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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Boundaries

10 replies

PillowTalk123 · 07/08/2023 09:03

Three days ago, DH bought some new pillows and replaced one of mine. I asked him why and he said 'You didn't like the lumpy one'. I had been sleeping on it for months and hadn't complained, but one day it ended up on his side of the bed (because all four of us pile into our bed for chats before bedtime every night and the pillows can get moved around quite a lot) and he took that to mean that I was rejecting it.

I asked him not to change my pillows without asking me. I didn't like the new one, it was uncomfortable and too thick for me. And, to be honest, I have issues with him ignoring boundaries anyway. He regularly rearranges my desk into what he thinks is a better arrangement, both at home and in work; he'll remove things or add things to my handbag; if my phone rings and I don't want to answer it, he'll answer and hand it to me. I don't have anything that's just mine, that he won't try to improve somehow.

He reckons he's trying to be helpful. But to me it feels intrusive. I've tried explaining that to him and he gets angry (which is always his reaction to anything he interprets as criticism). I said that I just want to have some small boundaries, some small parts of my life that are just mine, and he rolled his eyes.

Last night I went to bed and my pillows were too high again. He had replaced another one with a thicker, firmer one. I asked him had he done something to my pillows and he said 'why, is one different?' as if he knew nothing about it. Then he said he'd been changing one of his, and must have picked up the wrong one. The thing is, I know that the one he changed was on my side of he bed, and when I went to bed, the pillows were all carefully arranged in two neat piles, so he had obviously deliberately put the new one on my side. But he's claiming it was all completely accidental.

I'm so torn; part of me feels he's just trying to be nice and take care of me in his own way, albeit clumsily, and part of me thinks he's a gaslighting shit who has no respect for me.

OP posts:
liondreams · 07/08/2023 09:05

he's being a controlling arse!

Fidgety31 · 07/08/2023 09:05

He was trying to be helpful !
sounds like he’s in a no win situation whether he helps or not !

sodthesodoff · 07/08/2023 09:07

Helpful my arse

He goes into your handbag and takes stuff?

Presumably you've told him to stop. And he ignores you saying no?

vincettenoir · 07/08/2023 09:09

I don’t think the problem is so much that he changed your pillow, rather that he didn’t listen to you when you explained that you preferred your own pillow.

You are right to push back. He needs to learn to listen and respond for you to get out of this cycle.

barbarahunter · 07/08/2023 09:16

Does he do much around the house, OP? If he really wants to be helpful, I would suggest that you present him with a list of tasks that would actually be very helpful in the running of the house, if he is not already doing such things.

Cloudsandrainnotsunandsand · 07/08/2023 09:17

Imagine shoving one new pillow over his bloody face when he sleeps.

Not just a new pillow of your choice you need imo op...
I hate dc 'helping' with my things. I am a grown up. I can manage fine. Urgh.

PillowTalk123 · 07/08/2023 09:49

Fidgety31 · 07/08/2023 09:05

He was trying to be helpful !
sounds like he’s in a no win situation whether he helps or not !

I don't see how? He can win by not interfering with my pillows?

OP posts:
Naunet · 07/08/2023 09:59

Fidgety31 · 07/08/2023 09:05

He was trying to be helpful !
sounds like he’s in a no win situation whether he helps or not !

Who in their right mind thinks putting things in and taking things out of a woman’s handbag, without any discussion with her, is helpful?

TheCrystalPalace · 07/08/2023 11:33

That would really piss me off, particularly the phone answering thing. If I duck a call, it's because I don't feel like talking so I'd be REALLY hacked off if I was then forced into it.

Pinkbonbon · 07/08/2023 14:29

He...takes things out of your bag?
Like...wtf?

There's no reason any man should EVER be in a woman's handbag. Unless she's just said 'go into my handbag and get xyz'.

I'd put a fucking mouse trap in it. That'll soon keep his hands out.

He's a creepy bastard op. And ge does these things because you're not allowed to have boundaries and he wants you to know this.

Jumping to anger when you just try to add for your basic rights to be respected?

Yeah...run.
There is no discussion with his sort. He sees you as an object to control.

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