Is this symbolic of our entire relationship? Am I overreacting?

[Gathertherainbows]

I’m prepared to be told I’m overreacting
Several times in the last couple of weeks DH has left his key in the other side of the door so that when I get back with the dc we cannot get in.
He’s usually then busy on a work call (wfh) and although he knows we are there we have waited up to an hour for him to come and take his key out of the door so we can get in.
It’s usually been about half an hour but last week it was an hour and dd had to go to the toilet in the garden. We can get in the garden via the gate but still not into the house. She cried a lot because she just wanted to get in the house. In the end I took them down to the shop and came back but still couldn’t get in.
Maybe I just don’t understand how important business is but I don’t see why he couldn’t just say he had to go and open the door - he could even have blamed me and said he didn’t have his key.
I do feel it’s a bit symbolic of how we are, no way would I leave him outside with the dc - having been out since 7.30am themselves - for an hour just waiting around.

Op, I'm still ci fused as to why you've posted
You say you told a few folk and they didn't do or say anything that made it sound bad, even you yourself weren't that angry about it....so why post about it?

Deep down you know it's a fucking shit thing to do. You didn't pull him up on it. You just let it slide time and time again. It's weird. Do you have no personality that you can't say "your behaviour is totally unacceptable and if you ever do that again I'll divorce you"... Because that's what we would have done and you're just like "oh really? Hmm no an hour didn't seem like a bug deal 🤷" and then here you are telling us all about it. Something doesn't add up.

Are you pissed off and know he treats you like shit? Or do you think it's fine and what would it really take for you to leave?

Well, when you mention it to other people do you also mention that it's part of a pattern of behaviour like you have here?

Abuse is a pattern of control. It's not usually about individual incidents in isolation. You have to look at the context not just each incident alone.

Plus the fact that abuse is generally poorly understood by a lot of people still (you must have seen other threads on here with people protesting that if a man doesn't hit you it's not abuse - or even worse, that if he's only hit you once or twice in "anger" it's ok).

People who are targeted for abuse also tend to come from backgrounds where it is normal amongst friends and family, so the target is less likely to realise what is being done to them until too late and the people around them won't see it as abnormal in order to help or intervene either.

There are plenty of reasons why your friends and family may not have recognised what posters here have.

@saraclara

Your children will remember this. His active contempt and your passive inaction. It’s a very sad situation. It’s scary for children as they don’t know how to deal with an abusive parent or the non-abusive parent standing by and letting it happen. Sometimes they are angrier at the latter for not fighting for them and protecting them. Don’t be that parent who stands by and doesn’t protect their kids. If you are scared of confronting him then you need real life support. Seek advice from Women’s Aid, even solicitors if you have to. Take your book of things he is doing to remind you of what you have had to deal with.

Of all the posts on this thread, this is the one you need to read and re-read, OP (if you ever come back).
Better still, print it out. Put it in your pocket. And whenever you dither or start to think his behaviour isn't that bad, take it out and read it.
Leave him. For your children's sake, leave him.

Agree.

They deserve better than to think being treated this way is just something they have to learn to tolerate.

Also, where would HE draw the line?

Next time, what if it is YOU that needs to go to the toilet, would he expect you to go in the garden, wet yourself or worse?

Wtf. This is one of the saddest things I have ever read.

OP - you've realised that you aren't angry yet everybody on here is angry on your behalf. So, why is that? What is there in your relationship, or your childhood, that has led you to accept this appalling treatment day after day, and not feel angry? What would it take to rouse you out of this passivity, and take action to protect yourself and your children from this abuse? Your husband is a bully, and he's doing it with his words and his neglect of you, not with his fists. But it's damaging you and your children. Please get help and guidance.

@Gathertherainbows

Well just that generally he is king of the castle. It’s not as black and white as that but that is the message I feel some of the time and I felt this was a perfect illustration of it. Another time was when I was ill and he said he wouldn’t catch it because he was too important to be ill. Those are more explicit times. Also when he’s asked me the same thing about a billion times - to do with something like cooking a ready meal for himself if I’ve not been in - and when I’ve said you’ve done this before, why are you asking me again - he’s said he can only remember ‘important information and not the menial stuff.’ The implication being that I remember the menial stuff.

But if he is so superior and clever and important, surely with the menial stuff he should be able to remember it even more then!

Apologies if someone else has asked this, but what do you think he would do if you did the same to him? Would he be angry?

Yes he’d be fuming but I’ve no reason to do it to him. He’d be especially fuming if he had the children and one of them was wailing, but I wouldn’t do it them - especially to prove a point.

I'm rarely angry but this has me raging.

He thinks so little of you and your children, no, he actively dislikes you and your children so much in order to treat you this way.

It disgusts me.

But you are so passive about it.

He's really done a number on you that you don't see it for the contempt it is.

If you can't be angry for you at least learn to be angry for your kids, they deserve better. So do you, but I can't see you hearing that at the moment.

I can't see how you would want to share a home, a life, a room with this nasty person. What would you let him do this to your children time after time, teaching them that they are worthless inconveniences.

Woman up and protect them!

I mentioned this to my husband last night and his comment was "That's not a man, that's an excuse for a human being."

@Gathertherainbows

Yes he’d be fuming but I’ve no reason to do it to him. He’d be especially fuming if he had the children and one of them was wailing, but I wouldn’t do it them - especially to prove a point.

He doesn't have a reason either.

I sometimes have zoom meetings with Cabinet ministers as part of my job. I would 100% interrupt those to answer the door if my husband and kids were locked out, even if it was my husband's fault! I would wait till had stopped speaking if I were presenting but that's it. My 4 year old would not be weeing in the garden.

If it is such a small thing to have done... why are you so sure you would not do it to him?

He doesn't care much about your comfort or time does he? (I remember reading about 'important' !8C men who would leave their lower servants standing outside sometimes. Are you a person in the household - or just the slave?)

It is worrying that he cares so little about his daughter that he'd leave her in that state. (Is she to become slave-girl in the future of your household?)

I think this upsets me more than it should because I was the OP about 10 years ago.

She will come round to the realisation that it's abuse, hopefully sooner rather than later and before her children grow up to think this is normal and repeat the cycle in their future relationships.

How does his “fuming” present itself ?

When I shared a house as a post grad student, a young housemate locked me out.

(Not intentionally, most of us housemates didn't come back to the house during the day and he thought that would continue to be the case but that day I needed something so went back at lunchtime.

(Turns out he was always in trouble with somebody and had had ex "friends" come to the house and got into a physical fight on the doorstep, he was scared they'd come back and force their way in, and didn't trust the basic lock on the old Victorian stained glass door, hence using an inside bolt on the outer door. No e if us realised he was licking us out during the day before just through chance).

That single incident alone, where it took a few mins for him to open his bedroom window and "discuss" coming down to unlock the outer door - resulted (naturally) in a big argument, and relations not being the sane again.

This is your husband!This is your home! This is more than once! Thus is due more than a few minutes.

And on top.if all that he is licking out children! Which is actually a welfare issue, possibly abuse.

Absolutely disgraceful, disgusting behaviour on his part.

Yes he’d be fuming but I’ve no reason to do it to him.

He has no reason to do it to you either.

I have some sympathy with the brick through the windows solution but really you mustn't do that. Because that will allow him to to tell everyone "see how irrational and violent she is, I accidentally locked her out and she couldn't even wait a few minutes she just went crazy and started hurling bricks through the window".

Instead, next time you pop out to collect your DD, or perhaps next time you find yourself sitting n the garden waiting to be let in, you should use your mobile phone to call Women's Aid. Because he is abusing you and DD, and he is enjoying the power he has over both of you by locking you out.

What a horrible man. Why aren't you more protective of your dd? I'm confused by your lack of action, smash windows get angry, this is disgusting.

@Gathertherainbows

I am surprised by how angry other posters think I should be. I was annoyed but not that annoyed. I know it’s not great but it was only half an hour the first couple of times and then an hour. And when I’ve told people IRL no one has suggested it was abusive or anything other than an inconvenience. I felt it was symbolic of his attitude which is why I asked here, but I really didn’t expect people to think it was so shocking. I’ve told my parents and a couple of friends and no one has done anything more than roll their eyes. For me it’s just something else to note down and remember in terms of behaviour that illustrates where we are in the pecking order, should I so need it at a later date.

If someone told me their partner was doing this, I'd be telling her or him that it was abusive. I've worked with DA victims and you are one.

@MayIDestroyYou

I'm not of the view that you should put a brick through the window, violence will give your DC an equally pernicious message

But it isn't 'violence'. It's taking necessary action to gain entry to your home. No need to conflate two different things - particularly when that gives the wider impression that women must sit and simper and take no action to assert their rights, or their children's rights.

I strongly disagree.

The DC are not mature enough to process what's happening, they will just see their mother smashing the window to break and enter. That's what they will remember.

It is a violent act, two wrongs don't make a right. The situation is currently resolved as they are now back inside.

What the OP should be doing is take action to resolve the situation permanently, but for whatever reason, through fear or incapacity to take a potential bully on head to head, they are having to bury their head and try to survive. That's the only possible reason for them accepting this situation, they cannot possible think it's normal, not after everyone on here has explained it is not and why.

We cannot do any more than accept and respect their choice, ultimately it's outside our control.

@sjfjsnfkdhsbd

My abuser used to do this to me.

I got help and I left.

A normal person who accidentally locks their family out will let them in as soon as they realise, apologise and never do it again.

A normal person does not watch as his daughter gets into such a state.

Don't make excuses for him.

Hit the nail on the head there! Absolutely

OP you'd be better off getting the police involved than smash a window, that's madness. It won't solve the problem permanently either. He will keep doing it no matter how angry you get, he has no incentive to change.

@Gathertherainbows

I am surprised by how angry other posters think I should be. I was annoyed but not that annoyed. I know it’s not great but it was only half an hour the first couple of times and then an hour. And when I’ve told people IRL no one has suggested it was abusive or anything other than an inconvenience. I felt it was symbolic of his attitude which is why I asked here, but I really didn’t expect people to think it was so shocking. I’ve told my parents and a couple of friends and no one has done anything more than roll their eyes. For me it’s just something else to note down and remember in terms of behaviour that illustrates where we are in the pecking order, should I so need it at a later date.

What?! Is this post actually real? If you thought it was okay you wouldn't be writing about it on here or any anywhere. You are doing what I and many others have done that were in abusive relationships. I made excuses knowing full well things were very out of order! There is no excuse, maybe once and he makes sure he doesn't do it again. Or is this another menial task to remember to okay, lock the door, as you say you have to properly push it in I think you said. But he obviously doesn't have the brain cells to take the key out afterwards??!! That's all he needs to do, so to me it is obvious he leaves the key in the back of the door on purpose. Don't judge whether someone is abusive or not by the fact others just rolled their eyes. I have family who don't think very much of someone's actions, but they have abusive partners, so that says it all really!

What does your DH do when he finally comes down and answers the door?!

I feel sick reading this.

It sounds like something my exh would have done.

What made me feel the worst was your reaction.

I can understand why you were so passive, I was like that, until one day the therapist i was seeing looked at me in shock and asked me why on earth i hadn't reacted to sth exh had done.

I was not physically scared of him (or wouldn't have admitted it at the time) but his needs clearly came first, otherwise he would give me the silent treatment for days.

In the end, he didn't need to "punish" (his words) me, i just did everything i could to keep him happy, and notably, never let the dc know anything was wrong.

Please keep posting

It will help to keep a record, i suspect there's probably gas lighting going on where he says it's no big deal and he's so persuasive you end up believing him.

Op you think I mn is overreacting, mn thinks you are under reacting.

I think you should speak to him and ensure he is taking steps to either remember to take the key out of the door, or promise to unlock the door within 5 mins if it happens again.

His reaction, and whether it happens agains will tell you everything you need to know.

I’ve told my parents and a couple of friends and no one has done anything more than roll their eyes.

Did you tell your parents about DD being locked out for an hour and having to pee in the garden?

My mother would have been incandescent that anyone could do such a thing to her grandchild.