Not aloud to touch the telly

[dazzledfrog]

Been married 12 years and have 4 children but not aloud to touch "his" telly which is in our lounge.

Dh uses it for gaming mostly or occasionally to watch something he wants and says nobody is to touch his telly apart from him.
He even has a code on it so nobody can touch it while he's at work.
Dc who are school age and a baby can't watch it after school because he's at work and nobody's aloud to touch it.
I can't watch it during the day and have a baby so I'm at home all day.
When I first met Dh he already had a telly so I accepted it was his telly but since then he's replaced it with our joint money and it's still his telly.
He isn't going to budge on this and no amount of talk or compromising is going to change anything.

He sits there all evening/weekends playing Xbox games and the rest of the family is never allowed to watch anything.
The (primarily school) children are told to watch telly in their room which they don't want to and he says I can talk to him while he's on his Xbox.
I wish we could have family time watching films or telly together.
I don't think there's anything I can do about it and feel bad for the children.

If you decide to cut off the plug or to put a hatchet through "his" telly, please take the plug out of the power socket first!

You should leave him,. obviously.

If you won't leave then you should buy a TV for you and the kids, and put it in the living room.

Then it shouldn’t be in a communal family space. This is not normal.

But it’s huge.
All day, every day, everyone impacted.
He’s a controlling bully.

Most people just wouldn’t allow this op. Unplug the tv and put it in your room/the car, tell him you will not only touch it, you will smash it up with a hammer, perfectly legally since it’s just as much yours as his, unless you establish a whole new set of rules , and show him these you’ve written out in advance

1. yes he can have gaming time but not every night, agree set hours
2. the kids can watch it.
3. the living room is not going to have the telly on every night, because it’s a family zone. You cannot spend quality time with him while he’s gaming, you don’t care what he thinks about it , what you think is you feel that you haven’t had a single quality evening at home with him for years because he is too selfish and gaming focused to ever want to spend time with you , and it’s destroying your marriage as you know you deserve more from a husband. If this were how one of the kids friends treated them I’d tell our child not to visit and to find actual friends. But
4. hes welcome to leave, give up his house wife and children and take his precious telly, but this is a hill you will die on and if that’s what he wants best he goes anyway.

Firstly he sounds like an absolute loser
And secondly why the hell are you putting up with this?! It's not HIS tv. It's all of yours. That tv would be out the door if I couldn't access it. Your poor children! What a selfish asshole. Tell him you all watch tv or he's gone...

Bleedin man-child. Just picturing him planted in front of 'his' screen while sat cross-legged, wide eyed and letting out the odd shout of "yes".

There should be an upper age limit to gaming (likewise attending WWE where adults should not be let in unless accompanied with a child they are supervising)

No idea how you've put up with this nonsense OP.

Teaching your children some wonderful lessons about being a doormat, OP. 🙄
Setting them up nicely to be walked over by anyone who fancies doing it to them.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/2023/03/nhs-treats-hundreds-with-gaming-disorders/

So unplug it or tell him you need the code.
You’re not his child? Why are you complying with this?

There's plenty you can do about it but do you want to?

Just take all your kids to watch your tv in bedroom, ignore him, don't cook or do anything for him...then make a plan to leave

Why are you allowing this? More to the point; why are you allowing him to treat his children like this?

I would put a brick through it. After I'd told him what a complete twat he is. Then I'd leave him.

Stop it

Why didn't you tell him long ago that it's your telly also?

OP you obviously know that he's being extremely unreasonable and abusive. Saying he's not controlling in other ways is minimising your reality. It's scary ending a relationship especially a controlling one. You and your children deserve a better life, you might not be ready straight away but just imagine being free to watch TV with your children whenever you want, how good would that feel? I didn't ever imagine I could feel as free as I do now but its wonderful.

Reset the pin and don't tell him what it is.

• Reset the PIN on a Samsung TV
• Turn on the TV, then press the following buttons in this order:
• Mute
• +
• Return
• -
• Return
• + again
• Return

• Reset the PIN on a Philips TV
• Press Menu on the remote, then select TV Menu. Next, press the cursor right, then down to select Features. Press the cursor right again, then down to select Change Code. When prompted to enter the current code, enter 8888. Then, enter a new 4-digit code and confirm it.

Ick. Never mind being possessive over it, the way he uses it takes him away from family life. And he encourages the kids to go off to their own rooms and watch TV, what did he have a family for?

Why on earth do you put up with this?

And yet, you managed to find this attractive enough to continue to have sex and produce children with him.

anyone demonstrating that level of control and lack of interest in their current children given he’s gaming all evening and weekend, would not be someone I would open my legs, let alone carry a child for.

He's a child.

The telly is the least of your worries.

this is awful for you

This is so sad really.

have a conversation with him away from the telly , tell him you expect to be able to have family time in the living room, that the tv is for the whole family and that you expect to be able to watch the tv during the day.

just very calm and reasonable

if he isn’t responsive then I would tell him that you have to reconsider the relationship because you and your children deserve so much better

Only you say he sits playing x box in the evenings and that he's on it at the weekends too so that is basically almost all the time he's not at work and the times when he should be spending time as a family with you all and not spending hours by himself on a tv nobody else is allowed to use.

It might be the only abusive thing he does but in terms of the proportion of the time you have together, it sounds like it's the vast majority of the time you get to spend together so he's being abusive for the vast majority of your time together.

Even if he was just spending that amount of time playing x box when he has a family that alone is pretty bad but then not allowing anyone else to touch the tv other than him, it's really quite awful and it's setting a bad example for your children.

If you half paid for it then take your half.

The cable, the plug and the remote.

And preferably the stand its on. So the TV is still his. But he cant use it. And replace it with YOUR TV, which he cant use.

The man is a wanker, a selfish manky wanker.