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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU? DP doesn’t want me to volunteer

301 replies

VioletSky1234 · 02/02/2022 21:39

Honest opinions please. I have been looking for a volunteering role, and have found something I am interested in, and am good at. My partner however has objections. Should he have the right to ‘veto’ this? He has said if I continue he will leave me. I don’t want to say exactly what the role is, but it is a reputable organisation. I do understand why he is uncomfortable but don’t agree with his objections. Should I continue regardless of the consequences? Or stop something I enjoy because he doesn’t like it?

OP posts:

NoKandoo · 02/02/2022 22:20

Our posts crossed, @VioletSky1234

I would still find it hard to say either way whether YABU or not. How important is this role for you? Is it important enough to lose your relationship over? Why do you feel the need to do it even though your partner objects so strongly? Does a part of you dislike his values, given that he can't see why you would want to do this? It's very hard to judge without being inside either of your minds...

timeisnotaline · 02/02/2022 22:20

If he’s barely tolerating what you do now it doesn’t sound like you can be happy together?? I do think it’s hard to call without knowing more but on the surface of it, it’s your time, you’re allowed interests, you contribute equally to bills, it would have to be something quite controversial for this to be a rational stance of his (I wouldn’t be a fan if you are being a death row bunny or whatever those women who start relationships up are but they do deserve human contact too so…)

ldontWanna · 02/02/2022 22:20

I wonder how many people would reply the exact same way if this was a woman complaining her husband is supporting rapists, or anti abortion organisations or Fathers4justice.

Nietzschethehiker · 02/02/2022 22:21

This totally depends on what his motivation is. I am trained in a specific role that lots of partners would have a problem with me volunteering in. Similar to what you say it's a group of people alot believe have put themselves in that situation. Which is complete rubbish and an ignorant point of view but there we go.

I've moved into the more business/training side of the same industry and generally live a quiet contained life. However I occasionally volunteer because I have skillsets and experience that are less common so I can sometimes be of use. Once DP asked me not to . In this case it was because it would have been related to a specifc group that for geographical reasons would have taken a total of 3.56 seconds to know where I lived and how many dc I had. In that case I agreed to respect his wishes. Purely because his motivation had everything to do with risk and identification. The type of work I specialise in brings an element of risk with it.

If it had been anything to do with not talking to the male species in general I would have laughed him out of the room. So it depends. Sometimes there are good reasons to ask someone not to do something.

However key word is ask. Any ultimatum like that he would have been told to dissappear. That's not how grown ups handle things. They discuss and communicate and find a compromise.

saraclara · 02/02/2022 22:21

@VioletSky1234

He said he is barely tolerating what I do now. The next step would be meeting the person. In a strictly controlled environment. Like I said before I work for social services, so this feels like an extension of my day job.

Again, also what I do. I'm widowed, and took this on after he died, but I know my late DH would have absolutely backed me

If someone wanted to leave me because of it, I'd happily wave them goodbye.
I'm good at this. I feel useful, and it's interesting. If my partner didn't see that, couldn't cope with it and actively wouldn't tolerate it, he wouldn't be a person I could love. And if he actually said that he'd leave me because of it, I wouldn't see any future with him at all.

NoSquirrels · 02/02/2022 22:23

He’s “barely tolerating” what you do for a living?

You don’t sound compatible. How long have you been together?

Original poster

VioletSky1234 · 02/02/2022 22:25

Saraclara, can you pm me? I have a feeling we may work for the same organisation

OP posts:

Aderyn21 · 02/02/2022 22:25

@saraclara

How important is this role to you? Assuming he's not generally a controlling arse and the issue isn't you talking to men per se but the type of man you'd be talking to, is it worth your marriage?

Is it worth your marriage is what someone should be asking OP's DH.

I can't imagine threatening to leave someone I love and care about, because they want to volunteer with a group I don't approve of. It's a well known organisation, it won't impinge on his home life, she doesn't even need to leave home to do it.

His love for her and her commitment to his marriage must be pretty minimal for him to threaten to leave her over this.

Rather depends what the group is imo. I'd be questioning my marriage if my husband was volunteering to work with organisations whose moral values run completely counter to my own

Aquamarine1029 · 02/02/2022 22:31

It's your life. If he leaves, he leaves.

WonderfulYou · 02/02/2022 22:31

He has said if I continue he will leave me.

I would leave if someone said this to me.

Even if you want to work with rapist, child and animal abusers - it’s still nothing to do with him and he doesn’t get to threaten to leave you for making your own choices.

SleepingStandingUp · 02/02/2022 22:31

@ldontWanna

I wonder how many people would reply the exact same way if this was a woman complaining her husband is supporting rapists, or anti abortion organisations or Fathers4justice.

Well it depends doesn't it. Helping to rehabilitate them so when they're inevitably released they're less likely to offend, or campaigning to halve their prison sentences and be allowed to work in women's refuges? There's no suggestion what OP is doing is harmful to abyone

RoyKentsChestHair · 02/02/2022 22:32

@ldontWanna

I wonder how many people would reply the exact same way if this was a woman complaining her husband is supporting rapists, or anti abortion organisations or Fathers4justice.

Indeed. I usually hate the “what if the sexes were reversed?” posts. But in this case I’m imagining a female poster asking “my DP wants to volunteer by visiting female prisoners/supporting rapists/communicating with female paeodphiles” etc . None of us can honestly say we’d be ok with our DP using his free time for such a ‘worthy’ cause can we? I certainly wouldn’t.

Obviously as OP won’t say exactly who these people are so we don’t know, but to try and pretend there’s NO circumstance where it’s ok to override your partners choice of volunteer work is ridiculous.

Eddielzzard · 02/02/2022 22:34

It's not his life to dictate how it's lived.

WonderfulYou · 02/02/2022 22:35

I wonder how many people would reply the exact same way if this was a woman complaining her husband is supporting rapists, or anti abortion organisations or Fathers4justice.

OP has said it’s an extension of her job though so surely it’s got to be quite closely related which he doesn’t have an issue with.

VanillaAndOrange · 02/02/2022 22:41

I'm afraid I am quite stubborn and would not respond well to this at all. If my DH ever told me he'd leave me if I did/didn't do something, I would just have to call his bluff and say "OK, I guess we'd better go our separate ways then." It doesn't matter what it is, you're an adult and you have a choice, and the ability to decide whether you could accept the consequences of the choice. I would say the same to a man who was being manipulated in this way by a female partner too. No-one should use threats of leaving to try to get their own way unless they are prepared to follow through.

Original poster

VioletSky1234 · 02/02/2022 22:43

Helping to rehabilitate them so when they're inevitably released they're less likely to offend,

Yes this is exactly it

OP posts:

ldontWanna · 02/02/2022 22:45

@VioletSky1234

Helping to rehabilitate them so when they're inevitably released they're less likely to offend,

Yes this is exactly it

Thought so.

Intellectually I know it's a good cause, that it must be done and more importantly it must be done by good people that know what they're doing.

Personally though (especially if sex offenders) I couldn't deal with it.

CrinklyCraggy · 02/02/2022 22:45

I don't think it matters what the volunteering is actually. It's something OP wants to do, whatever her reasons and however misguided they are, so DH doesn't get to veto it. He can express an opinion, but he can't force her to make the decision he approves of.

He of course gets to choose whether it's so awful he can't stay with her.

Goawayangryman · 02/02/2022 22:46

Ohhhhh. I have an idea what type of organisation this might be. If I'm right my views are a bit different because the people it supports have often (not always) themselves been victims, or are sort of semi-detached but connected individuals??

I might be wrong.

saraclara · 02/02/2022 22:48

Intellectually I know it's a good cause, that it must be done and more importantly it must be done by good people that know what they're doing.

Personally though (especially if sex offenders) I couldn't deal with it

It's fine if you couldn't deal with it yourself. But not dealing with your partner doing it just seems really odd to me. I don't understand why OP's DH is threatening to leave her if SHE does it.

Dillydollydingdong · 02/02/2022 22:51

Depends how important he is to you. Is it the Samaritan's?

Kite22 · 02/02/2022 22:53

Rather depends what the group is imo. I'd be questioning my marriage if my husband was volunteering to work with organisations whose moral values run completely counter to my own

I am inclined to agree with this.
But the other BIG issue is that he is actually trying to control your behaviour rather than making a coherent argument as to why he thinks you shouldn't do it.

I mean, I think if this work is similar to what you do for your job, there are some good reasons for not filling up your 'free time' with more of the same. It is important work but must be emotionally draining. If he were concerned for your wellbeing, then he isn't being unreasonable in not wanting you to do it, but he is being very unreasonable in the way he is trying to control your choices.

saraclara · 02/02/2022 22:56

@Dillydollydingdong

Depends how important he is to you. Is it the Samaritan's?

Does it not depend on how important the OP is to her DH?

HE'S the one threatening to leave her.

Aderyn21 · 02/02/2022 22:56

While I also wouldn't respond well to threats, I also believe that he's n a marriage you kind of do get power of veto over some choices.

If my husband chose to work with serious offenders, I'd be in the position of not wanting to hear anything about his job and that's going to have a huge knock on effect on the relationship. If I was at a point where I could accept it as a job and a necessary thing that someone has to do and then my husband wanted to spend more time doing it and thus adding something else we couldn't discuss or share, I'd find that hard to reconcile.

grapewine · 02/02/2022 22:56

If it's sex offenders and or child abusers, then I'm with him. I'd have to leave too. I just don't believe they can be helped.

He has a line in the sand. He can't tell you not to do it, but he is within his right to leave.

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