To think I’m allowed to have the light on in the living room

[blanketbuddy]

We have recently moved to a new house. Technically it’s DP’s house as she bought it, but I live here too. We don’t have curtains on the living room windows yet. For context, we live in the countryside. There are no houses overlooking our living room.

The afternoon I have come into the living room and switched on a floor lamp so that I can read my book as it’s beginning to get dark. DP came into the living room about 5-10 minutes after me and sat down on the other sofa with her laptop.

She commented “I hate having this light on, being under the spotlight”. I explained that I wanted to read my book, and that I need the light on. She basically said it would be reasonable for me to offer to read for 30 minutes and then to switch the light off once it got properly dark (as there would be an increased “spotlight” effect in the total darkness). I said that I wouldn’t expect her to use her laptop for 30 minutes and then switch it off just because it didn’t suit me, and I pointed out that she could also choose to sit in the other room if she didn’t want to be in a room that was lit up. She then got angry with me, saying I was telling her where she could and couldn’t be in her house.

I said, “that’s not what I’m saying, you’re perfectly welcome here but I need the light on as I’m reading so I mean if you don’t want to be in a room with the lamp on”. She said, “oh thanks, you’re telling me I’m welcome in my own house!”

who is being unreasonable?

Buy some curtains

Move back out. You're not compatible

Not you!

Your DP sounds like a nutter.

I'd be telling her to stick her own house where the sun doesn't shine.

You would definitely have been unreasonable if you meant The Big Light as using that is against the Geneva Convention, but a spotlight? Nah you're OK with that.

I'd be moving out like a shot

Surely you don't need us to tell you your DP is a total nutter?

(Also - buy some curtains.)

She'll be wanting her blanket back soon enough too, I reckon. I'd move.

Yeah, I’d be looking to move out sharpish. She can sit in the dark by herself

If someone is referring to the house you live in as their house. Dump them, they don't consider* *you an equal.

You just don't sound compatible. Maybe you need a different sort of reading lamp, that doesn't light up too much of the area around you, plus a bigger sofa!

I was all geared up to be YABU as I thought you were going to be a Big Light nutter (my husband LOVES a Big Light and honestly it gives me the ick), but I see you’re not allowed to even use a lamp to read by! Does she sit in the dark??? Fully weird.

Run for your life this is not the kind of relationship that's going to be good for you.

Yeah, she tends to sit in the dark if she’s in the living room in the evening watching something on Netflix.

Curtains are on the agenda ASAP but we’ve been getting essentials like the bathroom etc sorted first, and money is in short supply currently.

is this controlling behaviour? She also told me I was being unreasonable and turned it around on me in a way that made me wonder if I was in the wrong.

You like light she likes dark !
You need separate living rooms or the relationship is doomed.

Is it an issue of curtains or the actual light?

I hate most lights. I have ASD and I am really sensitive to lamps. I love a dark or dimly lit room. My dd is the same way. We both get really unhappy when DH turns on the overhead lights instead of the carefully selected lamps we have purchased.

Her issue is the room “being lit up for the whole world to see”. ASD-related issues I would understand but this is because she’s worried about people seeing her in her living room. Even though there are literally fields with cows/sheep all around us and a road with very few cars going past.

Leave now and be grateful that you didn’t help buy the place . I can’t stand sitting in the dark , our house is like Blackpool illuminations most of the time .

She is.
ITS irrelevant whose name the mortgage is under, you both live there.

I live in a house with no passers-by and I hardly ever shut my blinds/curtains when I have the light on. No one can see me so there is no issue. Your DP sounds a bit bat shit if she won't allow you a light on to read. That's madness. I can't imagine just sitting in the dark all evening.

I would leave it a day or two and ask for a conversation about how you disagree and so on.

Is it ok for her to say ‘It’s my house’ when she doesn’t like something you do?
Does she expect that her way will always be prioritised?
Can she tell you what to do- and not to do- whenever she likes because it’s her house?

if that conversation doesn’t go well, you need to reconsider your arrangement. Do you still have another home?

Until it’s resolved, don’t spend a lot on the house.

First she is unreasonable about the light being on when you need it. Then she comes down heavy with "her own house".

Either know your place in "her house" and comply or see the red flags and move out.

Get some curtains?
I prefer sitting in the dark for Tv/screen activity but I wouldn’t tell someone else they couldn’t read.

Get out while you still can!