Ask Amy: Husband controls the radio, wife wants a different tune

[cereta]

Dear Amy: For years, my husband has been controlling our radio and television programming. When I choose a radio station, he tells me the music is garbage, and he'll tune it to his station. Until now, I've never felt it was worth arguing over.

Yesterday he was out of the house, and I was listening to a station that my daughters and I enjoy. When my husband came home, my daughter expressed her concern that the station was "not one of daddy's." She didn't want to be confronted by him. She went upstairs.

Sure enough, he came in, realized that it was not one of his stations, said the music was garbage and turned off the radio, despite my objections.

He does the same thing with the television. His inflexibility and dominating behavior are obvious to me in other situations that are more important to me (such as the extreme lack of organization in the house and his unwillingness to look for a job).

He is a stay-at-home dad. This was great while the kids were little, but due to instability in my own profession, this is now causing concern.

-- Unable to Change Course

Dear Unable: You have wrapped many complaints about your husband into one bundle. From your account, he is intimidating and domineering -- so intimidating that he has trained your daughter to believe that he literally owns the airwaves.

Imagine the impact of his behavior on your girls' impression of how men do/should behave.

This is not about a clash of media taste -- though I believe that whoever occupies a room first (or is making dinner) gets to choose the playlist (truly tasteless or degrading music and commentary are not for public consumption and -- like the Supreme Court -- the adults declare that we know where the line is when we hear it).

I agree that he needs to change in many ways for you to have a happier, peaceful, orderly household. You should try to mediate some of these issues in couples counseling. Failing that, if you are unwilling to leave the marriage, you should pursue counseling to learn why (and how) to stay. -- February 2013

Comments

[cereta]

Holy Hannah, is that alarming. I mean, I struggle enough with Spouse's refusal to watch things that are..."not of his choosing" is not the right word for it. Basically, he will not stay in the room and watch something that he is lukewarm about just to spend time with me, while for a while he complained about me putting in my earbuds and watching something on the laptop while he watched things I outright disliked. At least once I pointed this out to him, he stopped the latter behavior.

This husband...I have to say, if things had gotten to a point where my child was leaving the room in her anxiety over how her father would react to music she was enjoying, I'd be pretty tempted to skip counseling and go right to divorce. I know the LW has other complications, there, but this behavior is simply unacceptable.

[angelofthenorth]

My husband and I both love music. We just don't like each other's music, and while I tolerate his, he can't do the same for mine - he has dyspraxia and misophonia, both of which affect his auditory processing and create intolerable stress for him which manifests as anxiety but can look from the outside like controlling behaviour. However we joke about it, we don't listen to music when the other is around (rather than forcing the other to listen to something they don't like), and we share space in other ways. We have also had some frank conversations about managing anxiety so it doesn't become controlling.

If the husband is controlling in other ways, and the daughter is anxious because of her father, then I would skip counselling for two, and get counselling for her, and the mother. Having someone controlling/manipulative in couples counselling is a recipe for even more abuse.

She also needs to speak to a lawyer for advice on how his being a SAHD would affect his likelihood of getting custody, as well as getting spousal support in her state.

[xenacryst]

It's good to know that there are times where it really is the case that one person's music is another's pain and it's not just a matter of taste. Though, as you say, part of that needs to be recognizing it and talking about it openly. That he's controlling in other ways, doesn't seem to want to talk about job/financial things, and is causing anxiety in the kids are all extreme red flags.

[minoanmiss]

I should comment intelligently but I'm too busy flailing in. horror.

[tielan]

It's not the differing tastes in music. It's how he expresses it that alarms me: it's one thing to not like the music, it's another to control all the media, and even interrupt someone else's media watching. And the daughter avoiding conflict with her father is a big red light, too.

At the least, some kind of mediation is in order regarding his behaviour. At the very least.

[lilysea]

There may be valid reasons he doesn't want to listen to certain radio/TV stations (for example, avoiding news/political commentary/talkback radio/religious content), but the solution is communication and negotiation, not being a dictator to his spouse and daughter.

You can buy wireless/cordless headphones that put the radio or TV directly into your ears - that would be an example of a compromise, for example.

[amireal]

RED FLAGS!!! Again it's not about the complete difference in tastes, it's about how no one is ever allowed to enjoy things the husband doesn't, even if he's not around. The child's anxiety is absolutely about being found out to doing something Dad Does Not Approve Of even if it's something completely innocuous. That the child is this wound up about it and actually SPOKE UP ABOUT IT speaks to me of other incidents of this type of behavior.