Surely I can decide my own bedtime?!

[OliveOrTwist]

Last night, my OH announces that he is going to bed at 10pm. I say goodnight, and I'll be up later. 10pm is too early for me.

5 minutes later I hear 'OLIVEEEEEEEEE bathrooms free'. I ignore him. I don't need the bathroom so why do I care?

A couple of minutes later 'OLIVE ITS BED TIME COME ON WHAT ARE YOU DOING'
Me: 'I'm not tired yet. I'll be up in a bit'
He is quite clearly getting irate about this and has started name calling so I go up to keep him quiet, I think I'll read my kindle in bed.

When I get into bed I apparently took far too long coming upstairs, and I've ruined his early night He then moans at me for using my phone to set the alarm. I didn't even bother using my kindle after that.

So do you think I AIBU? I always assumed that people went to bed when they were ready but perhaps couples do coincide bedtimes and I am being a dick about this? I need your wisdom MN!

JustNotRight Jesus! No that was NOT me!

What I don't understand is, we've been together years and LIVING together for 5 years. Yes, we've had disagreements over the years but surely, if you've been under the same roof for that long, you know each other fairly well. How can this weird behaviour just appear? It really has only been the past 6 months max, although I will admit it has ramped up lately

Much more likely that a lot of his behaviour has been more subtle and you've normalised it all.

It's not a phase. It's getting worse.

Mine was so sweet and light in the beginning I didn't see the red flags as he normalised his behaviour to all. Even my own mother victim blamed me for it all, which baffled me to no ends still does to this day.
Look back into your relationship to the beginning.
Does this sound familiar at all.
I moved into his place
He started isolating me from friends. He would lie to them and play them of on each other. he insisted he came on my nights out or if out with pals he would unbeknown to me follow me but want to meet up st the end of the night knowing where I had been and who with but still ask me and if I missed details he would call me a liar.
He only wanted to be with me and only me.
He was the best thing since slice bread to my family
After about a year he would start the name calling, slut,fat etc all the time to shatter my confidence. I was a size 6 he would try and feed me too all fattening things.
He wanted me to pack my job in
He make it difficult to keep said job
He would blame me for anything that happened
He would accuse me of having affairs
He would sulk and moan if no sex
He would coerce me into sex
All to do with control

You don't know if it's 'just a phase' other than the fact that it usually never is. Unless he's had some type of head trauma that's affected his mental state or is going through some type of truly horrendous personal crisis that has affected him to the very depths of his soul. And I don't mean 'stress' or 'working long hours' or being made redundant. Even then, it wouldn't excuse it, but it would be a 'reason'.

Emotional abuse starts very slowly, so slowly that the victim rarely realizes it's starting. It's not like physical abuse, where there's a sudden violent act that can't be ignored. Have you ever heard the frog in a pot analogy? It's just like that. In some cases the victim never really realizes it and lives a life of fear and sorrow. In others (like yours) there's a moment of 'Hey, what just happened here?' followed by remembering or speaking aloud (MN'ing) other small things that when you put them all together create a picture of a relationship that is very different from what you thought it was. So you may think this is all of a sudden, but I'll bet if you look back honestly and brutally over the last 5 years you'll begin to see bits and instances of controlling or abusive behaviour.

And realize that much of the time the 'nice, caring, sweet' him is usually a way of keeping you from the full realization of his abuse or to make you feel the 'good outweighs the bad' (it doesn't). And that your 'it's not worth it' reaction to his shitty behaviour is something that he's already programmed into you. It his way of getting what he wants. Soon you will find yourself walking on eggshells and anticipating what 'pleases' him to prevent him from acting like a shit in the first place. You wouldn't take that behaviour from a friend, why would you take it from the person who is supposed to be the number one person to have your back?

Stay on contraception. Think very carefully about your past/present relationship. If there is someone in RL who knows you both that you can trust to be brutally honest with you whilst keeping your confidence, talk to them. Be honest about your relationship with them and ask them to be honest with you back. You may be surprised what others have noticed that you have not.

um, hello??!!! He wants you pregnant so you feel "trapped".

Have you tried asking him why his behaviour has become so weird just in the last six months? Presumably he coped for the preceding four years without you going to bed at the same time as he chooses to.

My dh always wants to go to bed early, moans if I am reading in bed etc

He does get up early for work but sometimes it gets on my nerves.

I'd suggest talking to him about why things have seemed different the last few months.

I am concerned about his behaviour, and I think others are right to be too. Lots of women on here have been in relationships that started like yours and ended up very abusive - no one wants to see you on that situation, though obviously beware that people will inevitably be bringing their own baggage and past into this thread and using that to interpret his actions.

Is it always him that starts the name calling?

My ex was horrific for this. I spent a good proportion of the time we were together feeling like a badly behaved child. It was genuinely awful. His way of keeping me in line was to say lovely things about me to my DF, but totally humiliate me in front of my DM (they are divorced).
I came out of the other side of things thinking an awful lot less of my DF, if the truth be told, because by the end of it I was a shell of my former self. It should have been obvious. The bedtime thing really pissed me off, because he used to pretty much drag me upstairs, then set the alarm which would go off if there was any movement downstairs. It was a total nightmare.

I don't think I've ever felt so clear headed than the day I called time on the whole thing. I lost a lot. But I retained my sanity.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaat? You havnt had kids yet!!

Well op your in a very Lucy situation. Many many women only start realising this shit when they have a few kids in tow - which makes it a zillion times harder.

Can you imagine him saying this shit to you infront of them ?

From experience of being with a 50/50 nice/twat face guy - twat face starts to over take nice guy.

What ever you do though op don't get pregnant to him. Normal blokes don't treat women they love like this.

Also if my son started giving his partner shit infront of me I'd kick his arse! I went ape shit on my brother once for this crap with his gf.

Just echoing the other posters saying don't have a baby. I could never ever regret having my DD but I am struggling with having her abusive father involved in my life until she's an adult.

Did he want a shag?

Good, reasonable men do not even have phases of acting this way. Even if dh acted this way for a day and never again I would lose respect for him to the extent I don't believe I could stay with him. There are some things (humiliation in front of others and name calling are just two from your experience) where once is too many times.

Please don't stay and have children with him, your future children deserve a better father and you deserve a better partner. I took it lighter with my previous post but you need to get out of this while you can. My father was emotionally and physically abusive, my mothers life was hell, he totally destroyed her and our childhood was basically crap. He was the life and soul outside the house and she always said he was Ok until the children came along. I doubt that this is true, I suspect, as pp's have said, that it was just more subtle and she didn't realise what was happening. I can totally identify with what Youarejokingme has posted, that's like listening to it all over again. It doesn't matter what others think about you splitting up and as others have said if he bad mouths you then that just proves you were right to do it.

My dh does the whole, switching the light/tv off thing too. Thinks he's gods gift (he's not)

I could have written this post, OP. Except in reverse.

I'm up at 6.45 and out at work for 8 (teacher) and get in about half 5 to then sort out various other things. I'm done in by half ten and want time to wind down and read my kindle in bed.

I get tutted at or a sardonic 'Right....' if I say I'm going to bed at that time.

DH then stays up for aaaaages before coming to bed. Probably because he's had about an hour's sleep on the bloody sofa already by this point he's snoring behind me now!

That's fine (apart from the tutting and sarcasm) BUT only a couple of months ago, he was working earlier shifts and I was on school holidays. So he was going to bed tired at 9pm to sleep and I was staying up watching TV for a while after.

Again no problem. And, strangely enough, he had no problems either when it was him turning in early.

I've taken him to task on it every time and told him I have the right to choose when I go to bed and not to be tutted about if it's earlier than he'd like.

No tutting for the last few days since then.

Agree with everything PP have said. Being horrible about you to his family in your presence is just awful.

You said: It's like he has a split personality. There's this version of him which is so lovely. But then there's this version of him which isn't always very nice. It's confusing.

I just wanted to add that this behaviour is pretty classic emotional abuse and it's designed to confuse, make you doubt yourself. You start to distrust your own judgement and relies on his more, which is another stage in making you dependent on him.

As a PP said, if you reflect back on previous years with him there will be little things you thought were odd at the time, then brushed them off when he started to be "nice" again, but if you view them in a different light they will perhaps seem more like the first clues to something a bit deeper.

One thing is for sure, if the scales do fall from your eyes, they will never go back. Take care of yourself, OP, and put your happiness before everything.

It also sounds as if the contraception may have been one of the triggers to bring out the "real" him - he was controlling you - no sex unless without condoms - and now you have gone on the pill - so that bit of control has been taken away.

As I said earlier, you need to get out while you have no DC. A question a friend (who is a survivor of DV by the way) once said was "ask yourself this. If you have a son, do you want him to grow up seeing women as objects to be controlled and belittled, treated like dirt and nervy when a man comes in, or do you want him to grow up to see women as equals, to be treated fairly and with respect and who trust their partner? If it's the first, stay. If it's the second - get the hell out." And things only ever get worse. There must have been other instances or you wouldn't have acquiesced to avoid an escalation - so there have been things in the past that perhaps you've let go, not realising what they were.

I hope you are able to resolve this and have support.

It's like he has a split personality. There's this version of him which is so lovely. But then there's this version of him which isn't always very nice. It's confusing. - it's supposed to be confusing. It's to keep you on the back foot, appeasing him so the 'nice' him comes through. You change your behaviour to try to make 'nice him' come through. You walk on eggshells in case 'nasty him' makes an appearance.

It's controlling and bullying. And eventually there will BE no appeasing him - he will do as he likes, when he likes and you just STFU about it, because you don't want an argument, want a quiet life, don't want to be abused... At that point, you are nothing, a shell, a maid, sexhole and cook.

Only the last 6 months? Really?

In 6 months he has gone from lovely to insulting you in front of family members without you going nuts at him right there and them?

In 6 months he has gone from lovely to you not telling him off when he's being a dick because he would escalate so badly?

Are you sure about that?

When was the first time he called you names?

Read up on this stuff by all means, keep talking on here, heck it might sound crazy to you now but talk to someone at Women's Aid if you like...they will all tell you that this isn't a phase. The business about condoms is a bit chilling and is almost exactly what my friend went through with her now ex (thank god). He wanted her barefoot and pregnant where he knew he could control her. Nearly managed it too.

I come back to this - you don't owe him a thing. Get your ducks in a row, get your head straight, have a good think about all of this. It's not an acceptable way to be treated, you deserve much better.

surely, if you've been under the same roof for that long, you know each other fairly well. How can this weird behaviour just appear?
behavior is strongly dependent on circumstances, if someone has a predatory nature then exploitative or controlling behavior will tend to emerge when they sense an opportunity to take advantage.
This may be conscious and deliberate or unconscious and 'instinctive'
or a bit of both

Doesn't matter if it's 'a phase' or not. Don't stay with a man who thinks it's ok to call you a bitch when you haven't done anything wrong