DH said he'd leave if I take this job

[MatchaGreen]

I've been (very unhappily) working from home for a few years.

I don't see anyone, don't have any colleagues, and need a change.

I've applied for a new role, however, DH has said that if I go through with the training he will divorce me. It's a common job, plenty of people do it, but he thinks the industry is just notorious for affairs and sleeping with each other.

What would you do in this situation?

Up until this post I thought “maybe the issue with your new job is the long hours, or travelling, or something reasonable, and his communication is just shit”. But no, reading this he is a jealous controlling twat.

He won’t even let you go out for lunch with your friend in case you fuck some random on the way home. That is really messed up.

I’d be leaving him anyway for being a controlling twat

He tries to control whether you wear make up, who you go out with, and now trying to control your choice of career.

this is not normal behaviour and he’s a controlling abusive bastard. Denying it won’t make it any less so, in fact it’s only likely to get worse.

I just saw your update about him wanting to come along to catch ups with your friends. All of the 🚩

I remember a birthday dinner I booked for me and 9 girlfriends. Well 1 of them turned up with her husband, so it was 10 girls…and Dave. Thankfully Kate and Dave are now divorced!! In many ways he sounds like your husband aka an anchor around her neck, ensuring she never had fun without him, which wasn’t actually fun at all!!

I've just spoken to him and he said that I can do what I want but it makes him "sad."

Boo fucking hoo. Reading your later posts you have way more issues than this job. Him never wanting you to go anywhere alone and wanting to join you, thinking going to a book club must be to meet other men, questioning make up as again must be to meet another man, being suspicious were you to go for a walk alone. Going to join you on a WORK trip.

Just read all of this. And run. More red flags than a Chinese army. None of this is normal. This is not a normal relationship. I would leave my DH for any one of these things, and again we have been married for 30 odd years. I would not put up with that, it’s deranged and controlling behaviour.

BTW OP, if someone were visiting you and felt the need to call their partner 7 times during the evening, wouldn't you think they were unhinged?

So much wrong here OP and it’s upsetting reading your posts as you can’t see it.

You always minimise and deflect and have a reason or excuse for everything he does.

You are not responsible for his feelings. He is manipulative and abusive. Don't waste any more of your life with this awful man.

He's not very supportive, is he? He'd rather you were unhappy? Or would he be more supportive of a different role? If it meant spending lots of time overseas I could understand his fear of losing you and hardly ever seeing you, but I suspect he just likes to know you are safely hidden away at home... in which case, LTB.

I thought this too, for a long time too, about my own situation. The standard descriptions of coercive control often describe more 'obvious' forms of control and like you, I didn't have any of those. My situation had a lot of similarities to yours - gestures of care and attention when I was housebound but steps towards education or job seeking were discouraged and undermined by him in subtle ways. Not all controllers want to control every aspect of your life but may focus on one area and they may undermine in more passive aggressive ways such as sulking, silent treatment, guilting, which use your emotions to make you feel bad for doing the thing they don't want you to do. What is important to know is that in an equal relationship a man would never behave as you partner has - making threats, accusing you of trying to get attention from men, etc, etc.

It's natural you feel lost and leaving isn't at all easy. The very next step for you may not be LTB but to read more about emotional abuse and understand that the behaviour you've described is not OK or normal, you don't deserve it and you haven't caused it.

Unless there is a massive bombshell coming where you tell us that the new job is in the sex industry, then he's being a bloody idiot. You'd be mad to turn down a job you want just because your childish husband doesn't trust you.

I have read your updates. He sounds awful. This relationship isn't healthy. It sounds like you rarely go out, and on the occasions that you do, he has a problem with it.

Take the job. Call his bluff. Let him divorce you. I'm sure you'll be absolutely fine.

That's the extreme end of it.

He calls you constantly when you're with your dad - what's that if not spying? He's making sure where you are. Next time you're out don't answer. See what reaction you get (it won't be good). If you already know what reaction you'll get and you want to avoid it, well that's all you need to know!

He sulks if you go out with a friend without him - that's punishment for not doing what he wants. Ever decide not to go out because you're a bit tired and you can't be bothering with his reactions if you did go?

You want to accept a job but you're posting on here about reconsidering that because you're concerned about his reaction if you do. You already know he'll make your life difficult and make it clear he's not happy. Your desire to avoid this is making you reconsider your job offer.

He makes false accusations about you. He threatens you. Can you ever just go about your life without having to justify your decisions to him?

All these things he does are coercive control. You alter your behaviour as a way of managing his unpleasant behaviour. That's what victims of coercive control do.

There's always good times (or things that pass as good times compared to the rest) because if they were bastards 100% of the time nobody would ever stay. It sounds bad when you write it all down because it is bad. It's called the cycle of abuse.

Honestly I hate it when everyone jumps straight to LTB but in this case I’d have to agree. I could never live with someone like that. Jealousy and suspicion can destroy you.

He has probably had an affair himself or would like to, given the opportunity. His attitude is often down to a guilty conscience and thinking everyone is the same.

Would you really end everything if your DH said this to you? Even after 10 years?

Isn’t this the question you should be asking your so called dear H.

You know your H is controlling, you know he is happiest when you aren’t and you know the version of him that isn’t controlling and manipulative isn’t waiting around the corner.

It’s coercive control, just because he doesn’t tick every box doesn’t mean it isn’t. I never say LTB but I do suggest you take a long hard look at your relationship and where you think it will go if you don’t do what he wants. Maybe get some professional help to talk things though, it can be very hard to accept you are in a DV relationship if you have never seen it as such.

Get rid.

Op don’t make this worse. Do not let him manipulate you into complete isolation. Take the job. What he does is his choice. You are in an abusive relationship with a controlling man. Start to take control of your life, if you do not, there will be nothing left of you soon enough. You will be a shadow in your own home.

take the job.

My first thought too!

You can't live by this OP. If you think the job will make you happier (I am assuming it doesn't involve being an escort or such) then you must do it. Wouldn't you resent him otherwise?

Yeah your husband is abusive op. Sorry. The best thing you could do is take this job and hope he does divorce you.

He will try a number of tactics to get you to comply, he will get angry, then sad, he may ignore you for a while, guilt trips of some description, the ultimatum has already happened, he'll ask as you 'nicely' not to do it. These tactics will no doubt happen multiple times until you comply. If you don't, be careful op as violence may happen at that point.

My exdh was exactly like this, I came to realise he was a narcissist and emotionally abusing me, with some financial and sexual abuse thrown in too. My marriage also ended when I wanted to do something similar to yourself, but he didn't want me to. The end result was he hit me as he was so frustrated that his usual tactics weren't working, and he's been trying all of them for weeks, but I stood firm. Even after he hit me, I stayed, he ended up saying 'if you walk out that door don't bother coming back' on the day i started, so I walked out the door and never went back. That was over 20 years ago, it was, without a doubt, the best decision I ever made

Assuming there isn't some back story about this being a job in the actual sex trade, this is such a weird remark of his and he comes across as possessive and controlling.

Take the job, OP. Let the stupid husband do what he likes.

That was my immediate thought too 🤣

If you don't take the job, what's the alternative?
You stay as you are, at home, FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.