Does anyone have a partner who hates them reading books or who gets angry if you don't sit and watch TV with him/her?

[DeedeeDashwood]

I'm very aware that there are some men out there who have a real hatred of books and who are capable of getting very angry indeed if their partners sit and read at home. My theory is that (a) they associate books with school and with being bored at school, and (b) they see books as intellectual and it makes them feel stupid if their partners engage in what they see as an intellectual activity which they themselves aren't capable of - as if their partners are somehow calling them thick by sitting down to read a book.

Likewise some partners (of either sex) feel that their other halves should sit down and watch telly with them, regardless of how moronic their choice of TV show is or how far outside their partner's range of interests it is. It's always struck me as really babyish, like they're not capable of watching TV on their own and they need someone to watch it with them. They seem to think it's part of their partner's job to watch TV with them, even if what's on TV is a bottom-of-the barrel unfunny sitcom, a live darts match or some godawful garish bit of Saturday night gameshow garbage. And yet if the situation's reversed and their partner gets to choose a TV show of a kind which doesn't appeal to them, they'll huff and puff and call it sh*t and leave the room.

I'm wondering if any Mumsnetters have spent years living in this sort of situation and whether they ended up splitting or living separate lives in the same building. I remember a TV play years ago which touched on this sort of thing; the husband, played by Kenneth Cranham, banned his wife from reading library books. As for the TV thing, that was even closer to home for me.

[DeedeeDashwood]

@Sittingallthetime

@DeedeeDashwood With an online library account I can see my loans history from the library - you could check with yours to see if they have this too?

Sadly, our own library's online accounts only seem to show our borrowing history for the last three years - and mine looks decidedly patchy bearing in mind the lockdowns etc. I bought loads of secondhand paperbacks via eBay and Amazon during those months when the libraries were shut and annoyingly I'm still doing it: I just can't stop myself (especially autobiographies of psychic mediums).

[madasawethen]

My first husband was like that.
It's about control.
It's also about feeling entitled that he owns your free time.

They also tend not to see their wife and children as people or individuals but only as extensions of themselves.

You see it with men who force their hobbies and interests on their families.

[FilePhoto]

@soberfabulous

There's an app for this so you can record all the books you read: it's called Good Reads and I love it! I read a lot so like to keep track. You can organize and save every book you've read by year.

I love goodreads. So easy to check what I've read, rather than reading something and realising half way through that I've read it before!
Now if only I could be bothered to make a 'shelf' for "books I own but haven't read yet" then perhaps I'd stop buying duplicates when I'm in charity shops

[Sittingallthetime]

@DeedeeDashwood With an online library account I can see my loans history from the library - you could check with yours to see if they have this too?

[ManAboutTown]

@DeedeeDashwood - you sound like my soulmate LOL

I wouldn't need the library to print out a list - anyone walking into my home could see immediately

Reading for me is like alcoholism - can't stop and don't want to

[frazzledasarock]

i actually told my manager at the time that I wasn’t allowed to read books at home (inadvertently in conversation).
she cleared a shelf for me and gave me some books! God I loved that woman.
when I went to visit her, her house was stuffed to the brim with books, she had piles of books everywhere.

after I got divorced I just bought books after books every room in our house now has a neat array of books and I’ve got a library. One day I‘m going to have a beauty and the beast style library in my forever home.

my DC with ex love reading too (he’d hate it!). One birthday eldest asked for a spinning bookshelf (she’s currently trying to persuade DH to help her take it to university 😆).

[Slippersandacuppa]

Yes, both of those and he also hates any attention being on the kids/ my family/ my hobbies/ the animals rather than him. He often jokes (but it deadly serious that he feels that way) that he’s the bottom of the ladder.

Basically, it’s less about whatever it is (he used to enjoy reading) and more about my attention being on him whenever he is around.

[soberfabulous]

@DeedeeDashwood

I always think it's a shame that public libraries don't use computer systems that can print out a list of all the books I've ever borrowed. I'd be fascinated to be reminded of all the hundreds of books and their titles, so I can maybe read some of them again or perhaps buy the best ones off eBay. But unfortunately the computers are just basic check in/check out systems.

Yes, why is there so much unpleasantness about? Poles say that people in Poland are getting more and more obnoxious, but maybe the whole of the Western world is headed in that direction, believing it's some sort of accomplishment to be as horrible as possible. Maybe the entire world should convert to the Baha'i faith.....but you couldn't make them.

There's an app for this so you can record all the books you read: it's called Good Reads and I love it! I read a lot so like to keep track. You can organize and save every book you've read by year.

[Canongirl]

Went thru that once and only once. He wanted to control me and saw within a short time in our relationship it was about power, abuse and control. I kicked him to the curb and found someone who respects what I like to do with MY time and what I enjoy doing! Let this loser go, it will only get worse!!!

[soberfabulous]

I'm a voracious reader, get through 2 + books a week. I watch no tv. I do sit next to DH and read whilst he watches Netflix as a compromise:

If it's too loud I do struggle to concentrate and have to ear ear plugs 🤪

[Ilovemycat1]

I had a partner like this who is now my ex

[ILoveMonday]

My partner doesn't read books. I love books. He doesn't resent me but it's only been 7 months. The last few people I've dated have been boom averse so I've stopped trying to read anything into it. He's intelligent and well informed ehich I think is the main thing.

[ilyx]

My partner doesn’t read but he’s completely addicted to his iPad, phone, football manager to the point I sometimes get upset with him for not talking to me because he’s so obsessed with his gadgets and hard to interact with. I’d feel like same if he replaced all his gadgets with books to be honest and we had the same issues. I suppose it depends how often you both interact with each other.

If he just hates you reading because he has an issue with you reading itself that’s very odd.

[Crikeyalmighty]

@Nonymus I'm with you on that. Sat outside a pub yesterday mid afternoon my H moaned when I went to reply to a friends text and turned attention away from him for all of about 3 mins- yet he expects to be able to do this Willy Nilly when it suits and I never say a word. I actually snapped yesterday about it . I don't get this need for attention to be on them always when you are with them vast amounts of time - it seems to get worse as they get older.

[Cornishclio]

Nope. If I had a partner like that he would soon be an ex. DH likes watching aircraft, car or train documentaries or history documentaries about war. I like dramas and mysteries and we compromise and watch the occasional film or a few favourite sit come we both like together. He is not a reader but I am and he knows better than to moan about my books. Neither of us have any issue on watching TV alone. Time is too precious to spend doing something you don't like doing and we are not joined at the hip and like doing things separately.

[DeedeeDashwood]

I always think it's a shame that public libraries don't use computer systems that can print out a list of all the books I've ever borrowed. I'd be fascinated to be reminded of all the hundreds of books and their titles, so I can maybe read some of them again or perhaps buy the best ones off eBay. But unfortunately the computers are just basic check in/check out systems.

Yes, why is there so much unpleasantness about? Poles say that people in Poland are getting more and more obnoxious, but maybe the whole of the Western world is headed in that direction, believing it's some sort of accomplishment to be as horrible as possible. Maybe the entire world should convert to the Baha'i faith.....but you couldn't make them.

[Nonymus]

My husband doesn't get angry but he whinges I don't give him attention ..like we have to be joined at hip and needs validation ..He has been like this most of married life..now it just annoys me..We don't have to do everything together or like same things. Their need to control is about their insecurity. They need to become independent..it's really offputting

[Crispsandcupasoup]

That is horrifying OP - the vile behaviour described on this thread against people carrying out such an innocent gentle pastime is beyond belief, casual cruelty that makes lives miserable. Why is there so much unpleasantness about? I'm just out of 18 years of a hellish coercive relationship so maybe I'm too emotional about the wasted years with these awful abusers.... but I am sooo happy to be single now and I can sit in bed and read any time of night or day - I think I have over 1000 books, I stroke them when I pass them on the bookshelves.

[DeedeeDashwood]

This is the OP back again - and in response to someone's query, no, I'm not a journalist (nor a 'snobby journalist'), just an observer of life around me.

It's worrying to see so many people responding with me too stories, even though it doesn't surprise me; I just hate thinking that people out there are still having to endure this sort of thing. But I suppose immaturity, spitefulness, incompatibility and controlling behaviour will always be with us. LTB is fine if you're free to up sticks and scram, I suppose, but easier said than done if there are children in the equation, asleep upstairs while all the unpleasantness is going on down below. I myself wasn't able to LTB till the offspring had flown the coop, but I was off like a long dog when the going was good, believe me.

I love reading, not least because it can temporarily transport you away from the circumstances you're having to endure (just think of all those men who get into reading when they're in prison), so I generally read in my teabreak and lunchbreak at work, which of course can lead to accusations of antisociability or assumptions that what I really need is a member of the opposite sex to sit down with me and offer me a preferable alternative to book-reading. I've also worked alongside various men who've confessed to 'hating' books, whatever that means, as if books are things which are out to cause trouble, but I've never heard women say it, even if they don't read books themselves. At home, I used to have to put up with my ex-husband telling me to 'stop rotting your brain with that rubbish' whenever he saw me pick up a book, which basically translated as 'I want all your attention because I'm a big selfish baby,' and he wasn't above playing really loud music in a deliberate bid to destroy my concentration, as well as hiding books he knew I was reading.

As for TV-watching, he only ever watched light entertainment and would walk out of the room if I put a documentary on or a costume drama. He said I was only interested in 'educational' TV, like I was a school swot for wanting to know about the world around me, and he said all the male characters in costume drama were poofs. Sometimes he'd go and sit up in the loft on his own, doing nothing, just to make me feel bad about watching a documentary which didn't even clash with anything he wanted to see, or he'd take off his wedding ring and leave it lying around for days on end as a way of saying 'If you don't do what I want you to do, you're no wife of mine.' When we had a TV in both reception rooms and I retired to the other room to watch a programme I liked, there'd generally be a row afterwards or he'd stomp off to bed early and lie there in the dark with a newspaper over his face as a sort of 'I don't want to know you' sign.

And no, we didn't live together for years before getting married. Probably we should have.

[Christin3]

I think I'd love binder! Brilliant idea!

[Crikeyalmighty]

I think the book thing for dating is a great idea. It's the same with music to some extent- If they aren't into books or music then they wouldn't be right for me . I like magazines too - it's amazing what small things can tell you about someone. My h always said he couldn't be interested in anyone who wasn't interested and had good knowledge in politics or current affairs or music regardless of what they looked like-

[velvetvixen]

Binder - the dating app for people who like books.....

Brilliant idea! 😃

[velvetvixen]

basically he wanted me to sit in silence so I was available if he wanted me

I feel this is the crux of the matter.

Women! be available at all times. Your man may want your attention at any moment!

[theniceunderstandingone]

@PermanentTemporary it's funny because I was watching First Dates last night and a woman said she loved to read and her date said he never reads. Her eyebrows went up and she said "you never read?!" And you could tell by her face she was not happy with that lol
They didn't want to see each other again and I don't blame her lol

[theniceunderstandingone]

@frazzledasarock bloody hell 🤦🏽‍♀️😢

I was upset when my little one ripped a page out of my book. Couldn't imagine how I'd be if a grown man ripped it on purpose