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Feeling inhibited

(60 Posts)
Antonia Mon 14-Sep-20 23:24:40

Before Covid, I used to meet up for a monthly lunch with two former colleagues. Now, it's by WhatsApp.
The trouble is, we live in a small flat and my DH I'd always in the room when I'm chatting.
It makes me feel very inhibited. When woman get together, they can freely discuss husbands & partners, which obviously I can't do with him sitting in the room.
He always asks about the conversations, and I feel like I have no real privacy any more.
He has briefly met my colleagues but isn't friends with them.
I can't go into another room as our signal strength is too weak
I don't think I can do anything about it, I just wanted to have a bit of a rant

kircubbin2000 Wed 16-Sep-20 13:18:33

This is really controlling behaviour. I realised that my friends husband was listening in when she kept pausing to let him give an opinion. It puts me off phoning her. I also only noticed that before vivid she could only meet me on days when he was out or had a match to watch on tv. He also stopped her visiting her sister in hospital on days when he had no alternative activity.

kircubbin2000 Wed 16-Sep-20 13:19:28

Covid! Not vivid.

Doodledog Wed 16-Sep-20 13:56:22

I don't think that it is necessarily controlling behaviour. In a small flat, should the husband be forced to move out of the room when his wife wants to chat to her friends? Who is controlling whom then? Isn't it just sharing a confined space?

As I said upthread, I understand the situation, as I also feel inhibited talking in front of others. At home, I can easily go into another room, but when we are at our caravan there are fewer options. My husband is understanding, and goes for a walk or something when I want privacy, but if it is raining, or if he is eating when the phone rings, I would consider it controlling of me to expect him to do so.

Antonia Wed 16-Sep-20 16:39:05

Sorry to be so late replying. I wasn't keeping up with my thread as I didn't think it was very interesting.
My friends and I are all quite elderly. There are three of us, and we live at quite a distance from each other. To meet up involves two train journeys which none of us are happy to do just yet.
I don't want DH to feel excluded in any way - particularly as he doesn't have any friends of his own and tends to 'hijack' mine. The only contacts he has are with family.
I suppose I just wish he would take himself off somewhere, but he doesn't. He half listens, and then asks for more details about what we have been talking about.
Similarly, I do an online French class hike he is in the room, and again, I find his presence invasive. Half my mind is on the French lesson and half on him, so it's hard to fully concentrate.
Thank you for your suggestions, I'll look into them, but don't want to hurt his feelings.

Antonia Wed 16-Sep-20 16:48:05

He is also very interested in my Facebook page. Many of my FB friends are my former pupils, and he has, in the past, even commented on posts, as if it is me commenting. I got furious about this. The main reason being that his spelling is atrocious, and I was really embarrassed and angry to think that my former pupils would be thinking I can't spell! To be fair, he has stopped doing it now.

Doodledog Wed 16-Sep-20 18:08:59

I would absolutely draw the line at that.

I would sign out of FB every time, and use a password he couldn't guess. I really don't understand friends of mine who share things like social media accounts and email addresses. In fact, I try not to email people with shared addresses as I'm never sure who is reading the messages.

Nannyjulesrules Wed 16-Sep-20 20:09:30

I can relate to several of these threads, my husband thinks nothing of listening in when I'm trying to talk to family or friends. He's even done it when I've taken a phone call from a doctor in another room, I can't concentrate when I'm trying to take everything in and he's standing there. He seems to think that he has a right to hang around. Every time the phone rings when we're watching tv he grabs the remote control and turns the sound off, expecting me to stay and take the call. I go out of the room anyway, but he gets shirty about it. He just got annoyed with me for being on the laptop instead of watching tv with him. He is definitely controlling and manipulative , I could say a lot more but I didn't want to take over Antonias thread, I just needed a little rantsad

ElaineI Wed 16-Sep-20 22:41:46

Me too and has access to my phone, MacBook etc but I don't to his!

Paperbackwriter Wed 23-Sep-20 12:23:27

ElaineI

Me too and has access to my phone, MacBook etc but I don't to his!

You need to go to your Settings and tighten up your security. There is absolutely no need to have someone intruding into your gadgets like this. Change your passwords - it's easy to do!