my boyfriend until 2, yes. I was even allowed to sleep over a this house...shock, horrorshock - yet you won't allow your dd to be out without having a tracker on her? So - you won't trust her? Personally, I had to be back indoors by 5pm at the age of 14, unless I was going to a prearranged 'disco' or the like. If I wasn't, dad would be out, looking for me. There are rapist and murderers out there, you know! It's called 'being a parent'?

Yes, you are a controller. I'm not being nasty in the slightest - I am quoting YOUR words back at you. YOU SAID you will be putting a tracker on your dd at 18 (of course NOT your 4yo! I'm talking about when you should be letting go of your ADULT child) and I have told you what might happen to her - you love her so much, she can't do stuff, or go places where you might worry. So = you won't trust her. She won't have the choice to turn it off, because YOU SAID it's a bad person (me) who doesn't allow herself to be tracked.

You want to control what your 18yo dd will do. Even if it's just to lie awake and worry until she gets home. What happens is you'll be saying stuff like 'I was so worried, dd, I lay awake until 3am waiting until I could see you'd got home....' [sad voice] and it's a short (guilt trip) step from that to dd changing what she does. Either NOT going out because mummy doesn't like it, or leaving her phone at home. SSHe knows she can't turn it off, because she'd be a Bad Daughter. But she'd be ripe for a controlling man to pick up, because she thinks it's normal to be tracked, and watched, and she has no choice.

And your ds will watch this and think that it is normal for him to put a tracker on his gf (when he's old enough, obviously!!!) and watch what she's up to. And as the son of a controller, he will find it totally normal to control what she does and where she goes.

These are all hypothetical GF and BF. Just to make it clear to you, it's for when your dc are old enough to be adults. BUT - if you stop watching the sensationalist TV and rapes and murders, and read a few of the Relationship threads, where women are controlled and abused in exactly this way, you would have a clue. Abusers like this are much more likely to happen to your dd - esp as the dd of a controller.

Honestly, your posts make my blood run cold. 'I'm the least controlling person ever'?? Said every controller, ever.

@ciderhouserules

Sounds like you have been subjected to some awful things in your life, or are perhaps the rehabilitated subjector? You are extremely invested in the adulthood of my 4 year old girl.
I’m lucky enough to have not personally witnessed or been a part of any abusive or controlling relationships, so it’s not
my area of expertise, but you obviously have unresolved issues that you need to get to the bottom of.

I suggest you seek help for your issues otherwise they will end up smothering you-you seem to know an awful lot about controlling relationships. Seek help, it’s out there

This thread is getting way too personal and all sorts of assumptions being made.

Might be time for a coffee and Jaffa cake.

I'm sure it's not intended, but some of the words being exchanged are going to start hurting soon, if they haven't already.

She won't forgive him for this. It will impact their relationship for good. Maybe not now, but it will. Mine were controlling parents. I didn't see it then, but now I do, I don't want anything to go with them.

This thread is getting way too personal and all sorts of assumptions being made

Indeed

"If it’s available, which I’m guessing it will be (but a lot more advanced) I will be asking my kids if I can see that they are safe the first few times they go out. Absolutely!"

But you won't see that on the tracker. Unless modern technology comes along with some seriously creepy features (footage relayed via the tracker) you will not be able to see whether your dd is safe, whether she is unraped, unmugged or even alive. All you will know is that her phone is in a certain location. The only way you will find out if she is ok is if she tells you the next day. And the best way to ensure that is to encourage her trust in your ability to let her become independent.

Before you ask, I do have a 21yo daughter, with some health problems, who is now living independently in London. Also an 18yo ds who is living with us and occasionally comes home in the small hours. A tracking device wouldn't allow me to see anything other than where they went, and as rape and assault is not confined to specific locations, that wouldn't really reassure me at all.

Hi folks,

Can we have some peace and love? If the thread continues down this road, we'll have to take the whole thing down, which would be a shame.

That's just it, @Chipsahoy

My DM isn't abusive in the way my F was, but she's always been very controlling. It's always dressed up as helping us, but she's very full-on and takes over, making any time with her very stressful. She also muscles in when either my DH or I are disciplining our DDs, acting as if she's the parent.

The result is that my DSis and I want very little to do with her now.

Controlling parents can be damaging in other ways, too. My DB is totally incapable of handling anything himself, because DM has infantilised him so much by sorting everything out for him. Okay, he has MH issues as a result of the traumatic childhood we all had, but so do DSis and I.

The whole point of parenting is that we're preparing our DC to be independent adults. When they reach that stage, it's time to let go.

A tracking device wouldn't allow me to see anything other than where they went, and as rape and assault is not confined to specific locations, that wouldn't really reassure me at all.

I agree. A tracking device could easily provide false reassurance or unnecessary worry. As quite an anxious person (about my children anyway), I would actively avoid doing this as apart from the fact that it is a violation of privacy, it could easily increase anxiety which I think is probably what has happened in OP's DH case.

Read the message from MNHQ, @Ansumpasty if you continue like this you're going to get this thread taken down. I think all the rest of us are tired of you and @ciderhouserules having a cat fight on here. You both need to grow up.

Hmmm guessing the OP either was scared off or is having that big argument with her controlling husband.

I hope it's the latter. Whether her DH's behaviour is creepy or not (and I know I might well be guilty of projecting a bit because of my own experience), his behaviour is totally out of order.

Oh come on!

Out front - means on the pavement and in the front gardens where available in sight and hearing of parents - so adult supervision, I NEVER said without adult supervision. And I NEVER said 4 I said from 6. It is HARDLY "roaming the streets". All the neighbours looked/look out for all the children.

"I had a lot of freedom and she trusted me"

"Believe it or not, I would always tell my loving mother where i’d been when I got in" and that stopped you? Protected you? No it didn't.

"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."

"Are you somehow wanting your children to be kept safer than you were?

Oh, absolutely! I was very lucky that something awful didn’t happen to me the amount of crazy and unsafe situations I put myself in"

Well, you can't have it all ways. Which was it? A good healthy upbringing or one where there wasn't enough supervision and monitoring which resulted in you behaving in risky ways?

"I’m pretty sure my mum would have reeled me in, if she did have Find my Friend 15 years ago!" How did she NOT know? As I said I have a 17 yr old, basically good kid but had her moments, but nothing like you've described! - I as a parent had a responsibility to make sure she was raised to know better, while also knowing if she did get into a scrape, or felt out of her depth in a friendship or relationship she could and would and DID come to me early on. Through a combination of discussion, building trust in each other and applying sanctions when necessary to "reel her in" she's now a happy, relatively healthy (disability) working adult with lovely friends.

"It may be a sign of the times, ansumpasty, but not opting into it does not mean you are a bad daughter, or a bad parent, or a bad friend. We are all free to make those choices if we are of an age to do so. You may not intend to come across as judgmental of those who choose not to use tracking technology, or who find it distasteful, but that is how you come across." Hear hear!

"You can’t really compare today to then- the technology is incomparable and it was commonplace to not know where people were." No amount of tech replaces good parenting.

I had a 9pm curfew at 14, as did dd. Bed by 10 at latest. NO WAY would either of us have got away with drinking in the streets! I was still hanging out in the play park with my friends! I knew where dd was and who she was with - because I built a relationship not only with her but her friends and their families too. And I was considered a "strict" mum according to dd and her friends, but she stayed safe while also developing independence and "street smarts". Equally during daytime hours we both were allowed to go by train with friends to the nearest city to go shopping, cinema etc. Which several of the friends with "non strict" parents weren't allowed to do. It's a balance.

Cider - my only point to add to your post at 1409 is that men/boys can become victim to controlling abuse too. Indeed if a controlling mother of late teens has a son he will be just as vulnerable to being a victim as a controller himself.

Obviously when I come back with the "our roof" I get stuff brought up about how I didn't work when they were little

Obviously? WHY obviously? Why would he even SAY that?

He sounds utterly utterly vile.

And you just accept this crap treatment and disempower your DD .

Shame on you OP

Bubbles - I think the OP is so worn down by it that she doesn't see it for what it is any more.

I just hope this thread has opened her eyes a little, and that she and her dd find the strength to stand up to this bully.