My husband is in charge of my life..?

[Rainadey]

My husband thinks he is in charge of making decisions about mine and the children’s lives as apparently he always knows better.

Tonight has ended up with me absolutely losing my cool because I simply can’t put up with the control anymore. He is religious although even that’s up for debate, whereas I am not. He uses religion as a way to constantly belittle me regarding the children. One example is he has never let me or them celebrate Halloween which I understand it’s against his religion and while I appreciate that he doesn’t have to participate and all I would like is to get them some Halloween sweets one year but no he will go absolutely mental and will not talk to me or give me the silent treatment if I don’t adhere to what he wants.

Tonight though in particular I mentioned I wanted to take the kids to this beautiful gastro pub right next to where we are moving. He has outright said no I’m not to take them as it’s against his religion. I explained to him it’s a restaurant and I’m not there to drink as I don’t even drink and we will simply have a meal for lunch and he said nope absolutely not. This infuriated me as I said I don’t really need his permission to take the kids to a nice lunch especially for something so trivial like a restaurant as I grew up eating at gastro pubs with my family and really enjoyed that part of my childhood but apparently because he’s the man and his kids are being raised Christian he won’t allow it so therefore I have no input. I told him he’s being controlling and that I will be taking the kids without his permission in which he then got even angrier and said again ‘no you are not, you are not taking them’! That is when I broke down as I’ve spent so much of this marriage dimming all the things I like and want to do with the kids because he doesn’t approve! I’ve had enough and I feel so suffocated by his control. What should I tell him to get him to understand that there needs to be compromise as right now it’s all about his way and his rules?

Which religion is it that forbids going to Restaurant? He sounds completely controlling and quite frankly insane.

He's an utter wanker and will not only continue to dim your lights but also start on your children if he hasn't already.
Get yourself and them out of there.

Leave him!

It sounds like he is using religion as an excuse to control, belittle and hurt you.

This is only going to escalate and also will be even more of an issue when you kids are teenagers and start asserting their own independence.

I would not want them to be indoctrinated in this nonsense.

This is not about his religion. He is simply using that as a way to control you. Either you let him do that more and more, or you leave.

Tell him you're leaving, OP. There is no point in trying to change him. You and your children don't have to live like this.

My x wasn't religious but he was controlling. I left him precisely because nothing was open to reason. If he said "no" that was it
And like your situation, it was such normal harmless things.
Religion is just an excuse to keep you on a tight leash.

You cannot live like this. You will erode yrslf and yr children will grow up to be unable to cope with equal relationships. Submitting to control will feel normal, or expecting complete obedience. Get yr kids away from this xx

Going to a pub is not against Christianity. Drinking alcohol is not against Christianity - Jesus broke bread and shared wine in the last supper. My Uncle is a Christian priest and is very happy to do Hallowe'en, drink wine, eat in fancy restaurants, go to the occasional theatre outing, travel overseas etc.

Your H sounds very controlling. Which is about as unChristian as you can get.

I think you've got 3 choices here

1. Do as you want to and if he sulks then let him, take the kids to the pub, it's a pub and you're an adult

1. Leave him and divorce (this would be my choice)

1. Continue to let him control you and the kids

There is no 4 option such as talk and he'll agree to compromise. You've tried that and it doesn't work. You can't 'force' someone to do what you want, the same as he can't 'force' you to do what he tells you to. He can use manipulation, he can emotionally blackmail you, but aside from tying you in the garage to a chair he actually can't force you to do anything

Unfortunately, many kinds of Christianity hold that the man is the ‘head of the household’ and must be obeyed. If this is a deal breaker for you, then the relationship is not likely to be sustainable. Laying down the law without at least explaining why he doesn’t want the children to go to pubs or celebrate Halloween suggest he feels he has every right to lay down the law with no explanation - and only you can say of this is a personality thing or a religious thing.

It's his 'religion' not yours.Fuck that and start planning to leave

How’s going to the pub for lunch against his religion?

honestly he just sounds crazy. I would be leaving the wierdo

He's using his faith as an excuse to abuse and control you all. Not very Christian of him

@BiddyPop I agree, the term ''break bread'' is an expression in christian countries.

I can guess how it goes having been there myself @Rainadey You've already decided to let an awful lot go. There probably a lot less of you left. Your sense of self is already dwindling. If it's just something that you yourself would have chosen to do if you had the choice, you now just ''let it go''. Only when it's for the children do you stand up to him and it still gets you nowhere because it's exhausting and if you don't just comply, you get the effing silent treatment. That is abuse not Christian..

He is not in charge of you and you don't need his permission. This is no way to live for either you or your children.

I would leave as this won't get any better. You can't reason with a control freak.

But be careful. Before you do anything get advice.

https://www.womensaid.org.uk/

https://www.nationaldahelpline.org.uk/

Hi op my mother's side of the family are very religious they still go pub with the children and family to have a nice meal they will have the odd drink for special occasions I'm sorry but your dh is going to ruin yours and your children's life this is controlling abuse to you and your children please leave him op this is no life

He's not much of a Christian if he married someone who doesn't share his beliefs. I would put that to him and see what he says.

I understand your husband, but don't agree with him. Both my husband and I are (possibly were, in my case) Christians. We've attended more fundamentalist churches and seen views like your husband's first hand.

We banned our children from Harry Potter when it first came out. Thankfully we came to our senses eventually. Both our adult children have been to Harry Potter Studios and we went a couple of months ago. Loved it and love HP.

If he didn't marry a Christian then he doesn't have a leg to stand on. I can tell you now Church leadership would have far more issues with him not marrying a fellow Christian than whether his children ate at a gastro pub.

He's just being controlling and using religion to justify that.

@CleaningOutMyCloset It's true, I mulled it all over for years. I didn't want to leave, I didn't want to stay, I wanted the option not on the list, to talk things out and for him to understand that he was being unreasonable. But no, that was never an option.
I left and like many others, it was hard in other ways but always worth it. Never doubted myself. After I left the first time, he promised to change and I was stupid enough to go back. If you leave, just leave once. That'd be my advice. I was stupid enough to put myself through the torture of leaving twice and as you can imagine, when I had ''form'' for defiance he watched every move I made so closely. After a few months he was back to his usual self. But he'd cancelled the credit card after I left the first time so I had to put all the groceries et cetera on my own card and he'd pay it. So when I left the second time, I left with a debt on my credit card, two kids and no job. I still got through it though. Few years that were tough in ways that required resilience, resourcefulness and optimism but I had that.

Also, does he go to church regularly? Do anything remotely Christian? If he doesn't then he's a big steaming hypocrite too.

It's not religion that's the issue here, it's controlling and abusive behaviour. I'm sorry OP, it sounds awful. Please start making plans to leave. Your DC will already be impacted, you still have time to get them out and live a happier life for you all. But get your ducks in a row, get advice from anyone who can help as I worry he will turn even nastier once he knows your plans.

I hope this Halloween you'll be able to enjoy it with your DC.

all I would like is to get them some Halloween sweets one year but no he will go absolutely mental and will not talk to me or give me the silent treatment if I don’t adhere to what he wants.

Then let him go mad and sulk, at least your kids get to have some fun.

ignore the inevitable no true christian bollocks that gets trotted out, he's using his religion that he believes in to justify treating you badly.

i was in a relationship with a practising christian (not even from a particularly extreme end of the church) and as the non-religious partner, i was always the one expected to compromise. this happened at both ends of the spectrum; i was expected to tolerate being lectured and having my views belittled because they were obviously not as deep and profound and well thought-out as his, and i was also supposed to tolerate his drinking problem, porn addiction, and infidelity. because someone those are more acceptable than simply 'not being religious' and he had the get-out clause of being able to go 'ah well i went to confession about them'.

op as nice as he may be in other areas, you can honestly never win against god in his eyes, and it will destroy you trying to get the man who is supposed to love you to see you as an equal or even just someone deserving of respect and kindness, because until you proclaim you believe the same things as him, you are always somehow 'lesser'.

He's a nut job. It has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with control - Control of you and your children.

He's abusive, I couldn't leave like that - I hope you find a way to get away from this man.

Out of interest, what denomination of Christian is his church? Were were brought up as Christian's, my df was very strict about certain things but he wouldn't have had a problem with entering a pub restaurant!

Was about to say the same, in many ways the religion is a red herring.

I get about respecting someone’s religion, the Halloween for example, and not drinking. However, he’s gone beyond this and is controlling.

And the Good Lord sayeth. ‘Thou shalt visit Wetherspoons and break bread with the tavern-goers supping within. And it shall be good’.