Would you leave the house like this?

[SeekingPerspective]

Would you leave the house without locking up or telling anyone still inside that you are leaving the doors to the outside unlocked?

Elderly Mr DH is significantly older than I am and suffers from significantly limited mobility. Nowadays there are lots of things he needs me to do for him, simple things like helping him to walk to the car. I hope I do these willingly and never show any sign of feeling burdened by them.

Just sometimes, however, find myself feeling completely unsupported. I’ve set up a new account today, to get some outside perspective on today’s example.

DH has recently acquired a mobility scooter which means that he can get out and about without me. Great news all round. He does however currently need me to open the garage door for him. We live in a small quiet close which is a cul de sac. Our garage opens inside our ‘garden’, which is a small walled courtyard. No one walking past the wall would be able to see that the garage is open, so I think it’s pretty safe to leave open. There is no lock on the garage door.

DH is usually very careful about ‘security’. We would never leave the house unlocked whether we are inside or not. He is very clear that he wants even the garage door to be opened only on the day when he will go out and closed again as soon as ever possible afterwards. He is not comfortable with the door being left open overnight.

The route out to the garage is via patio doors, which are effectively the back door, floor to ceiling glass. DH only started to use these doors once he started using the scooter which is parked in the garage. I made sure DH had a key to the patio doors on both of the sets of keys he uses.

There is a further key which hangs on the door to lock / unlock it from the inside and ensure that we can get out in case of fire.

Today I noticed that when DH went out, he unlocked the patio door but did not lock it again from the outside. Instead he left it unlocked with me inside the house. He did not mention to me that he was going to do this.

My immediate reaction was to feel that he cared less about me and my safety than he feels about the scooter in the garage.

When he got home I asked him as neutrally as I could about leaving the door unlocked. He explained that the key on the key ring he was taking does not lock the door from outside, only from the inside.

As I was home he didn’t see any reason to lock it

Or to tell me that he had left it unlocked.

Or to get his other keys which would have locked it from the outside.

Or to take the spare key from the lock and leave his in case of fire

Or give me a heads up so I could lock it behind him

A part of me feels that if I feel ok leaving the garage door unlocked for his scooter is it so very different to leave the patio door unlocked if I am home. Mostly I feel as if my safety and convenience was simply not a consideration for DH.

Its only fair to acknowledge that DH has a lot of things to cope with day by day and he thought this would be ok. I am still feeling unloved, uncared for and as if I just don’t matter. I’m feeling a bit weepy. I'm sure if I asked him, DH would say of course I mattered to him

The trouble for me is that the occasion simply never arises that this is demonstrated to me. AIBU?

I’m a “never lock people in” person and my mum is a “all doors must be locked at all
times person”.

in my house she accepts it. In her house I accept it.

it doesn’t say anything about how much we care for each other.

he just forgot. It happens.

Is there something else going on, as this is a very extreme reaction to not locking the door, unusually and concerningly so.

I think that you'd have to be caring for a DP to get this. It's the taking you for granted while giving nothing back. For us it came to a head when my DP didn't even get me a bunch of tulips for Easter, but was out buying flowers for other family members, who don't even text asking how he is (after life changing surgery).
It's time for a conversation about you feeling unsupported and the care levels you are giving/just getting on with life changing, taken for granted. Talking things out when one of you becomes disabled, is crucial to stop burn out. Him getting out is going to improve things, so build on this.

You sound worn out from caring. It's true that older people can become more selfish, and if he was a typical man anyway before, he's unlikely to get more thoughtful as he gets older. What can you do for yourself to enjoy life a bit more, especially while he is out of the house?

Op, do you think deep down you feel resentful you are turning into his carer, and his decline also impacts what you can do as a couple, at this stage of your life and of course it will get worse not better, so you feel trapped.

i note you start by saying he is signficantly older and then the stuff you do for him, which is superfluous detail. But clearly top of your mind.

if you are feeling resentful and trapped, then it could cause something as minor as not locking the door to be a major issue as anything , no matter how minor would set you off.

alternatively could you also have a decline on your hands, mentally, which is causing you to react in ways you wouldn’t have before. I note , politely, your post is rambling and poorly written, it could be this is how you always have communicated, or be a sign of a decline.

thirdly and lastly could you be bored, if what you do as a couple is limited due to his age and ability, could you habe little to occupy your mind, thus focusing heavily on small insignificant things.

i would consider what the real issue here is. Are you resentful , could you have a health issue on your hands also, could you be bored with little interest, as depending on the answer will dictate how to mitigate.

This is a storm in a teacup and you are overreacting. We wouldn’t lock the door if someone was in the house. If we did, we’d be more likely to accuse the other of locking the other in, not being aware of our presence. But even if you do this as a matter of course, there’s clearly more going on here.

She's really not. It's very much related to what kind of area they live in. I live in a city and never leave the doors unlocked.

That was a ridiculously longwinded post to just say ‘dh left the door unlocked while I was in, AIBU to not be happy about this?’

This isn’t about doors and keys, it’s about you feeling unseen/ not cared for by your husband.

This. It's not great to lock someone in. I lock the door when I come in myself, but then I leave the key in the door so can get out quickly. If you lock someone else in, you can't do this and in the event of a fire they have to go locking for the second key. I'm hoping anyone who looks other people in does have a second key in the house otherwise it's really dangerous.

I don’t think the door not being locked is the real issue here.
I think you’re probably drained from caring for him and always giving but you don’t feel appreciated or that anyone ‘gives’ to you.
I might be completely wrong though.

This exactly. Caring fatigue.

Everything you've posted just wouldn't even enter my radar.

We dont ever lock doors if we're in - only at night. We sometimes don't even lock doors if we nip out tbph. We live in a nice area with extremely active curtain twitchers neighbourhood watch neighbours. We also have a dog that barks like a lunatic at an unknown person appearing at a window and sounds a lot bigger than she is. So meh.

I don't even know where are garage key is and theres several thousand pounds worth of bikes and garden equipment in there. But the garage is in our back garden and we have security lights all around that light it up like Blackpool tower. There are easier pickings than us so i'm unbothered.

Thank you all very kindly, lovely people of Mumsnet , to everyone who replied and special thanks to those who recognised the signs of carer’s fatigue, in spite of the incoherence of my post. If you have experienced this, I profoundly hope you too have some safety value to help you when things feel overwhelming.

As every single response clarified, it wasn’t really about the triviality of the keys or the locks: it is by Elderly Mr DH’s insistence that doors and downstairs windows are kept locked and he would never forget to lock the door. In this instance, he just could not manage to turn the key that I had provided for the purpose in the lock (unlike the front door, which has an autolocking yale lock).

His instinct when arrangements I have made do not work is to ‘suffer’ and not mention the problem, even if he doesn’t like or even hates the outcome. In many, many situations, having the person for whom one is caring never complain might seem like a blessing

For my sins, I’m the sort of tedious person who gets energy from identifying and resolving problems. I think this time, the reminder that I can’t just expect Elderly Mr DH to tell me if something Ive set up doesn’t work for him precipitated the overwhelm. I need to check in detail that the arrangements I make work for him as well as for me, rather than assuming because something works for me, it is indeed a solution.

It had simply never occurred to me that Elderly Mr DH would have broken the habits of a lifetime and gone out leaving the door unlocked. Now that I know an alternative solution is required, I find have again the resources required to find and implement them in plenty. Thank you again, lovely people

We unlock our doors in the morning and they stay unlocked until we go out to walk the dogs etc then they are opened again and left open while we are at home. If one of us goes out the other one doesn't lock the door. Why would you when someone is still at home and in the house? Surely its only locked if the house is unoccupied?

I think you are overreacting and overthinking this one.