This wasn't a normal reaction, was it?

[WastedYouth]

On monday, DH had a laptop delivered. He was on it from 2pm until 8pm "setting it up" he completely and utterly ignored me this entire time. Wouldn't even answer me if I spoke to him.

I let it go.

Tuesday however was another day off. Now, he always tells me that he doesn't want me "going out" on his days off as that should be our time together ... but on Tuesday he arranged to go and see his dad (armed with the laptop)

I let it go.

He gets back in around lunch time. Outside, the trees and ground were covered in snow and it looked beautiful. I'm a keen photographer so obviously wanted to go out somewhere nice ... I asked DH where he wanted to spend the afternoon ...

His excuses for not going out included:

"It's too icey"
"it's too cold"
"We don't have enough time"
"We're running low on petrol"

He then engrosses himself in making a cake. Ignoring me completely everytime I try and strike up conversation.

He then announced:

"oh, just remembered, can't go out anyway, I'm having some laptop accessories delivered"

So, feeling a bit fed up, bored and lonely I text my friend to see if I could pop around for an hour ... I then went upstairs to get ready.

DH followed me and asked what I was doing. I said "Just popping out for an hour"

Then, this happened:

him: "What?? where too???"
me: "Friends house"
him: "what friend??"
me: "Mel"
him: "Why?"
me: "because I'm bored and I want some company!"
him: "oh! that's nice, you going out on my day off, thanks very much"
me: "You've been out!! and it's not as if you're talking to me or even acknowledging that I exist at the moment!"
him: "I've been busy!"
me: "Playing on a laptop?"
him: "well, I've finished with that now ... I'll talk to you now, I have nothing else to do"
me: "oh!! thanks!! lovely"
him: "I didn't mean it like that, don't twist my words"
me: "look, I'll only be an hour or so"
him: "but I thought you wanted US to go out?"
me: "I did! but you said we can't!"
him: "I'll get the parcel delivered next door ... come on, where shall we go?"
me: "no, I've already arranged something now"
him: "oh! so you're telling me you've arranged this in the past 5 minutes?? yeah right! there is something not quite right here, you never wanted to go out with me originally did you?? you had this planned all along!"
me: "It's no bloody conspiracy!! I just want to go out for an hour!"
him: "So come out with me"

Anyway ... this went on and on, he then offered to "drop me off and pick me up" from Mels ... obviously not believing that I was actually going there and he then blurted out "OH, And I won't be happy if you come back stinking of smoke either!!"

I know the answer to this already I suppose, but this isn't a normal reaction to a wife popping to a friend's for an hour is it??

He sounds a bit controlling to me!

Has he done this before?

Nope, not normal at all. Sounds very controlling. What's he usually like when you see your friends/family?

Your relationship is very unhealthy. I tell dh if I am going out and dh tells me. We never ask. There is never a discussion about either of us being allowed to go out. It just have to be negotiated around childcare for dd.

Well I remember speaking to his ex wife once and she said "beware, he's very controlling. He wouldn't even let me see my friends and family" and I thought she was full of shite as he'd never shown any signs of that to me!

He once said he didn't want me to go to an Anne Summers party ... which I could kind of understand as there were going to be loads of undesirable blokes there and lots of alcohol. I didn't really want to go to that one either!

Looks like a good time to ring the ex-wife for another chat.

this is not normal, please consider this to be your wake up call. Try and stand your ground, nip this in the bud. If it looks like he'll get nasty, get the hell out of there. Sorry you're going through this.

I would be tempted to ring his ex wife and tell her I owed her an apology for doubting her - in his hearing! That of course would be terribly mischievous and I'm not saying you should do it. (Though I'm not exactly saying you shouldn't...) What I do think is that this sort of behaviour needs nipping in the bud NOW. If you start giving in for the sake of a quiet life you'll be chained to the kitchen sink before you know it.

I confess to bringing my own baggage to this posting. I believed for years that it was insecurity that led to XH's conviction that I might be unfaithful; that it was kindness that made him offer to drive me everywhere. It just got worse. I well remember those strings of Very Good Reasons why we couldn't do something I wanted to do, which could conveniently be ignored or inverted when it suited him. Reasons Why I Can't Borrow The Car was a particular favourite. That's why your original post made me shudder. For XH it was broken cars that he had to fix, not shiny new laptops; he couldn't possibly leave this terribly important work for five minutes, unless I was about to go out in whichever car was nearly working, in which case he could spare the whole afternoon to drive me somewhere and just wait until I needed driving home again (either leaving the children unattended at home, which was a BIG bone of contention, or bringing them to sit bored in the car for hours, then he'd be in a FILTHY mood on the way home because they'd been acting up!). If I insisted no, that's a waste of time, I really can get myself there and back you know, he would go all "Hmph! There's some reason you don't want me to know where you're going!" - and it's bullshit, it really is.

Sounds a bit like my controlling exH - one time I was going to my parents, 230 miles away, and the conversation went:
HIM: What time will you be back?
ME: It's Sunday now and I'm coming back next Saturday, how the hell am I supposed to know what time I will get back?

You are entitled to go out when it suits you, even more so if he has already refused to join you. But anyway, did you go to see your friend? What was he like when you got back?

Cross posts with Grace and Groundhogs! Obviously, I agree with them.

You see I wouldn't have found it okay that he told me I couldnt go to an anne summers party. I am an adult and am quite capable of deciding where it is and isnt safe for me to go to.

and will go to an unsafe place if I want to thankyouverymuch.

Annie, your post scared me a bit ... he also looks for excuses of why I can't borrow the car!

He works full time and where he works isn't on a bus route. So, if I want to use the car during the day I have to drive him to and from work. Fair enough ... but he HATES me having the car! his excuse is "I like to eat my lunch in it"

I also get the "hmm there's some reason you won't let me take you" line.

I'm ashamed to admit, I didn't go see friend in the end, just couldn't be arsed with the hassle (I know, worst thing I could've done)

Forgive yourself for that one. You were caught on the back foot. From now on you'll be prepared for the mind games and will have time to work on counter-moves. Dammit, life shouldn't have to be like this, should it? Hopefully he won't push it too often once he realises it isn't getting him anywhere.

He made a cake? Jeez that is CLASSIC. Seriously. It must be number three or two in the 'I am a nice bloke really' trick book.

My now ex H made me a tasty Thai (how ironic! ) curry on my 40th birthday but he knew that actually I had said all I wanted was to go to local wine bar for a glass of champagne and tapas.

When I got cross he got defensive saying he was a lovely man and I was selfish cow for not appreciating his efforts.

I WANTED ONE GLASS OF CHAMPAGNE AND AN OLIVE FFS)

run.

And take the cake

That's why he won't let her have the car, innit - in case she makes a break for freedom! Mind you, UA, to be fair, your X was seriously unhinged. This one sounds more like yer average controlling arse from somewhere in the 1950s. Needs solid boot in backside to relocate in present century.

Saying you couldn't see you friend - as everyone ele has said - not good.

ALSO all the stuff leading up to it, not talking to you while he did his laptop for hours, breaking your agreement that you spend time together when he is off, refusing to go out with you to do some photos. All that stuff sounds really shit as well.

He is not treating you well, even if you put the controlling stuff to one side.

Annie you make me laugh

Yes, a full-blown comparison with my arsewipe would be wrong as he took the biscuit on the nutjob front never mind the cake.

But the old 'let me drive you/make you a cake/thai curry' thingy is classic.

I am iced in by the way. Bbbbrrrrrr

Oh yes, the endless reasons why..

He absolutely had to "pop to the office" whatever time of day it was.

I couldn't ever leave him with the dc's for just half an hour to go for a run

He absolutely must have a 2 hour sleep in the afternoon of every weekend day, he was utterly exhausted/ had a headache etc.

He was well enough to do the things he wanted to, but far too poorly/busy to ever do a job round the house for me, cut the lawn etc

Car was an issue before we got a second one. Then it became a battle over who had the newer car..

If I fancied Chinese/Indian, he suddenly had an absolute craving for the opposite.

I was "mean" if I ever refused to indulge him.

Easier said than done, but do not put up with it. H was far better towards me if I said a firm no to him. Sometimes it was much easier just to give in though, so I do understand the temptation.

No, it's not normal and it's not right. His behaviour is very passive-aggressive too and the trouble with it is, if the person on the receiving end has very low self-esteem, it can make them suddenly feel like the bad guy for wanting to do a perfectly normal thing such as seeing a friend. It's all about him, you see.

He doesn't necessarily want to spend time and engage with you when you are around, he just wants to ensure you're not spending time with anyone else. He's also trying to control your behaviour and pointing out the penalty if you fail to comply. "I won't be very happy if you come back stinking of smoke" - that's a threat of presumably a long sulk or worse, if you don't do as he says.

I've got a friend in a relationship like this and it frustrates the life out of me that this lovely woman appeases her H so much. The good news is that like you, she can see that it's not normal and it's not good - she overheard DH and I making various arrangements before Christmas about who was going to be where on which night and commented to me afterwards that it would have been a very different conversation in her house.

I'm not sure how long you have been in this relationship or how long you haven't been challenging this behaviour, altering your arrangements "for a quiet life" (which I understand). If it's early days, recognise that he has control issues and refuse to be controlled. People only control us if we let them. If it's very ingrained behaviour, I'd urge him to get some help.

Please don't take the "do nothing" option - it will only get worse, as I have seen with my friend.

Control freak alert! Definitely. And serious nob alert too - 8 hours setting up a computer during which time you weren't allowed to speak to him? FFS. TBH, I wouldn't have let that go, never mind the rest. Agh. Do you plan to allow this to continue? What would happen if you put your foot down and did what you wanted in the teeth of his opposition? Do please find out - it might make your next choices more important.

UA - lol at the Thai irony. Sorry to see you're frozen in - hope you had a good Christmas and NY though!

Exactly so: I won't let you do the thing you want to do, I'll do something else for you which is nice so you can't complain. And you think aww, at least he's doing something for me, he must care. Then one day you realise you can count on the fingers of one hand how often you actually got to do something you wanted to do, go somewhere you wanted to go, visited someone you liked. It is all about what he chooses to give.

Oh yeah, the Anne Summers thing too. Not that it was anything like Anne Summers, but pre-kids I had an invitation from a friend at work to celebrate her and her DH's 40th birthdays (they were a couple of months apart in age so they used to have a joint party in the middle!). XH said I absolutely could not go because they would slip me a Mickey Finn and "give me a good seeing to". I thought this a trifle unlikely, but had to admit I didn't know most of the people who would be there so well, if it meant so much to him, I'd better pass on the party. One in a series of 1,586 entitled "Ways in which I wish I had not been such a doormat".

My (currently) DH has had his controlling moments in the past. We are at the moment rebuilding a very broken relationship, but it's going well.

Have you tried talking to him about all this? It sounds like he needs to be told point blank that this behaviour will not be tolerated in your relationship.

Run, run, run for the hills!

Apart from the insisting on driving that could have been a conversation between my X and me. He would always moan if I went out without him but it was fine for him to go and play golf whenever he felt like it. Basically I had to be at home whenever he was - even if he was just spending hours watching sport on TV. He even used to complain if I spent too long in the shower because he was 'left on his own'

It is extremely difficult to get through to someone like this though, especially if you've got into the habit of giving into them. My X still can't understand why I left him, he just can't see why his controlling behaviour destroyed my self-esteem and brought me to the brink of depression.

I don't really have any advice but just wanted to say that this is not normal and it is not behaviour you should feel you have to accept.

Tired, I just had to at the Chinese/Indian thing, my X used to do that too. Or if I ever did insist on having what I wanted his meal would always turn out to be horrible and rubbish!

Please, nip it in the bud, as others have said. My ex was like this - he never wanted to do anything as he was 'tired' from work, but if I want to go out on my own he made a fuss about when would I be back, when would there be some food for him. It's not a good cycle to get into, you can get really nastily depressed if you're constantly having to forgo what you want to do. And if you get depressed, you'll lose the sense that you matter and it'll keep getting worse.

Please tell him he's out of line, now.