I've lurked on mumsnet for ages but this is my first time actually posting something. I pretty much just need some objective answers to the question above, rather than judgements iyswim but to set out the full story...
A few nights ago my partner had gone out for the night whilst I stayed behind (we have a young child so this is quite normal). I went to bed in pajama bottoms and underwear and he must have come back much later (probably early hours of the morning but I didn't check). Anyway, basically I was woken up by him having sex with me. I didn't say much at the time other than whats going on (confused and sleepy) and didn't have a chance to talk to him about it the night after (he came back from work late, then our child woke up so I went up to him etc) but the night after, I told him how uncomfortable it had made me feel and asked him not to do it again. His first reaction was to laugh and say something along the lines of "so many rules"* . This annoyed me slightly (since I dont think its a particularly unreasonable rule) but he did agree not to do it again so I thought fine. Then in bed that night he returned to the subject and said that he hadn't realised I was asleep. I asked how he could not know I was asleep etc and he asked what I meant and it went on for a while. To be clear, I wasn't trying to be argumentative but it bothered me because if he hadnt realised then how could he promise it wouldnt happen again? His response was I didn't realise you were asleep so I won't do it again but logically that doesn't make sense to me. In the end after basically saying the same things to each other I just left it. My two questions would be -
- how easy is it to really not know someone is asleep (As far as I know I don't normally talk/respond to things in my sleep, and he would have had to pull my pajama bottoms and underwear down etc. For me to not wake up sooner I guess I must have been quite deeply asleep rather than in a half awake state)
- How can we stop it happening again? (eg how can he make sure I'm awake/asleep.
*As background to his so many rules comment: we had talked a few weeks earlier about how I find him too pushy sometimes about having sex. We normally sleep together about 3 times a week, and I didn't often say no, but when I did it was never just accepted iyswim. He would keep trying and often would wake me up a few hours later to ask again. I explained (nicely) how this was basically killing my libido and making me feel a bit crap and he agreed that I would (in his words) "be in charge" from now on. This bothered me a bit since I wasnt saying I wanted total control in a domineering sense, just that we should both have a veto if yswim. But to be fair to him he did stop doing it (actually until the night before the night in question when I had to properly shout at him to make him stop feeling me up. He did then stop however.)