Ask Amy: Wife wants husband to stop being a nosy parker
Dear Amy: My husband is taking a company “buyout” this summer, thus retiring from his job.
The concern I have is that he is nosy! He has done things in the past that have upset me and my children (he is their stepdad).
He seems to think he is entitled to go through their rooms and poke through their things, under the guise of cleaning.
He has taken toys out of my son’s room and given them to our grandchildren without asking. He rearranged my daughter’s room while she was at school, and she came back home to a completely re-arranged room.
While helping my daughter’s boyfriend, I caught him going through a box of papers in the back of the boyfriend’s car. I told him that these things were none of his business and his reply was, “It is if I make it my business.”
My kids have given us no cause to go through their rooms – no drinking/smoking/stealing or other causes for snooping.
My daughter has since graduated from college and is heading toward graduate school.
My son (who will be 21 soon) works and currently lives with us.
My husband has poked around their rooms for years regardless of me telling him that they are older and deserve their privacy. He should not be going through their things!
My son doesn’t clean the way he likes, so he uses that as an excuse to go into his room.
...continued
