A locked door isn’t always about what’s behind it; sometimes it’s about the message it sends. In her case, her husband didn’t just deny her access to a room in their shared home; he broke her trust in doing so.
This 29-year-old woman has spent five years with her 33-year-old husband, and she’s ready to separate from him after they got into a fight a few days back.
Now, her husband is careful with his belongings, and his valuables are kept safe in his home office. Her husband works from home three days every week.
“He put a lock on the outside of the office door 6 months ago to supposedly keep his things safe from our destructive toddler. I let it go, but found it a bit odd since the key is usually nowhere to be found,” she explained.
“Anyways, I recently went into the office to get our bird’s perch out of the room, and he was hovering, acting really suspicious. He defensively said, ‘What do you need in there?’ And I said the bird’s perch… but then I instantly felt that he was hiding something from me.”
“I also noticed he locked the door after that. After we put our toddler to sleep, I told him I needed to go into the room to change the sheets on our guest mattress because we have visitors soon. He was acting defensive again and said he would do it another time.”
She demanded to know what her husband was keeping hidden in his office, given his defensiveness, but she finally told him to unlock the door so she could investigate.
He confessed to playing video games and smoking in his office when she goes to bed, but he would not open the door for her to see for herself.
She stubbornly said she would sit outside the door until he let her in, and she mentioned she was concerned he was lying about what was inside, given that smoking and playing video games aren’t a big deal to her.
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“You guys, he literally refused. I tried begging, I tried getting the lock open, I tried everything I could think of. Not only would he not unlock the door, but he was gaslighting me the entire time, telling me I’m crazy and it must be my pregnancy hormones, thinking there was something else in there,” she added.
“He said that if he opens the door, he would be giving in to my pushiness. He also kept touching my leg and telling me he was sorry I’m going through this like I was making all of this up in my head.”
At 2 a.m., she caved and went to bed, but not before informing her husband that she was done with him. When she got up the following morning, her husband had unlocked his office and had clearly staged his Switch and the pen he uses to smoke with.
Additionally, her husband changed the lock on the door while saying it’s not unusual to want to protect what is inside his office. She’s left wondering if it is normal for her husband to lock his office up.
“Would a separation be the best next step? I have a toddler and a baby coming, and I really don’t want to have to do this alone if I don’t need to,” she concluded.
What advice do you have for her, and do you think it’s weird that her husband locks his office and won’t let her in?
What he’s hiding almost matters less than how far he went to make her feel like she was the problem for noticing. He’s totally manipulative, and I don’t think she should wait around for him to hand over the truth.
It does sound like a separation is in order, and I bet he’s keeping something more nefarious inside that locked office of his.
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
