Husband paranoid and controlling about my movements

[mummydoesntmind]

AIBU

I wanted to ask for collective views on controlling behaviour/ monitoring from a spouse. For background, my husband has been off work for 5 years recovering from a spinal problem that needed recurrent surgery. He’s now at a point where he is looking to get back to work. In this time he has cut himself off a bit socially and become more inward looking - he avoids social situations with our children and has asked me to do things like sports clubs/ groups/ party drop offs etc. I’ve noticed in recent months he’s also started getting a bit particular about where I am and when I’m going to get home from things (e.g. he rings me if I’m leaving things later than expected). In the background, I should mention we’ve had some marriage counselling as I was starting to freak out about the fact he was becoming so insular and it was making me worried about our future and whether I could see us being happy together long term (social life and interaction are v important to me). I had also made friends with another dad at my kids sports club that I started to get along with and talk to regularly and things started to feel a bit unhealthy so I’d arranged to meet him to talk about the fact I thought we should only be friends. Basically my husband found out that I’d lied to him about where I’d gone, and he has now developed trust issues about me going places and wants to know where I am regularly. I feel that because I have been faithful to him and was managing the situation with this dad, (I couldn’t tell him as I knew he was in a fragile place and would get jealous or be v upset) that he needs to trust me to go about my daily life without monitoring my movements.

Yesterday I had some shopping to do, and my husband had been out in the morning. Since him going out is rare, I knew he’d ring on his way home to see what I was up to. I told him where I was (approx 1.15) . He then called again later to ask what time I’d be home (maybe 2). The second time I told him that I didn’t know what time I’d get home because I had quite a bit of shopping to do (end of term presents). He kept pressing me and I just repeated myself that I didn’t know. He messaged me a few times as well. When I got home he was in a real sulk with me and told me I was being strange, evasive and secretive. Now I get that he has trust issues, but I really don’t think this level of paranoia is OK. I don’t want to be monitored where I go, who I see, or am friends with. I don’t know if I’m being unreasonable or if I should surrender my movements and friendships to my husbands wishes. It doesn’t feel healthy and I find it very upsetting to think that I can’t do my own thing independently without always having to tell him where I am. I might be more sensitive to this as I had a stalker for a while in my 20s and used to be bombarded by messages/ phone calls which obviously is quite triggering for me now also.

Sorry for the long psycho-drama. I’m quite a balanced and healthy person in most areas of my life and I’ve been happily married for a long time with no previous infidelity or reasons for my husband to be so paranoid.

BTW, I flew off the handle a bit and told him it wasn’t ok and that he needed to treat me as an independent adult. He apologised but said he thought it was normal for married couples to ring each other to see where they were/ when they’d be home. But he wouldn’t accept a vague answer then was angry and sulky with me and when I got home (and I knew I’d have the phone calls and messages while I was out). I rarely go out other than to work and kids clubs and have a pretty limited social life- occasional drink with a friend sort of thing. He always knows where I am. Would you see this as a big issue?

Sorry but, if he was out in the morning which is unusual, do you think there is any chance he didn’t want you finding out he’d been somewhere he shouldn’t have been?
Otherwise, he could just be trying to restrict you to his own insular world.
Either way yes, it would bother me.

Ridiculous man. I can't see this ending well, he needs to get a grip. His trust issues are his problem and HE needs to sort himself out , this would drive me nuts.

You lied to your husband about meeting another man and wonder why he no longer trusts you.

You know nothing happened but he clearly doesn’t.

Either continue marriage guidance or separate.

Is he getting help with his own mental health? Sounds like he’s had a really tough time for a while and this will impact anyone’s personality.

Relationships are only generally happy when both parties are happy.

YANBU...and sorry for what you are going through. I can't stop crying 😢 reading this.
My husband is very much like this too. He has reduced me to a shadow. I don't enjoy life with him anymore or have feelings. His controlling & abusive behaviour has changed me as a person. I'm traumatised after the years he has screamed, shouted at me even in front of our family telling me everything is my fault and he feels unloved. I work full time, pay bills, clean when I have the energy but he has drained the life out of me. I am having counselling for this.

Meant kindly - why on earth are you still with him?

I see similarities between your situation and that of an elderly couple where one partner has a serious condition like dementia. What happens is that the dependent partner becomes more and more demanding due to fear and anxiety. The outside world becomes a scary place and eventually nothing short of 24/7 company becomes the demand/requirement.

Your partner has depended on you for 5 years, and is possibly worrying that he might not secure a job. He’s rightly worried you will ditch him because you have started to reach out to others for a source of happiness and friendship. He has realised that after years of zero social participation he now has no one but you. This is the reason he is starting to be more controlling, in order to maintain the status quo.

You need a plan to leave.

This.

You need to work on your marriage if it's to continue.

You're the one who had the emotional affair whilst your husband was housebound and recovering from lots of surgery.

His calls are wrong but if the underlying trust is not restored he is unlikely to stop.

The @mummydoesntmind holds all the cards
Idiotic really to be the one trying to control things when you have no power essentially

H and I go out separately and it’s rare we even message each other never mind phone unless it’s:
a) necessary (waiting in for an expensive delivery (usually a H delivery) need to leave you said you’d be back beforehand “where the fuck are you”)
b) more rare - concern - usually if oddly late from work (work can sometimes overrun and a motorway commute in dark in bad weather) so a “Are you alive?”
c) boring - “if you are still in shop can you get 12 not 6 eggs please”
d) most usual texts - still infrequent- something that will make them laugh usually something teen has said/done

and that is it

the only point is you did lie about meeting up with the other dad - I don’t really understand why that conversation needed a meeting and couldn’t have just been a gentle brush off whilst watching kids play football if the situation had arisen there surely there would’ve been enough privacy there to just say “I think we might be stepping over lines that will be impossible to step back from here”

so can see how his paranoia can have escalated from that

but going forward you need to keep pushing back, if you want to @mummydoesntmind he has much more to lose here

have you said “ you are starting to stir up stalker feelings in me which isn’t great as a husband is it”

I agree that the other man thing is quite significant. Not because it gives your husband the right to control you but actually I think you’re really unhappy and I can see why you would be. Your DH doesn’t sound like the person you married anymore…. Do you want to be with him?? It’s ok to change your mind.
You can be tolerant and supportive of change; and it’s also ok to do that and decide that the person is no longer for you and that you want something else. Obviously there are consequences for everyone in that scenario; but you are allowed to pursue happiness for yourself. Best of luck xox

@MrsHench call women’s aid. You can and should leave xxxxx

Sounds like it stems from anxiety from the situation he has been in for the past 5 years and possibly something he has sensed in you - a letting go/ moving on feeling? Can you examine your behaviour more fully and try to imagine how you might come across? Especially as you HAVE been taking an interest in someone else.

It's not the usual case of a controlling man since it's a recent development. No, its not normal but it sounds like you two need to have a frank discussion about what's happening.

How was he before you met this other man and lied? How did he find out?

I can imagine having recurrent operations, not being able to work and then finding out about the meeting is a lot for his mental health.

I think counselling for both is needed to move forward.

Maybe discuss that?

I had also made friends with another dad at my kids sports club that I started to get along with and talk to regularly and things started to feel a bit unhealthy so I’d arranged to meet him to talk about the fact I thought we should only be friends. Basically my husband found out that I’d lied to him about where I’d gone, and he has now developed trust issues about me going places and wants to know where I am regularly.

Ooh, you buried that lead didn't you?! 😅Why the hell would you ever feel the need to meet someone you fancy to tell him you think you should just be friends. You were already more than friends and should NEVER have let that happen, plus you lied about it.

On the other hand, your husband sounds suffocating, but we don't know if he's this way because you're a liar or if you're a liar because he's this way.

Anyway, the whole thing sounds pretty exhausting.

I think yabu, as you have been having an emotional affair with another man, which you are really trying to gloss over in your OP.

It sounds like this emotional affair is partly to blame for him not trusting you. There's no need to monitor each other's movements though like this. Would you think about couples counselling?

The monitoring is unacceptable and I wouldn’t live like that. @frozendaisy nails it.
If counselling doesn’t help get over his trust issues and controlling behaviour, leave. It’s likely this attitude will worsen as he ages. He’s already not showing up for his kids, or you. Do you want this to be your future?

Thanks for all the messages. Very helpful. I agree - it was an emotional affair where I started to imagine a different life, without a depressed and isolated husband who has put all of his emotional needs on me for years, despite me asking him to get help/ reach out to others. I don’t feel all that guilty about it because I think I have carried a huge burden for our family and this wasn’t the person I married. I’ve spoken to close friends and family about the situation and they have been universally understanding, having seen how tough things have been. I think @babyproblems has it right- I’m trying to work out if I want to stay in this situation. But in the meantime I don’t think monitoring my movements can be ok. The other thing that I find hard is untangling whether a bad 5 years is a blip or a pattern of behaviour I’m going to have to cope with forever? And it makes me look at our relationship through a different lens and wonder if I’ve ever been truly happy with him. Has anyone woken up one day and wondered if they ever really loved their partner? Like if they were always the one who chased, or pursued you, and they were your first relationship- how do I know if his slightly controlling tendencies aren’t an extension of that? What if it now feels as if it wasn’t an entirely balanced relationship, and that I’ve always felt slightly trapped? He’s always been quite needy and since we’ve been together I have hardly had any significant time with friends (like weekends away etc)- busy jobs, young children- but he hasn’t maintained any long term friendships, and made me feel bad if I wanted to do things with my old (female) friends. Does this matter?

Ah, the cheater's refrain - it was THEIR fault. No, you could simply have left rather than choosing to cheat. And of course you don't feel guilty about it, cheaters are always massively self entitled.

So, you are saying he was not paranoid until he found out you were a liar.

Cheating destroys marriages, and now you know this. You can't fix trust that is broken, and he will always wonder how much more you lied about, as you have proven yourself an unreliable narrator. I'd just move on tbh, it's miserable for him always wondering if you're lying again and since that's in your nature, at some point you likely will.

Is talking to someone at a sports match on a handful of occasions, then meeting them to say it couldn’t continue really so unforgivable? I can see it’s emotionally unfaithful as I acknowledged - there were feelings developing, but I think you are being a bit harsh @ohnotthisagain2025 - I’m not your cheating ex! Just a regular person with weaknesses and vulnerability especially during harder times.

You're still trying to downplay the fact that you wanted to cheat on your husband and actually did cheat, at minimum emotionally. If you wouldn't do it in the room with him there, and very clearly you would not have, then you knew you were cheating and did it anyway.

You also tried to blame your husband for your choices in a previous post.

No wonder he has never been able to trust you again when you are still trying to minimise the harm you caused by bringing a strange man into your monogamous relationship. A "sorry but you made me do it and it wasn't really all that bad" is not a sorry at all, and that is clearly how you feel

It's the way cheaters always try to paint themselves as sainted angels who were just cruel victims of circumstance that always gives the absolute ick.

Anyway, he's paranoid for a reason, he obviously has not moved past it. It's not up to you to decide if that's fair or not, it's up to you both to decide if you want to put up with one another any longer.