Am I overreacting, or is my partner being controlling about my phone use?

[Sunshineandrainbows99]

I really need some perspective here..

been with partner 2.5 years. I’ve always had issues with some behaviour that I feel is “controlling”

so the weekend we went away abroad for my birthday. We sat down for a meal and I put my phone on the table and messaged my friend a few times.. 3x to be precise. She had some really good baby news so I was thrilled for her.

he said to me “it seems to me that you’ve been on your phone a lot today”. I look at him and I’m like what? And he’s like yeah.. I don’t know what you’re doing on it but it’s been a few times. And at this point I say no I havnt? I’ve been on a few times to message 2 of my friends.

he then said “ it would be nice to feel like your prioritising your relationship rather than prioritising your friends”.

at this point I lose it… I said I’ve barely messaged them and went onto my activity log and said look I’ve been on what’s app for 6 mins in 8hours. I sent 2 messages at 1pm and 4 messages at 2pm.

I said both my friend today are struggling with baby loss news and they have no one to talk to? i said I am not the type of friend to ignore them just because I’m away and on holiday. I said I could understand if I’ve spent the whole meal on my phone but we’ve just sat down..

we’ve not even ordered… I’ve spent all day with you. He then said well you might have only been on it 6 mins but it’s the constant checking to see if someone’s messaged you, you going onto social media and looking.. doing your usual check of the 3 social media accounts, checking in with your son, checking in with your friends. He said you’ve messaged 7 people today.. I said no I’ve messaged 2 friend and my son because my bank card has been hacked.

I said had my bank card not been hacked I wouldn’t even of been on my phone in that time period?

I said he’s being unreasonable and out of order. He said that he had spent a great deal of money and time to take me here and all he’s asking is a reasonable request. I said it would be reasonable if I spent the whole day on my ohone but the evidence and facts are there in black and white.

I went mad and said if you think that I’m a type of girl to be told when I can and can’t go on my phone and not message my friends and be self centered then your with the wrong girl.

he said “evidently I’m with the wrong girl” I’m with someone who’s ungrateful and hasn’t even shown appreciation for being here.

i went to the toilet and I came back still fuming. And then it was “ your over reacting, this reaction is not normal, why are you being this way” which infuriated me even more.

there is numerous times where he accuses me of being on my phone too much, saying he doesn’t know what I’m doing on there, telling me that it’s shady.

the day before he told me in the car that the 2 weeks In a row I’ve got my hair and nails done and not come over to have dinner with him and his kids and basically he’s a bit miffed over it because I’m prioritising that over spending time with his kids. I said I could understand if it’s a pattern but it’s twice and I get them done so infrequently anyways.. and self care is important to me.. I have a stressful job, I share custody so can only do things like that when I don’t have my kids so i just book it in on a day my kids are with their dad.

i said this is the straw that broke the camels back and I’m sick of the constant finger pointing, blaming me for everything, telling me it’s my tone, how I speak, if I didn’t attack him he wouldn’t have to be so defensive.

i posted on here before about his over reaction to me going on an abroad day trip with my friends and I got the cold shoulder and guilt trip.

he’s now messaging me saying I’ve over reacted and my reaction didn’t warrant this. I’ve said he’s controlling..

I said I can understand to a point about having quality time and I’d be more open to it if he was like can we have some quality time babe do you mind putting your phone away.. but to say “it seems to me you’ve been on your phone a lot” .. and then when I got his phone usage up.. he had been on his phone more times than I had and spent more
time in general on it.. and had been speaking to his daughter for 15 mins consistently over messages!! I mean it doesn’t bother me but it’s pot kettle black here.

on the evening we got home and I said I’m done with this I’ve had enough he said I was acting mental and behaving mental… he said he didn’t say I was mental but acting it? Same
thing to me..

I just feel like it’s really unfair and to me controlling? I’ve told him he’s controlling and actually showing signs of narcissistic traits.

I agree.

Shocking to think that people have not read the OP. Join the real world.
Look OP he's sound manipulative and controlling of your behaviours. Why can't you see your mum & him on your birthday???
Mumsnet can be triggering to some people sometimes.
What's not using manners at thr table???

I agree with him to a degree. If you’re away on holiday with your partner and about to sit down to eat, that is your time together to chat and eat and it is rude to ignore him and be on your phone. I suspect it isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened, either, and it’s really frustrating for anybody if someone is constantly looking at it when they’re with them.

However, there’s a couple of things wrong here:

Firstly, if you felt you needed to quickly check in with your friends in that moment, you should have probably said something along the lines of, ‘My friends have messaged me some big important news and I feel I can’t ignore it because I have ignored it all day, so I’m just going to reply quickly before I put my phone away to eat’

Secondly, I would have hated the way he broached the topic. He sounded like he told you off as if you were a naughty primary school kid and he’s the teacher. His wording did sound controlling. “ it would be nice to feel like you’re prioritising your relationship rather than prioritising your friends” would infuriate me!!! Because it sounds like he’s trying to isolate you from them.’I was hoping we would be able to prioritise each other more on holiday’’ would have been better. It also depends whether or not he’s controlling a lot in this way or others.

Thirdly, telling you’re over reacting to it would also infuriate me. He’s got no right to police your reactions, but you both need to improve your communication skills. Perhaps you’re not compatible.

Regardless of who is right and who is wrong it seems he wants you to be something you are not which makes you incompatible

I've been single a long time so maybe not the best person to answer this, but what is wrong with sending a quick message at the table? Obviously scrolling facebook is rude but I could imagine saying 'sorry just need to reply to this quickly' and then carrying on with the meal. Why would that be rude?

I can't believe so many people are agreeing with him. He's controlling. Not prioritising spending time with HIS kids - WTF? Get rid.

i hate excessive phone use but I think what happened here is that sitting at the table was the first chance for the OP to get back to friends. Maybe doing it at the table seems poor but you can’t walk along with your head in a phone either. Maybe perfect manners would have been “I just need 10 minutes before dinner to send a couple of messages” in the bar or something?

that’s not the issue here. The issue is that he thinks ALL her time needs to be his.

note it’s asymmetrical. Hes allowed to be busy without her at times; it’s only OP who is expected to beam full attention at all times.

hes not going to get it. Ltb

[edited for typos]

This. .

Only read a bit of this post so apologies. It is extremely rude and ill mannered to use your phone at the dinner table. I can understand why your partner was annoyed. It would appear that you are of the generation that feel they have lost a limb if their phone is not clamped in their hand and it is being constantly checked.

It’s not necessarily rude IMO. It’s quite common for me, DH, friends, colleagues to say hello, let’s order drinks and then I’m so sorry but I need to sort a couple of quick messages. Particularly on holiday in my case as I don’t use my phone when I’m walking around. After the few mins, phones go away.

So I would say generally if I've gone out for a meal then phones would be away. But when I'm away on holiday with someone, often you've been chatting to them non stop all day, in which case I think using your phone for a bit while you eat is much less unreasonable than it normally would be.

I think it is worth thinking about the appointments - if they're always on a Thursday, and 1 week in 3 is nails and 1 in 7 is hair, then logically 1/3 + 1/7 weeks that you have dinner with them will be disrupted, and that's 33% + 14 ish % - so nearly 50% - maybe a bit less because occasionally they'd end up on the same week. Which seems pretty high - perhaps that's not what's happening though because you may move the appointments around to different days.

I don't think your phone use sounds unreasonable at all though.

Edit: just clocked that it sounds like I've missed some historic context so the appointments thing I've said might not be relevant in this instance.

Either way behaving angrily isn't good for any relationship.

I’m sorry about your loss, but what could make you think it was a good idea to have a child in this relationship?

OMG how are you all normalising his behaviour? The way he speaks to her like she's a child is unacceptable. Fucking hell. It's no wonder so many women stay with wanker men.

YABU. Your friends didn’t know what you were doing so you could have messaged them later. We all need to live more in the moment than thinking that the world needs us to reply immediately.

Very rude to message out for a meal on your birthday. A special weekend. Doesn't matter whether he is looking at menu or not. You could have looked at it while getting ready.
There seems more to it than meets the eye. Sit down and have a civilized discussion with him .

The entire thing sounds shit.

But I won't tolerate anyone sitting on their phone at the dinner table.