Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Husband’s compulsion to constantly touch me

137 replies

HairyPeachy · 30/04/2025 21:49

I’ve posted about my husband before and how he constantly wants to touch me no matter what I’m doing. He’s recently developed a strange fixation with my arms. If he’s walking by he will smooth them or has to touch them. Literally no matter what I am doing. Cooking, cleaning, washing up, holding a kettle! He will come up and say that he’s got to touch them, smooth them etc. it’s constant and driving me crazy!

I’ve told him to stop and he says he can’t help it, he loves my arms which is nice obviously but he won’t stop and it’s making me cringe!

Even our teen says - Dad stop! She doesn’t like it and he storms off in a huff saying that he isn’t allowed to touch his own wife etc. Our teen even mentions consent and boundaries etc.

He gropes too…boobs, bum and worse…likes to come up behind me when I’m washing up like we are in some bloody rom com. The arm thing though is weird, he just won’t stop and I can’t stand his touch anymore. It’s weird right?! He won’t leave them alone!

OP posts:
RawBloomers · 30/04/2025 22:47

I don't know how useful it is to point out to you that it's sexual assault. It seems, from your posts, that even though you don't like it and have told him "no", you aren't horrified that he continues. It's something you'd find utterly dehumanizing from anyone else, isn't it? He doesn't just continue but has made it clear he thinks he has a right to continue regardless of how much you like or dislike it and that you and his DD are being awful to him if you chastise him for it. But you talk about it as though he's just a bit forgetful about the fact you hate this.

Even if you take away the criminal aspect - if you pretended this was really about him switching the bathroom light off when you're in there or something. And he continued to do it, knowing you hate it and made it clear he thinks he has a right to put you in darkness even when you don't want be - if it was something like that you'd see the attitude for the disrespect it is wouldn't you? For it's lack of consideration of you as a human. It's arrogance and dominance.

Why is it you don't see this as so horrendous? What is it about him groping you when you've asked him not that doesn't scream abuse at you?

Why do you let your DD see this as acceptable to you? Why do you put her in a position where she feels forced to defend you from him?

Bigfatsunandclouds · 30/04/2025 22:46

QuickFawn · 30/04/2025 21:56

I think I’d develop a fixation for kicking him in the balls every time he touched me 🤷‍♀️
might help him get over his fixation pretty quickly

🤣

GiroJim100 · 30/04/2025 22:36

Is your husband Purple Aki?
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Aki

Notknots · 30/04/2025 22:36

IamSmarticus · 30/04/2025 22:02

I was thinking exactly the same!

Literally the first line

Notknots · 30/04/2025 22:35

he storms off in a huff saying that he isn’t allowed to touch his own wife

Exactly, he's got it. Its not a right, he's not entitled to touch his own wife if she doesn't want touching.
Which op doesn't.

It's not just weird, it's disrespectful and selfish.

Constantly being groped when you don't want to be groped is disgusting and degrading.

He seems you as an object.

How much more of it can you take??

JackieDaytonaLuckyBrews · 30/04/2025 22:31

I'd find that absolutely unbearable. It's almost like he's using you to self soothe as well as sexually. I'd lash out. No, it's not acceptable, but it would make me so claustrophobic and my skin would crawl and I'd panic.
It would be a deal breaker for me. You've told him, your kid has told him and he still does it. No more chances.

letsnotIRL · 30/04/2025 22:30

The groping I get, but the obsession with arms and smoothing them? Is he a serial kille fantasising about removing your skin and making a coat out of it ? How bizarre.

uncomfortablydumb60 · 30/04/2025 22:29

I wouldn’t be able to stop myself slapping him in the face I’m afraid.
He doesn’t care that you don’t like it
He sees you as his property and that he has the right to do what he wants
The old phrase “ conjugal rights” come to mind when rape was legal within marriage
He won’t change, so you can choose to leave or not.
I would

Topseyt123 · 30/04/2025 22:26

It's assault. I'd be tempted to slap him across the chops if he refused to respect boundaries.

Not sure I could continue living with such a selfish fuckwit.

Dora33 · 30/04/2025 22:26

It's worrying that your own teen is having to call her dad out on this groping behaviour. That he sulks as a result is desperate. I can't imagine my dh doing this or even worse infront of my children.
I would not stay with someone who does this repeatedly.

Endofyear · 30/04/2025 22:25

You have told him not to do it until you're blue in the face and he has not stopped. I think you're only choices now are tell him that he needs to go and see the GP about his uncontrollable compulsion - he needs psychiatric help. Or leave.

OakleyAnnie · 30/04/2025 22:25

Mmmkaay · 30/04/2025 21:58

Have you posted about this before? It sounds familiar...

Literally the first sentence of her OP.

thehorsesareallidiots · 30/04/2025 22:24

I have never uttered this sentence before, but: it's time to try violence.

SalfordQuays · 30/04/2025 22:23

Icanttakethisanymore · 30/04/2025 22:19

Have you posted before?

I am cringing just reading this

This is the first line of the OP
“I’ve posted about my husband before and how he constantly wants to touch me”

SalfordQuays · 30/04/2025 22:22

Mmmkaay · 30/04/2025 21:58

Have you posted about this before? It sounds familiar...

This is the first line of the OP
“I’ve posted about my husband before and how he constantly wants to touch me”

LurkyMcLurkinson · 30/04/2025 22:21

With kindness what are you hoping to achieve by repeatedly posting about the same issue? Nothing is going to change if he’s not willing/able to, and nothing is going to change when rather than put consequences in for his actions you chose to offload about it on here.

anytipswelcome · 30/04/2025 22:21

God his own daughter is having to point out to him that he’s sexually harassing his wife, her mum. Grim.

It’s great that she knows it’s wrong but witnessing this throughout her childhood is bound to have done some damage when it comes to how she sees relationship dynamics.

Notenoughcoffe · 30/04/2025 22:19

Deja vue 🧐

Icanttakethisanymore · 30/04/2025 22:19

Have you posted before?

I am cringing just reading this

Barney16 · 30/04/2025 22:18

Have you seen the Big Bang Theory episode where Sheldon sprays Penny with water when she dies something he doesn't like? Just a thought...

Seeingadistance · 30/04/2025 22:15

Mmmkaay · 30/04/2025 21:58

Have you posted about this before? It sounds familiar...

Yes, she says in her very first sentence that she's posted about this before!

OP, boot him in the balls and boot him out the door. He's a creepy, abusive fucker who's getting off on assaulting you under the pretext of it being affection.

tipsyraven · 30/04/2025 22:13

Mmmkaay · 30/04/2025 21:58

Have you posted about this before? It sounds familiar...

She has said she has posted about this before,literally in the first line of the post.

ILoveMyCaravan · 30/04/2025 22:13

This exact same thread was posted a few weeks ago…

Idontjetwashthefucker · 30/04/2025 22:12

Mmmkaay · 30/04/2025 21:58

Have you posted about this before? It sounds familiar...

It's literally the first line of the OP

Toootss · 30/04/2025 22:11

No sex if he gropes you.