Disabled Husband Resorts to Emotional Blackmail to Stop Wife from Spending Time with Friends

Disabled Husband Resorts to Emotional Blackmail to Stop Wife from Spending Time with Friends

Everyone needs time to be alone, including couples, whether married or not.

For couples, it may alarm one partner if the other wishes for some space or to spend time with friends without him/her. But, according to Encompass Connection Center, time alone brings more benefits to a relationship because it prevents enmeshment and resentment.

Too much time together can lead to having no more boundaries and boredom. As the saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt; in a relationship, it breeds resentment. You need to take a step backward and reconnect with yourself, rejuvenating your spirit and relishing your individuality. Only then will you be able to bring something more into the relationship -- new energy, new attractions, and new insights. What's more, after spending some time apart, your desire to be together gets renewed or even intensified.

However, this wife's disabled husband hardly allows her to be out of his sight. He follows her everywhere, leaving her with almost no privacy at all.

An original poster (OP) with the username u/MthrowRA32577 finds her situation very alarming with her husband now turning into a total control freak. She shared her story with the members of Reddit's r/AmItheA--hole subcommunity: "My husband (35) is disabled. He's in a wheelchair and is home 24/7. Because he needs me around to assist him, I'd have him and his chair nearby while I do laundry or cook or clean. He's with me most of the time, except for when I go to the bathroom, but even then, he'd complain about me being away for so long. I don't even go shopping; everything gets delivered to our home."

Due to the situation, OP has no more social life. But she is lucky that she has good friends who agreed with her to have a regular girls' night at their home to ease her pain and stress.

However, when she informed her husband, it did not go well with him. OP related in the post, "I asked my husband for some privacy when my friends come, and he took it badly, took it as in I was annoyed and bothered by him, but I assured him it wasn't like that. He said if it's true, then I'd let him sit with us during girls' night in. I absolutely refused and tried explaining that my friends and I need privacy, and this is the only time we spend together. I also explained that having him sit with us would ruin the purpose of girls' night in."

Her husband threw a fit and accused OP of being selfish and rude for her refusal for him to join their girls' night. He then told her that he would no longer talk to her if she wouldn't agree. But another major disagreement ensued when he told her that he would not let her friends into the house if she wouldn't change her decision.

Of course, OP is very sad about this, since she has not even seen her own family for quite a while. Her husband refuses to go with her to visit them. And now, he will not even allow her to be with her friends at home for a girls' night.

Is it true that she's being selfish, as accused by her disabled husband?

Well, this man is disabled, but it did not stop AITA members from lambasting him!

This candid response from bendytoepilot has won many awards: "NTA, he's using his disability to guilt-trip you into having no friends or time for yourself. It is unbelievably creepy and wrong; he complains about you having bathroom breaks. He is toxic and controlling."

Another piece of advice from missangel21I: "I completely agree with this! OP, it sounds like he’s trying to isolate you from YOUR support system. Please don’t let him - stick to your guns on this."

width= Photo: Pexels/Alison Leedham

More words of wisdom from NiceRat123: "Agreed. This needs to be addressed or even [brought to] some sort of therapy. He's either intentionally doing this (big red flag) or has some codependency (somewhat understandable). Even [in the case of] the latter, he should understand people need OTHER people for support. He's putting everything on OP to the point he needs to literally be around her 24/7. 24/7 care doesn't mean she's attached at the hip but that she is available for his needs. Her getting her needs met may not involve him, and he needs to understand/respect that. Like having to sit outside the bathroom door with the door OPEN is looney tunes, regardless if he's disabled or not."

Expensive-Aioli-995 shared the same perspective, "To me it sounds like he has weaponized his disability to try and take full control of OP’s life. OP, NTA, but you will be if you keep letting him exert this amount of control over you."
Doris de Luna

For more than 20 years now, I’ve been devoting my heart, energy, and time to fulfilling my dream, which – many people may agree – is not among the easiest aspirations in life. Part of my happiness is having been able to lend a hand to many individuals, companies, and even governments as an investigative journalist, creative writer, TV director, and radio broadcaster.


At home, I spend my free time learning how to cook various cuisines. Tiramisu, chocolate mousse, and banoffee pie are my favorite desserts. Playing with our dogs, Mushu and Jerusalem, is also a special part of my day. And, of course, I read a lot – almost anything under the sun. But what really makes me feel alive is meeting people from various walks of life and writing about their stories, which echo with the tears and triumph of an unyielding spirit, humanity, and wisdom.

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