I am really upset about something and would like help thinking it through.
Today was my day off. I did tons of Spring cleaning as house needed sorting out. I sat down at three o'clock to have a coffee as I had been busy all day.
I looked out of the patio doors into the garden and something didn't seem right. I also couldn't relax. Kept looking and wondering what seemed off, then noticed that a large patio umbrella towards the very back of the garden looked odd at the top. I looked from a different window and discovered that a large black camera had been added to the very top (black ball shape) of the umbrella. I probably only noticed it because I am quite a visual person and the shape at the top looked odd. The camera had been positioned to look directly at the back of the house, including where I was sitting. It's a biggish garden so it would be a distant view but still it would monitor the whole back of the house all day and night.
My partner came home a bit later. I confronted him and asked if he had put a camera on top of the patio umbrella. I said I was annoyed and did not feel it was appropriate and to take it down immediately - which he did. I said a ring doorbell on the front of the house is fine but I had not given consent to a camera in the umbrella and had not been asked!! I said it is my home and I do not want to feel under surveillance here when pottering about in the garden or in and out the back door. I said that it is my home, not a bank or supermarket with cameras. It did not feel like it was for burglers particularly as it was not at a door/window, just the whole back of the house and garden. I also felt deceived, I had seen him fixing the umbrella at the weekend and he had had the black ball from on top of it in his hand. I asked him at that time, 'what is that?' and he had not mentioned a camera, simply saying 'Oh, it's just the top bit off the umbrella'. (That would have been his chance to add that he was going to put a camera on it). I feel that he said this - it's just the top of the umbrella - as he knew I would be upset if a camera was going to be put there. He then went on to gaslight me that there had always been a camera there in the garden but in a different umbrella! He said well, don't blame him if we get broken into; I feel it was deflecting on to me so that I would be the person in the wrong and the camera was for my own good. I asked my daughter if she was aware that there had been a camera in a different umbrella there and she said no. If there had always been one I doubt I would have suddenly noticed it just today! It is making me doubt myself.
I feel that my partner is controlling. He likes gadgets fair enough but he should ask consent. He has recently rigged the lights in the house up to an app on his phone. I had to argue again that I don't want that as I also need to control the light and would prefer to manually turn them on and off when needed.
He has managed to turn this episode round tonight already so that he is a perfectly reasonable person just wanting to protect his 'property' and I am not! I am really fed up with it all. I feel that I am put in a position of having to argue for the general courtesy around things most people expect and then blamed for 'arguing'. I feel it is arrogant to not ask someone's consent to things that affect them.
Am I being unreasonable?
I have been very unhappy for a long, long time.