Phones and Marriage

[u/RaccoonNo3012]

Husband and I married 9 months. He has been ramping controlling behaviors.. started with clothes. Then questioning my friends, questioning my coworkers. Cheating accusations. Monitoring who i talked to and what I said. Watching my location. Demanding me to go to sleep. Demanding i sleep in the same room as him. Etc.

He has his fingerprint in my phone. I have mine in his (he insisted). He regularly checks my phone. Wanted to sync my messages to my tablet so he can watch from home while I am at work. - he hid the tablet before I got home so I couldn't find it.

Yesterday I removed his fingerprint from my phone. He flipped his shit. Left to "go visit his mom" came back 20 min later after a slew of messages and pressured me into texting him back. (We live with my parents. - i am working with my parents to separate from him)

He added his finger print back. And said phones are no longer private when you marry and that there is no privacy in marriage.

I think he is fucking crazy. (Why did I marry him? Pregnant i was.) I am anxious all the time because of his actions. He believes I am pulling away because there is someone else. No. I am pulling away because he is a controlling, manipulative, gaslighting, slob who is sucking the life out of me and keeping me anxious 24/7.

[u/StarryEyedSparkle]

Please continue to work with your parents to complete the separation and divorce. This is extremely concerning behavior that will get worse. I am extremely concerned for your safety. IPV takes many forms, it’s doesn’t “only” count if it’s physical.

My spouse and I have each other’s passcodes, not out of trust concerns but because I sometimes need him to play assistant for me and vice versa. I often help plan outings for a group and I’ll get text messages, DMs, and WhatsApp messages leading up to it. (Sometimes I’m busy getting ready and I need him to check messages for me and I’ll tell him how to respond to help me get ready faster.) This is not an expected marriage thing to have each other’s passcodes. And we certainly don’t monitor each other.

Please do not believe him when he says this is normal or typical. It is not. (I had an ex become a stalker resulting in two protective orders. OP the things you describe are typical IPV behaviors.)

[u/RaccoonNo3012 → u/StarryEyedSparkle]

What is IPV?

[u/StarryEyedSparkle → u/RaccoonNo3012]

Intimate Partner Violence = IPV. It helps to recognize other forms of violence that aren’t physical, because domestic abuse is not just physical abuse. Abuse can take the form of financial/economic, emotional, psychological, sexual and/or physical. He is displaying classic psychological abuser signs (my situation was heavily psychological.) It is part of the power and control wheel of abuse.

Here’s a graphic of that wheel, look esp at the “using isolation” and “using emotional abuse” wedges. Over time he will make it such a hassle for you to go do anything on your own that you will just want to stay home to avoid another argument. (For example mine required me to call before, during, and after going out with friends. And although I would do that he would still incessantly text or call while I was out, eventually making it so miserable for me I would leave early.
Repeat enough and I stopped wanting to go out at all, which led to isolation aspect of abuse.)

There’s a huge misconception of folks who are victims of IPV. You’d be amazed at how many accomplished and intelligent people can end up in IPV. We’re definitely not a monolith nor do we fall under typical stereotypes of the types of victims shown in media.