Weird and offensive or I am overreacting?

[RememberThatGuy]

Quick sense check here please - my husband just left for work and as usual he sends me a nice message from the car. today’s message was a bit weird and I have taken offence at it but am I over reacting? I have attached a screenshot but the message boils down to “have a nice day, I have made your lunch, remember you have a husband”

I admit I am on the defensive because yesterday he left without saying bye, then when I questioned it he pretended nothing was wrong. Then eventually admitted that he was a bit moody and apologised.

For context I do not have amnesia or dementia, I have never cheated or not returned home from work or in anyway at all forgotten that I am married.

I completely agree with this. I am flabbergasted by the replies telling you you’re overreacting, hard work etc. To me it’s very obvious that he’s a jealous control freak who resents the fact that you have a life that doesn’t involve him, and especially doesn’t want you interacting with other men. I think you should stop taking the lunches. Tell him firmly that you prefer to eat in the canteen with your colleagues.

Were I the husband it would be the last message I'd send after I've left home if everything is to be forensically examined! I find it amazing at how much contact during the working day couples expect to have, I doubt we ever did this unless there was a good reason, eg illness, accident. Mobiles seem to cause problems for so many people, maybe use them less and stop using them as a means of control.

In the minority here but I don't think yabu. I would also be a bit hmm if my dh wrote that to me. It felt like a dig about something, and you say he wrote it twice? It would be different if he wrote remember you have a husband who loves you very much, as to me that would say he knew you were having/going to have a tough day and saying he has your back, but that's not what I got from his message you posted.
It sounds like there are other things going on that you are not sure about ie your job and work hours and not being in contact.

The OP has been clear that she doesn’t want this level of communication during the day. She wants to get on with doing her job.

I would have taken offence at that too OP. It sounds like he’s saying you're ‘neglecting’ him. If you haven’t been then it is weird but if you have been then maybe have a chat with each other.

He is very controlling and you are not being unreasonable at all. Do you come from a culture which disapproves of women talking to men who are not their husbands? Because that is what he sounds like. “Remember you have a husband”. Very much a red flag in my opinion.

With the context of your later posts though… the red flag bunting is out today! His behaviour is weird, paranoid and controlling, I wouldn’t find it acceptable.

So he’s controlling, suffocating, possessive and passive aggressive? YANBU at all OP! I couldn’t live like this. Congrats on doing so well for yourself with your career, I hope your “D”H doesn’t manage to stop you enjoying it.

Wow - a lot of warning signs here. He seems to be deeply insecure, having issues with your male colleagues and guilting you into taking a lunch he’s made when you’ve made it clear you’re happy to eat at work. Passive aggressive is right - ‘how could you complain about something as nice as having lunch made for you’ doesn’t wash as it’s taking away your agency to decide how to spend your lunch time (in the canteen). ‘Remember you have a husband’ - WTF! I’d have been inclined to phone him and ask in a neutral/friendly tone, ‘What do you mean by saying that?’. Curiously. To let him know you think it’s weird.

You could talk to him about how his behaviour around you feels a bit stifling (that’s how I’d feel, maybe you feel differently) and/or let him know, directly, that he’s the centre of your universe and he has nothing to worry about?

I’d look out for situations where you think he might misread something (eg cold sore/no sex). And pull him up on it every time he says something which on the surface sounds reasonable but hits wrong when you hear it - talk about how it makes you feel and ask if he can word things differently.

It’s exhausting not being able to be yourself around someone. It might be nowhere near as bad as I’m making it out to be - I hope it isn’t!

Nope.

I ended a relationship because he "brought me breakfast in bed". Sounds insane, but it's true.

It was a passive aggressive symptom of his weird controlling behaviour. I don't like eating in bed. He did it to wake me up at the weekend (I was out of the house over 14 hours a day on week days and I'm not a morning person, he wfh and got up about ten on week days) because he wanted sex, he always brought things I didn't like (peanut butter on toast, yuck!), it was invariably cold because he made it then forgot about it and I like green tea in the morning because milk makes me gag first thing but he refused to make me green tea and brought (cold) normal tea. No matter how many times I asked him not to, he still did it (and got all butt hurt when I didn't eat it).

That's just one example. But he did these seemingly innocuous things your DH is doing there and it drove me mad. It made me not myself. He gaslit (as you'd DH is doing) by simply lying about stuff but also refusing to accept I did or didn't like something/feel a certain way. I would also get oblique texts referring to things in a strange way. He once texted me at 10am on a work day, when I was staying overnight that night, that he had seen me pack "sexy underwear" (I hadn't, I didn't own any) so was obviously having an affair, "especially" as I had "refused intimacy" that weekend (we'd had sex twice).

Your husband is acting very similarly.

I felt soooooo much better after I'd got rid of him!

I later found out he had been cheating regularly.

Ugh, this. Suffocating at best. I'd hate that.

When I read your initial post I thought ahh nice DH. Now he sounds controlling and weird! Doesn’t want you eating food at work despite you telling him this! Plus gets jealous if you talk to men in meetings? Hmm he sounds like a twat and you need to get rid!

It was a PA move. The type my dh would pull because it’s so easy to say the other person is over reacting if they do pull you up.
The fact it’s in the background of you pulling him up on leaving wo saying goodbye (another PA move to tell you he was unhappy but you weren’t supposed to complain. Just know) just reinforce that.

Its a really shitty thing to do imo because it stops any communication and leaves both people reeling.

The fact so many people dint see the point also shows how common it is to use PA move to make a point in the U.K. btw.

Id have a word with him. But not about his comment. But about the way he communicates his displeasure.

It’s never as clear as that though. (I’m a therapist.)

”Remember you have a husband” is such a weird thing to say, especially when you saw him 2 minutes ago.

I’ve been married a long time. We often travel separately, staying away for days and don’t even message daily, never mind multiple times during the day. Neither of us worries that the other would forget that they are married.

He is deeply insecure. He is trying to manage that insecurity by controlling you by reminding you that he exists, and giving you no reason to socialise with other men at lunchtime but dressing it up as “care”. He’s even commenting on you doing your work because you have to interact with men. He keeps commenting on individual things because it means you are constantly on alert and apologising, which means he can keep pointing things out and blaming you for getting it wrong.

E.g. you should be grateful that he is caring and makes you lunch to the point that you aren’t pointing out that you would actually like to eat in the canteen (which he doesn’t want) or point out that you’re not eating certain bits of it every day (which a caring person would notice and change their behaviour).

It’s heading for coercion.

@AmIHumanOrAmIAYeti I agree that this comment is deeply insecure.
Add to that the other comments from the OP - making her a packed lunch she doesn’t want, having issues with her having lunch with men, expecting her to be ‘as gushy as he is’ and being insecure she now has a more senior position than him, it doesn’t paint the picture of a nice man.

Im still amazed by the fact many posters can’t see further than ‘he made you your lunch! What are you complaining about!’

And I’m saddened that the OP apologised on the back of that. It really wasn’t warranted.

Wow. Poor bloke.

Agree. The initial text is not worrying of itself. The additional context is. He sounds controlling and clingy, OP.

You are massively overreacting.

Stop him texting illegally from the car.

Read the OP’s updates. (He had only just got in the car outside the house. The text took precedence over starting the engine!)

Do you have sex with him when you don't want it?

The ' calm down ' response to being questioned is in the same categories as these lines;

' you're over reacting '
' it was just a joke '
' you're being oversensitive '
' can't you take a joke'

These are stock responses people who minimise, gaslight and passive aggressively communicate use.

It really doesn’t

Crikey you sound really angry with him. That message wouldn't evoke such fury in me, but there must be background. If not then you do sound aggressive and snippy.

How would she stop him texting from the car when she's at home?

The thread is several pages long. You could have checked the OP’s updates before assuming the first post was all the info there was.