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.

I am starting to see it, I can't sleep thinking about everything.
I'm just looking around the house thinking I didn't choose anything in here, it's all what he liked and chose.
I will feel really lost on my own but it will give me a chance to work out who I really am, I'm just trying to remember who I used to be and the dreams I had.

Yeah, hell no. A family tele in a family room that only he can use? No. The audacity of him to think this is acceptable. If he's so against changing his ways regarding this and there's zero point bringing it up because there's no chance he'd listen, it's time to either fire it out the window or take a baseball bat to it. Personally I'd do both 🤣 but on a serious note op I hope you are ok you don't deserve to feel like this in your own home and neither do your children x

Please don't be hard on yourself about this OP, it's mission creep, you'll have been adapting & changing to fit round his volatility slowly - barely even noticing it's happening.

It's easy to think of abuse as just something physical & so be sure that's not your life, but abuse is so much more.

Have a good look around you & work out just how much control you have of your life & what exactly he offers to your children. Is he a good example of a man? Will your relationship instill a healthy idea of what a good relationship is to your kids? What lessons are they learning about the value of women & mothers?

If you can truly say this TV thing is the ONLY thing, that otherwise he's genuinely lovely then probably there is scope to fix it. But I think we both know that's not the conclusion you'll come to.

But it isn't your fault!! It's his.

I'm so sad for you. I hope you can reach out to someone for help to rebuild life for you and your children. You all deserve that, and you are a lot stronger than you think. Maybe call Women's Aid for advice.

So much good luck to you.

This. I would get the telly “stolen” by selling it on eBay whilst he is at work and use the money to get a family tv.

This level of selfishness in shocking and even though myself and husband have our own offices for our stuff I would never dream of stopping him using my laptop or anything else if he needed to.

You sound so sad in your update OP- I hope you’ve managed to get some rest. Maybe seek help from an organisation who specialises in controlling behaviour. This isn’t about the telly - it’s about the controlling behaviour he’s had over you for so long. Do you have a close friend/ relative who has spent time with you both? Do you trust them to ask if they seen changes in you over the years or observed his controlling behaviour? They might have seen this for a while and even things you haven’t noticed.

You’ve been groomed and conditioned over the years into behaving and conforming. Marriage is a partnership where both people have a say not where one dictates to the other.
You've got a long road ahead of you and it’ll be tough when you start to push back and assert yourself, especially when you plan to leave, but do it for the children if not yourself. This is not a nice way to live.
”Why Does she Do That?” is often recommended on here along with contacting Women’s Aid for advice.

His TV would be removed from the lounge and replaced with one for everyone. He'd be told to find somewhere else to take his TV. No way would I tolerate this.

This is really really sad.
You have no meeting point as a family. Do you sit and eat together at a table? There should be a shared space where you come together as a family.

We don’t have a tv in the lounge to encourage us to spend quality time together but if we did it certainly would be shared. I can’t abide my son gaming for for than a couple of hours as I feel like time is so precious but to have a grown man spending his time doing that is frightening. Terrible example for the children and incredibly lonely for you.

He sounds like a teenage boy. Just for context, my husband works, cooks, cleans and wouldn’t dare tell me what I couldn’t touch especially if I’d bought it.

Dont accept this for your life. You deserve better.x

He isn’t just controlling over his tele. He is not giving the family his time and attention? If he were then this tele would only be on in the dark hours of the night, because he’d be too busy playing and caring for his family. How can he use this tele whilst the kids and his wife are home? If the tele was in the loft/man cave I bet you wouldn’t see much of him at all. Pretty shitty.

This is great. You’re finally seeing things for what they are. You can do this. Imagine a happy space where you can do as you please and decorate it as you please. My friend has just been through similar. She has had a hard year of transitioning but she’s a new woman now. I’ve watched her confidence grow as she’s realised she doesn’t need a man, especially a controlling, useless one like she had. You’ll see your children flourish too I’m sure. 💪 x

The fuck would I put up with that.

OP sounds as if he’s never going to change so I would leave personally.

But first I would chop the cable off his precious telly, leave it on the tv stand and drive the to to the tip.
or I’d tell him that as part of the settlement, everything is divided up 50/50 which includes the telly and then I’d saw it in half.

It's a theme on here. Women come to ask for advice about a 'small' issue that is caused by their 'good dad' partner. And when the first layer of the onion is peeled back, the rest is revealed. And the tears start.

He is an angry, controlling, shouty bad father and partner. And you will eventually have to think about leaving. But that doesn't need to be now. Now is for sleep. Then planning. Then eventually leaving. And then, a quiet calm home with a TV you can put on anytime.

Seriously? I’ve never heard the likes of this. Put him and his tv in another room, free up the family room for the family! Controlling sod!

Hey @dazzledfrog, it's ok to realise things aren't as you thought they were, and it's ok to take time and a bit of a wtf.

Sometimes a tv is just a tv, and sometimes it's not a fucking tv at all.

You're realising some stuff here. Take time. Digest it. Listen.

You'll be reet.

What you have described is bad enough but as you haven’t felt able to go and buy a second telly for you and your children to watch it seems he is also controlling you financially too. Why do you think he is all you and your children deserve? He isn’t.

Oh Op, this is just terrible. I felt disturbed and claustrophobic reading your posts. This is a very upsetting situation to read about.

He has controlled you so much that you are also now infantilised and conditioned to not trust your own judgement at all.

He is an awful man, you must must understand this. He has no regard for you or your poor children. He is a tyrant who is terrorising you all in your own home and his primary way of doing this is through the TV. This means you are also controlled when he is out of the home.

Having 4 children including a baby makes this very hard for you to leave, but never impossible. How old are the other dc? Do you work @dazzledfrog

Absolutely no way i’d have a partner tell his children and wife they couldn’t touch the TV. This is insane. Poor kids can’t even watch a cartoon. If he’s gaming instead of interacting with his DC then i’d be having a word with him. Tell him his kids are growing up before his eyes and day in the not so distant future, they will be gone, and all they will remember is they couldn’t touch the TV in their home and dad was always gaming and shouting at the stupid TV. It might just be a TV, but when you look deeper it’s a lot more than that. If he’s not prepared to change then i’d be reconsidering my marriage, especially for my DC.

If you want to split everyone will help you with the practicalities and how to support the children. You only have to say.

So you're with a controlling arse who has a temper, spends all his spare time gaming, doesn't do much with the kids and likely doesn't do his share of the chores if he's gaming all the time. Goodness knows why you've had more and more children with him, but that's by the by now.

What exactly are his positive points OP? He sounds an awful role model for your children. They're going to grow up thinking this is how you behave and how you treat women/children.

What on earth am I reading?! And you chose to have children with this man?? *holds head in despair

If you want to stay with this man, which I would advise against, buy your own tv and set up a den somewhere for you and your kids. Make sure he understands it is your tv and he is not allowed to touch it under any circumstances.

Just buy another telly.

OP this man is abusive. He is controlling and aggressive; shouting / gritting his teeth / making your DC cry because they have the audacity to use the TV (it’s not HIS) is deeply abnormal behaviour. He does nothing with the children. You have become used to this and it has become normal, but it’s not. You don’t have to live this way. You can be so much happier. Please don’t let your children believe this is normal and set such a low bar for themselves in life. You can leave him - start looking into practicalities. You deserve so much more.

I'd claim the fridge and the toilets as "mine" and start going berserk at him if he touches them. What a twat.