Husband has started locking doors while i'm at work & we NEVER lock the doors

[Needanswers1]

My husband has been off work for 3 months due to an injury. We live in the country and never lock our doors. For the first time in over 5 years I came home early from work to find the front door locked! It also took a while for my husband to answer the door. When I questioned him he first said he was worried about safety (he never has when I'm home alone and never told me to lock the door) then he yelled at me to shut up and got very defensive. Am I being unreasonable or is he up to something?

Most people lock their doors, its not normal to leave them open... I know this because Im the one that never lock them and get the 3rd degree about how Im gonna be murdered in my home all the time by everyone lol.

DH is excessive about locking doors, often locking me in or out its irratating.

Is putting a tracker on his wife's car then lying about it MH related too?

I feel PP are missing the point with this blasted door locking. It's a red herring.
The real issue is this man's controlling behaviour & anger toward OP.

Same here.

Can I ask why your husband keeps several guns around the house @Needanswers1 and does he have a license ?

Also what other things does he accuse you of ?

Hmmm. Something rattled him.

He works in a prison Got news today that someone with a grudge has been released?

He keeps guns in the house. Is it really ok to go out and leave guns in an unlocked house? Also see above: who knows he has guns? Is he in some sort of procedural trouble, or scared?

He put gps on your car? Do you mean a gps tracker? As in he tracks you and tried to do it without telling you? Controlling? Paranoid?

Is this the first and only time? I do think some sort of porn activity is likely, maybe those live websites, but see what happens next and if he starts upping security generally.

Whether you live rurally or not, I personally think you should lock your external doors.

I live very rurally and was at home alone not long ago - had just got out of shower with a towel wrapped around me - and a gypsy tried to open my front door.

He clearly thought it wasn't locked and thought it was his right to just barge through quite confidentially full of smiles.

He looked very surprised/shocked that it was locked. I told him (through the glass part of the door), what on earth he thought he was doing and he went away looking very pissed off and insulted, as if I was the unreasonable one!

Chances might be small but why would you risk it.

Ugh... this is a reality check. He is a gun collector, does keep them locked up to my knowledge but IDK how many or where other than the gun cabinet in the living room. Truth, he lied about the gps twice...even after I found it in my car and confronted him... he told me it was to track my car and would notify him of any engine or service warnings. He frequently refers to "my boyfriend" if I'm later than usual from work. He has also opened and read my mail... even confronted me once because I had applied for a loan. I chalked it up to being my fault because I didn't tell him. He has not apologized for yelling at me. I keep telling myself that he is doing this to protect me....

love, wake up

Hes controlling, and probably it’s just Another one of his sick games.

Id think he’s up to something worse than porn, maybe Only Fans or some sort of sex web cam thing? He makes sure you won’t surprise him by coming in unannounced

We always lock the doors. I think you're very silly if you don't especially when you're out or as a woman home alone. It only takes one chancer or one vile pervert.

But I also think he was having a wank.

I shouldn’t stereotype but I wouldn’t trust a prison officer with a gun collection and stalking fetish 🫣

I am all for locking the doors. He is friends with a few of the neighbors but everyone pretty much keeps to themselves. We have a chihuahua that barks furiously if there is even a sound at the door, but that does not qualify as security. I will go get a new lock today, will install tonight and if he disagrees I will do it myself. Idk why it took something like this to get me to that point, and please help me on the porn issue...do you believe it's ok for a married man to see it? I feel horrible about it. I am 53 years old and NOT a model...am completely insecure with watching young beautiful women and NOT turned on by it, so do not watch with him. Is it that he is filling his time with it? He shows absolutely NO desire to return to work. This is a work related injury and he is not working on returning. And here's the kicker - 2 days after the injury IT came and seized his computer because someone was accessing porn on it. He said this happened after he was already gone and there are inmate workers that are trustees in the area he works so I can definitely see them taking advantage - I mean they are male inmates.... But the computer access for the porn sites was under his username and password???

Oh. That escalated quickly.
He's an abusive arse. And my diagnosis has changed to: he locked the door to make you need to ask him to let you in/make you worry he'd kicked you out.

Mine does it rather often. I'll tell him I'm taking DS for a drive to go to sleep then come back carrying a delicately sleeping baby and he's locked the door either his key in it and I have to knock and wake baby to get in then try to get him back to sleep. He just likes the control.

Well it’s good that he keeps them locked in the cabinet and you shouldn’t have access to it or know where they keys are.

But if the guns are in a cabinet in the living room in casual sight then you should both be locking your house door all the time. You have to take reasonable measures to make sure that they are not stolen.

Are you at all concerned about his controlling behaviour ? Do you know that opening your mail, controlling your finances, tracking your car and accusing you of being with other men are all coercive control, which is now a criminal offence?

Thank you all...I need different perspectives and honestly didn't even put the work situation and locked door together until now. It honestly could be totally unrelated, or it could be that he is in serious trouble at work and that is why he does not want to go back...

I'm so sorry - that is awful...being an unsupported mom is harder than being a single mom, and adding fear to that is even worse.

eh? He's doing what to "protect" you?

www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Does-He-That-Controlling-ebook/dp/B000Q9J0RO

OP - buy this book.
Have it sent to your work address.
Never take it home.
Read it in your breaks.

Then come back & ask PP for the help you need in recognising how angry & controlling your H is, & what to do about it.

Please go and get that lock. You need to be able to access your own home at all times and not be reliant on somebody else opening it. Even better get a spare key cut and hide it.

This could be it. I visit prisons for work. Most doors in prisons are always locked. As a visitor I have an escort who takes me round the prison and locks and unlocks all the doors.

Once we went into a part of the prison that was out of use and my escort left a door open. Now that blew my mind. I couldn't concentrate on my work because there was this door that was open and that just never happens in a prison. Even though I knew that it was fine that the door was open.

But anyway, it is completely normal to lock your doors when you are at home because of the very real risk of sneak in burglaries. I know a few people who've had cars, phones, handbags, money etc stolen by thieves who've just walked through unlocked doors while they've been at home. And these are people who live in the prime areas of my city, that are always mentioned as the place to live if someone posts 'I'm moving to X, where should I live'.

Maybe he is feeling a bit vulnerable since having an accident (emotionally or physically) and is just feeling a bit embarrassed about it. Or he is having a wank. Either way it doesn't sound particularly sinister so maybe just let it go.

I was jokingly suggesting he was wearing your clothes and no want to apologise for trivialising.

Sounds like the net was closing in and he knew, suddenly there is an injury and now he is paranoid about arrest or police turning up - goodness only knows what he has been doing on that laptop, a lot more than tractor buying by the sounds.

You need to protect yourself here in more ways than one, a new key for certain but consider that being a key that fits a different house

IT seized his work computer?

And all that he has said since is that it must have been one of the inmates? I worked in an incredibly innocuous workplace but leaving our desks without locking our computers was against the IT policy.

Has his work computer been returned to him? Is ge now using your home computer?

There is no way a work computer would be seized for porn and there not be an in depth investigation and disciplinary.

His behaviour to you is controlling and coercive. Opening your mail, putting a tracker on your car, head games about a ‘boyfriend’ - all controlling and abusive.

Lock down all your own IT OP. I bet he has a tracker if someone kind on your phone. Password everything, never stay logged in to anything on your computer.

What was the injury that took him out of work?

"IT came and seized his computer because someone was accessing porn on it. .... But the computer access for the porn sites was under his username and password???"
You say he says this happened in the two days after he left?
I'd be asking how did they see someone on his laptop. Otherwise it might take weeks or months for the IT department to detect that the laptop was being used. Not in two days but I could be wrong about that.

It's a pretty big deal for IT to calling to someone's house and taking a laptop.
Both of you seem to be playing this down.

Sounds like he was afraid of someone else coming to the house in relation to himself, not a random burglar. If he's done nothing wrong why has he the doors locked?

This. I totally agreed with you@CrunchyCarrot . It's typical MN that everyone assumes he's up to something bad, rather than he is struggling and needs support or reassurance.

Re the IT stuff - are you sure he hasn't been dismissed for gross misconduct? That's generally the only way that a company would go to someone's home and take the IT equipment. Even if not dismissed, there would be some sort of investigation into this - all sounds very suspicious, never mind the new development of locking doors when you've never done that before.

Bloody hell, OP, so many red flags in one paragraph!

I'd have run for the hills by the time I got to more than one of those of things.

He sounds very controlling, dishonest and goady. If these behaviours are relatively recent, I'd wonder if he's becoming unwell, if he's always been like this, I'd be wondering what the hell I was thinking to have married him and planning to LTB.

Whenever I see "We live in the country, we never lock our doors" I recall my close friend's mother and partner. They 'lived in the country and never locked their doors' and one night, as they sat watching telly, 3 armed and masked men burst in, beat both of them up, tied them up and ransacked the house.

The partner never recovered from the impact of his injuries and died the following year.

LOCK YOUR DOORS. Thieves target houses they assume are more vulnerable and the 'we live in the country' clan are amongst these.