Civil Servant partner vetoing my voluntary work with Refugees - AIBU??

[whenthetimecomes]

Help! Very frustrated at moment as I am keen to get back to work after 7 years as a SAHM, and have finally found a part time voluntary role which totally inspires me and fits with my former skills and experience - It's teaching English to a small group of refugee families (from a troubled region much in the news) recently accepted here by local council.

Not only do I believe in this work for its own sake but it could also be a good thing (IMO) on my cv, as a stepping stone to a possible paid job in future after years of feeling deskilled stuck at home with a child. ( I'm also in my 50s so it's harder to get paid work at my age, but I think I could excel in this area). But regardless of this possible personal benefit, I want to do this anyway as I think it's very worthwhile work and want to help, because I can. I've worked with refugees long ago and also speak some of their language; IMO, I'm uniquely placed and well qualified as a teacher to help. Those who want me to join their team think so too.

Now - Partner has found out that I'm about to start the teaching (it's only 2 hours per week!!) and has totally vetoed it!! 'It's not safe for you as you have a family and it will have a negative effect on my work. It will be an obstacle to my future chance of promotion as it will be obvious that I have associated with someone who has had contact with undesirable people; it will bring danger and risk to us as a family - blah blah blah'.....

What does he do for a living? No, it's not MI6 or Special Forces - he's a minor civil servant in a very innocuous provincial department that has zero to do with military or security.

Now he's taking the Christian (!) approach: 'It says in the Bible that wives have to obey their husbands...'

I've told him that, if he can give me indisputable, objective, hard evidence from his workplace (eg human resources) IF - that his wife's offering 2 hrs per week of unpaid charitable teaching to refugees (who are 100% legally here and have obviously been previously screened by the UN and UK government before entry to the UK ) - if this will indeed bring his work into disrepute, and bring risk and danger upon the whole family .... only then will I reconsider this volunteering opportunity.

Responses from any other civil servants please would be particularly helpful here ! - to help me judge if there is any substance at all in what he's saying. He says things like this: 'I work for the Queen' (no he doesn't, she's just the ultimate boss of the Civil Service); 'I have to be above reproach in whoever I or my family associate with' - ??? He's just assumed these poor people are terrorists who will want to follow me home in order to murder us!

I think he's paranoid; but is it true that civil servants and even their families have to avoid helping victims of war, or any contact with them, just because they happen to be Muslims?

Civil servants and Muslims, please please give me your thoughts on this.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan I can guess who your H would be.

Not only does the uk govt support integration of refugees but has programmes run by dfid to help refugees overseas - i.e. run and managed by uk civil servants on her majesty's service. Tell him the queen wants you to do this!

What an appallingly unChristian attitude. I'd be getting your vicar/faith leader to be having a word and suggesting he could do with helping the poor and needy himself.

I left the civil service a couple of years ago and volunteering for registered charities was encouraged and you could even claim paid time off to do so! I did a couple of times.

He sounds batshit and I second the advice to get your Vicar to have a word. I detest when people take that verse out of context, it's part of a wider instruction to have mutual love and respect in a relationship and for husbands to honour their wives. Pisses me off when people use one verse for their own ends not god's.
You are doing a very lovely and Christian thing, using your God given talents to help others.

Best wishes, OP. Hope you enjoy the role.

Well, he's not backing down at all on this! Has now printed off 26 pages of the Cabinet Office document on HMG Personnel Security Controls (April 2014) in an attempt to blind me withbullshit science, or to scare me. It's not working so far. His current clearance level is just the basic one, which doesn't seem the slightest bit bothered by any 3rd party connections. It's most unlikely he'll ever need a higher one (which might conceivably take an interest in 3rd parties). And even if he did, would my teaching English for a few hours to a few Syrian refugees still be a problem?

Anyone with insight into/ experience of Government security vettings, your comments would be most welcome. I'm trying to get him to put a direct request to his Human Resources for their specific comment. He will resist doing that, as I suspect their reaction would be more like 'Well done, that's a good thing for her to do, go for it'. He won't want to hear that, as it would show him up for what is really going on. (He says it would be harmful to his career even to ASK them in the first place.....)

I don't see why you have to prove it to him, rather than vice versa. I'd just ignore him and crack on. If he can get a statement from his HR department saying it would be against regulation you could then reconsider. It is clearly bollocks that even asking could be harmful - you're not wanting to consort with terrorists, he does understand that there is a distinction between Syrian refugees and members of ISIS?

well I think you're right. I feel intimidated and very controlled. I am currently cracking on with it, haven't actually begun the teaching yet but it could start any day now.

I know he will make my life very difficult unless he can get me to comply and give up this opportunity. He is generally extremely overzealous in being careful, waaaay beyond the norm (I think there is a mental health element here, tbh) . There could be an aspect here of him genuinely over-interpreting / exaggerating common sense security guidelines. - That's why I think I need something in writing, from an external authoritative source which he cannot argue with, to protect me from the consequences if I continue to be defiant and stick to my guns. He won't admit that he just dislikes the thought of me doing this teaching.

Have you tried getting someone from your church to speak to him about this?

He says, 'The refugees could have unfortunate connections.....'

That is a good idea, though it's hard to think of someone in authority there who he would accept to listen to. He wouldn't like the idea of asking a 3rd person because then there's the risk of them taking my side!

Hmm, is he worried about a PR disaster eg some scandal emerges about the refugee group; there's a photo of you volunteering; etc, etc. If you can lead him down that path with questions, and he agrees that is his concern you can then inform him that (a) his department will have a PR risk management process in place for anything like that (b) you are as likely to be engulfed in an unwitting scandal by volunteering anywhere. (c) if he has any hobbies or connections outside of work at all then there is always the potential to be caught up in a scandal.
I think the key point is (b) tbh. Even if you were doing something else, he would find it a source of potential embarrassment/scandal and try to stop you doing it.

Apart from this are you happy? Because he sounds like a controlling dickhead. You don't need his permission to work or volunteer if you live in the UK in the 21st century. I wouldn't even discuss this further. I'd just do it (and make plans to leave permanently, TBH)

He sounds like a controlling cock.

Please don't let him stop you having a life. I hope you bloody love your voluntary work and it leads to personal fulfilment and happiness.

No I'm not especially happy, and this current example depicts precisely why . I'm an open-minded person who tends to trust people unless I have reason to do otherwise, but he sees that as naivete. I communicate easily with others, he doesn't.

He is a very insecure person deep down who finds strength in scrupulously obeying every rule in the book - to the point of disbelief on my part at times. He also I think lacks the imagination and empathy to appreciate that what he disapproves of, or fears, may actually be what I need to survive! I need to get out of the house and get involved in something that feels like an antidote to the oppressive atmosphere here. Add into this mix, his black and white religious views on wifely submission (!) and you have my situation in a nutshell.

Unfortunately I've been at home with a needy DC for quite a long time now, out of employment and not so young; so despite lots of previous experience it will be harder for me to get back into paid work and thereby regain some independence again. So LTB not so easy. This volunteering post would not only be great in itself (for every good reason already mentioned), but it could also work as a stepping stone back into the workplace, iswim. So it's even harder that he's trying to block it for me, as things like this that are right for me, seldom come up in my area.

He certainly has a very strong need to keep every aspect of his life under iron control, and I think we just fall into that category. He hasn't really got much grasp of freedom or human rights of others. He says he wants me to go back to work (for the money...) but it would need to be a job of his choosing or one he would be happy to rubber-stamp. He's been waving a different 'approved' full time paid job under my nose to try to distract me from the refugee teaching. But these are in other towns and wouldn't help me juggle my current childcare obligations; they'd also conflict with his own working patterns and (ironically!) knacker his own career as - if I got it - he'd have to take on a lot more childcare and have a lot less freedom to travel etc with his work! This refugee teaching would just suit me at the moment.

I'm a senior civil servant and I helped establish a voluntary work initiative with my staff where they get a couple of hours time off and are specifically encouraged to work with groups like this. I volunteer myself sometimes. It's beneficial to all our careers and society as a whole. Your partner is lying in order to control you.

Many civil servants have told you that his concerns are unfounded.

You should seek to get away from this awful man. It doesn't matter WHY he does it, he is abusive. This is damaging to you and your DC.

Organisations like Womens Aid could help you.

Simply go ahead with your volunteering plans: you don't need his permission. Just make sure you don't rely on him to parent the DC while you're doing the work.

Thanks for all the responses, they are all what I need to hear.

Yes I think there is a kind of domestic abuse going on here and I'm not going to stand for it. I have thought of getting the view of Women's Aid for another avenue of support, as that might be a wake-up call to him and make him realise I do in fact have some rights.

He will accuse me of scuppering his career, undoubtedly. And blame me for any future promotions he doesn't get (convenient, that....) For someone who's anything but flexible and open-minded, perhaps there could be other reasons why he's struggled to get promoted in the past?

Don't whatever you do tell him about WA! Just get support for yourself.

You seem very focused on finding ways to convince him that what you (reasonably!) want to do, or that seeking to meet your needs, is OK: that's exhausting, and not how it should be in a loving relationship.

If he is in nothing but an ordinary dept, there is no reason why you should not do this, unless he is in, say, passport, immigration services. Even then the normal course would be to agree with his line manager and HR what to do if there were a conflict of interest.

There is one possibility where this might be applicable. Funnily enough, it's the I work for the queen one. If he is a spook, then he does work for the queen and in the case of spooks it might not be appropriate. Or might be. But again, he should simply put it to his line manager.

Sounds like bullshit to me, ex senior civil servant.

Thanks Dozer, that would be sensible. In fact sadly secrecy seems to be increasingly the only option for me, as he will use what I tell him against me (eg. if I mentioned WA to him, he'd immediately look up its section on men who are being abused and turn it back at me).