My husband treats me like his prisoner

My husband is, and always has been, extremely insecure. What i call insecurity, he calls jealousy. Before i say anything else, i have always been faithful to him, nor has the thought ever entered my mind to cheat on him, and weve been together for 15 years. He is 11 years older than me but it has never been an issue. He "sees" things, he is paranoid, he has accused me of sleeping with pretty much everyone, including his son, MY step-son. He has confronted complete strangers inquiring if they are having affairs with me, not that he has ever beleived their denials. I cannot even go to the basement to do laundry without being followed by him, he thinks i hide men under his own roof. Its become unbearable, and this is just a sample if what he puts me thru, thete is much much more. I cant go anywhere, much less be at home alone, without him following me or driving the 20 miles home from work if i dont answer my phone. I work nights but he says im going to have to quit since he cant sleep when im gone. Funny tho, he worked the night shift for ten years with not one word from me. I dont know what i can do. Im worried about him, hes getting worse.

The more you value something, the more you fear the possibility of losing it. Only reassurance puts paid to that. And if you've lost something you valued before, the more you'll value its 'replacement'. Only greater reassurance puts paid to that. That or trying to detach to where you lessen the value you place. Jealousy/territorialism suggests power, insecurity weakness (male perception). But in fact, jealousy (beyond the healthy amount) is a symptom of insecurity (beyond the healthy amount). You have a stock amount of insecurity that resides inside your mind (lightswitch) which needs the added 'weight' of an outside trigger (finger) to turn on the light (or alarm). If the switch is tiny, the finger has to be big. Or vice versa. Does he have a particularly large switch and (this case) you a tiny finger? Or vice versa? I'm asking if perhaps unbeknownst to you you're doing any things that represent a finger pressing his switch or whether you're behaving normally yet even that triggers his switch. Is it him? Is it you? Is it a combination and in what proportion? Men generally are actions sensitive, it's their main form of communications (which is why they "don't listen"). Infidelity is the thick end of the, this case, security-threatening-behaviours wedge. The thin end comprises such minor offences as, ogling other men or being too tactile when you're with him, being cagey about your movements when he's out of his control zone, secretive with your phone, breaking patterns like suddenly going out more often than ever before with the gals...that sort of thing. The thin end symptoms have to be as matchingly 'clean' as that at the thick end, otherwise they can suggest that a thick end is secretly afoot. People always talk nonsense when they're scared and will consider/investigate *any* cause rather than sit with the discomfiting thought that they might be anywhere between irrational and downright insane. Men make statements (this case, accusations) rather than render themselves vulnerable via the self-revealing nature of whatever mere question they want to ask, as well as the mere fact of asking them in the first place. And men can be contrary. Example, You hate me, don't you! / I DO NOT, I *LOVE* YOU! Aim, fire, bullseye - they now have the answer they sought to the secret question, 'Do you still love me because I'm worried and miserable in my fear that you don't?'. The more reassurance they need to receive, the more forceful the button push statement ('hate me' instead of 'don't like me'). (I should mention how some women do this too when they're the type that aren't comfortable with making themselves vulnerable.) Or they can start with milder "questions" but, gaining insufficient satisfaction, move on to meatier ones. If he considers it plausible that you fancy his mini-me then that suggests to me that you're correct in pointing out how much older than you he is as if it's pertinent. It is. I'm explaining and asking all of this because certain things you said immediately struck me for their inadequacy: 1. "I have always been faithful to him (etc)." What you FAILED to say was that you behave impeccably in those smaller ways to suit. 2. "He has confronted complete strangers." Without mentioning WHERE AND WHEN, i.e. the context. Are we talking when at parties rather than out on the street? 3. "If I don't answer my phone." WHEN don't you answer your phone? When it more important than what. And do you answer it at all other less 'iffy' times? Yes, in his mind HE can work the nightshift because himself he knows and trusts PLUS as a man he knows that a woman doesn't even HAVE to fancy a man for him to slowly-slowly work on melting her defenses before then working on her heart until, suddenly, it's, 'I don't KNOW how it [falling in love with each other] happened, it just DID!'. It happens far less the other way around. In his mind that means you're safe when you're not around to defend your territory but he is less so. So I need you to sit and have a think about all the little ways in which you behave, just in case. Including whether - as per the above three examples, you're under-communicative for a woman? You see, speech may not be men's no. 1 communication method but they do know it's womens'. So if you're not wordy enough and leave gaps in your sentences or sentences unfinished because you're expecting him to fill them in using his social instincts and experience, but he doesn't/can't, it COULD come over as deliberate withholding of information/details on your part... as leads to the question WHY, what's she hiding?. Another alternative, going by how SHORT your opening post was for a woman: are you predominantly masculine and he predominanntly feminine? Another: do you think his suspiciousness tends to always rear its head on the back of his having failed to get his way over yours? Another: And had he been cheated on before you two got it together, e.g. is that how his first marriage ended? Final question: If he's always been like this - and for 15 long years - then how come only now is it bothering you? Did you once like it and somehow encouragingly reinforce it, yet now you're older no longer need and want that sense of being cosseted? In other words, IS he getting worse or are you starting to feel it worse?

Hi. I haven't been married as long as u but all I can say is: Just cause someone loves you dosent meen it's ok for them to be so obsessive or controlling. We all need are own space. No One should be stocked around the house. Besides if it's annoyng you u must know it's wrong! Generally for someone to think there partner has cheated 9 times out of 10 it cause they cheated before them selfs!!

Hi, I've only read this through quickly but my first thought is that he sounds as though he may have mental health issues, is there any history of this as his behaviour sounds pretty irrational to me?

this sounds so familiar to me. Im so sorry. I work out of my home, dont go anywhere, he is 13 years older and retired and watches TV all day, so it makes me angry. I ahve thought the same scenarios, and when we were younger, the age thing did not matter, but I have read taht every 10 years we change a cycle in our life. Men or at least mine is of mentality that he never changes. he is never wrong, and that I am just crazy. We have been married 32 years and I have succumbed to "live it or leave it." There is nothing that can be done. I can only hope that he mellows a little, and when I retire perhaps I can gain a little more independnce. Mine does not even trust me to make his coffee or stir a pot of hot water. (I think because it is all he does and he wants to feel needed) We have a big truck, so I dont drive it, and I cant get out by myself, and even if I did, he would have a fit. I dont know the answer, just that ya live it or leave it. Sad but true.