Husband rang my parents during argument to get me to drop it

[SabrinaLina]

The other night, I raised something with my husband that had been troubling me. It was about the way he had treated my parents recently - I thought he had been unreasonable and unkind (I won't go into details here). I had tried to discuss it with him a couple of times before, but he shut it down.

Soon into the conversation, he got annoyed and said I should drop it. He then said it is because he works hard at his job that we can pay the mortgage, so I shouldn't be hassling him about it (fwiw, I do pay a share of the mortgage, but less than him because he earns a lot more).

I said I wanted to talk about the incident with my parents because it had upset me, and so that it doesn't happen again. He then said that if I didn't drop it, he would phone my Dad right now and ask him what he thinks - which he knew I would be mortified about (this also seemed like an odd tactic, because if my dad knew about the issue, it would reflect badly on my husband). He started ringing my parents' phone, and held the phone up to my face to show me it was ringing. I said 'OK I'll leave the room', and he hung up (before anyone answered).

Please tell me, does anyone else's partners act like this when they want you to drop something?

That sounds very controlling and odd to me. You should be able to discuss things rationally with your husband and not have him throw his earnings back at you - you're supposed to be a partnership.

I'd be very much questioning my relationship to be honest.

He's an arse, see what you can do to be happier (i think we both know the answer is leaving him).

Bin him. He's a dick.

The fact he earns more than you doesn't entitled him to bully you.

When will men realise that when they get married it's all family money.

Sounds like he has a variety of tactics for shutting you down e.g. trying to make you feel your lower salary gives you less right to speak, and threatening to call your parents because he knows you’d hate it.
It doesn’t sound good overall. Life might be healthier without him.

Just read all you posts on this thread. Leave him. He’s absolutely horrible. You don’t deserve any of this.

But this is one issue amongst many.

There is no point in name-changing because when people know the context it changes the answers and it's very disingenuous to change names and post in isolation when everything is connected.

You shouldn't try and cherry-pick advice

Reading this made me go cold op, my ex used to do things like this.........threaten to phone my parents at all hours as a way to control me as he knew I would be mortified at him waking them up etc In reality I should have let him do it as he is the one who looked bad but I didn't want them to know his dark side.

Eventually I saw sense and he is very much an ex.

I remember your other threads. It was clear that your DH is abusive, both emotionally and financially. The advice was that you needed to leave him.

And yet, here you are again, posting about him and his continually abusive behaviour. It's not going to change. It's not going to improve.

You need to divorce him before you have DC. He's an unpleasant human being.

My DH is unable to discuss anything in an adult fashion, he always has to shout / cry / threaten to leave. It’s fucking annoying!

He had a fallout with my parents / sister & won’t talk about it or say sorry. Then wonders why they don’t invite him to anything…

Honestly, the fact that you instantly dropped it when he called your parents tells me that deep down you knew you had taken it too far.

Why do people who post on here never check their spellings or whether the correct word has come up (autocue has a lot to answer for!). It’s so annoying when people just write what they like without checking that they are actually saying what they mean! Someone on here used ‘your’ and ‘you’re’ In the same sentence but managed to swap them! Really!?

If my DD's husband phone my house with 'complaints' about my DD I'd want to hear it from her. I'd also judge the future DH very harshly. It's never going to happen OP.

He sounds like a bully

DON'T THINK ABOUT HOW TO RESPOND NEXT TIME.

You're doing that do deflect from what you must know you have to do.

This man is abusive and cruel and manipulative and controlling. He's a bad man. He likes to see you panicking and anxious. It makes him feel good.

Leave him, now. You haven't said if you have children, but the above advice goes double if you do. He will damage any children you have, guaranteed - just as he's damaging you right now.

Tell your parents what he did when you explain to them why you are separating. Tell them this is one instance of many.

One of the reasons he didn't want them around in the first place is because he knows they will support you and without them you are weaker.

Yup, too far in 1824. In 2024 women are allowed to speak and they don't have to be silent when their abusive husband says so.

That's not a million miles away from claiming OP deserved it, you know... 🤔

Your not-so-DH is bullying you and I'd say that he's rather close to being coercively controlling.
I would hope that your family would see through his blustering and bullying if he did phone them to 'drop you in it' or whatever he would hope to happen.
You need to think hard about whether you want to keep being put down and 'kept in your place' by him.

He sounds really horrible @SabrinaLina

Thats not normal behaviour. Do you want to stay with him?

Dump him. I think he sounds very odd and it won't improve

Maybe she did? Maybe she did go too far. Maybe the only way to make her stop was exactly what he did. Because if my husband rang my parents I would be “go for it”. I would have no issue.

Maybe she’s abusive and not him? You know when can be too. And really, why didn’t she let him?

Maybe they’ve not had access to education. Maybe they’ve got SPLD. Or maybe they’re busy.

If you’re just here to put the boot in, it makes you look very childish and silly, and even sillier if you’ve not read the thread properly.

‘I said I wanted to talk about the incident with my parents because it had upset me, and so that it doesn't happen again. ‘

Op wanted to discuss the incident she was upset about (the incident with her parents) with her husband. The only drama and games seem to be coming from the husband, not op.

You made a mistake Op, you should have let him call your Dp but you stopped him because the issue would make him look bad. If he looks bad it doesn't reflect on you, it's not some sort of shame to admit you didn't marry the man you thought you did. Time to stop worrying about how anything looks and look at leaving him

is this the guy who wouldn't let your parents stay in a B&B near his parents' holiday home?

I'd go further and tell your parents all about these incidents before he tries to threaten you with phoning them again.

Let them know what has been going on.

That way if he does phone them they won't feel surprised into politeness or 'trying to see both sides'.

Then find yourself a better paying job, start your own savings.

Take all his ammunition away from him.

Then take a good hard look and see if you still like him.