To chuck water over 'D'P?

[FringyFringe]

DP went out after work and said he'd be back late. I didn't sleep well last night so went to bed early.

He came in at 10.30pm and woke me up to watch a film with him. I didn't wake up right away, he whipped the bedsheets off me, tickled me then got a cold can from the fridge and put it against my skin repeatedly.

We do wind each other up alot and once I'd got over my initial 'just woken up' grumpiness I did see the funny side. I went to make us something to eat and when I came out of the kitchen the fucker was in bed, zonked.

I've taken the duvet and the pillows off the bed and he still hasn't moved.

WIBU to chuck a glass of water on him? I'm wide awake now after my sleep earlier and for no good reason

Is there a chance your DH wasn't really awake when this happened? I don't know what he said to you this morning and whether it was something he was aware he was doing at the time.

DH was shouted right into my face when I disturbed him, but from talking to him the next day it was obviously all tied up with his sleep and a dream he was having.

And I don't think you've anything to blame yourself for at all.

OP has already answered that.... she name changed as she thought that any retelling of the pranks to family or friends later would be outing her usual name. She didn't expect it to go like it did and so was expecting to be able to share their funny tale of pranks with others.

I thought she may have name changed because she DID know how it might go. As in, he had form.

But according to her, that's not the case. He's been fine until today.

OP, I agree with the PP who say to ask MNHQ to move this thread to relationships. You will get helpful advice and support there compared to some of the vipers in Aibu.

Talking through your feelings and options can really do without others blaming you, troll hunting and generally being adversarial. Those on this thread who have been helpful to you and who want to support you will find and follow the thread in the new location. The witch hunters won't survive the pasting they would get on the Relationships board, so hopefully you will leave them behind.

Good advice upthread from Helena and WishIhad. I hope you're ok today OP. Take some time out for yourself today, and allow yourself to process what has happened, and where you want to go next with this.

Op I think you need to get this thread moved to relationships. The troll hunting on here is absolutely ridiculous and a lot of posters should be utterly fucking ashamed of themselves.

You'll get lots of help and support in relationships. And far less troll hunting.

Hope you're as OK as you can be

The witch hunters won't survive the pasting they would get on the Relationships board,

Wow. Just wow. Between this and the 'if he woke me I would stab him' comment, there is some really aggressive language being used

Fwiw I agree that moving to Relationships is a good idea.

A pokes B with a sharp stick. B retaliates by poking A with a finger. A reacts by poking B with a knife...

I happen to agree with you but it reminds me of the thread we had recently where a woman poster swatted a man lightly on the arm with a newspaper and he ended up hitting her hard on the arm which caused her pain. Many people said 'she started it, if you're going to touch someone you can't expect not to be hit back'. Despite the fact that she didn't hurt him and he hurt her which was not at all proportional.

However, I understand what Wannabe is saying. It sounds like a relationship where the pranking really wasn't pranking and it was passive aggressive bullshit. There are good natured pranks, waking someone up like that and then throwing water over them is not good natured and it is never going to end well. That does not excuse what the bastard did to the OP for one second but the whole relationship sounds a mess and these little pranks stink of some bad stuff bubbling under the service.

I'm sorry OP

I hope you're ok op. I like to think if faced with this situation I would ask dp to leave. However, I also have a fantastic relationship with my dh and if he came back and out of the blue did something like this tonight I would want to forgive him based on the previous exvellent fun behaviour. but I wouldnt forget. Easier said than done and probably not the right advice, but I know my relationship and I know it would be out of character so if he did it, I would expect grovelling etc and then forgiveness in my own time.

If you have a similar happy relationship then I can understand your dilemma.

You need to think about how well and how long you have known him, how actually out of character this is and how genuinely sorry he is and also the safety of your son. I wouldn't suggest anyone accept this kind of behaviour and would have so much respect for anyone who left after this. However, I understand why you would want to forgive him (assuming he is sorry enough).

WannaBe I disagree. There were boundaries. OP says they prank but no actual violence before. Maybe their boundaries are not the same as yours or mine. He pushed the boundary when he woke her up and she took it in good humour.

Well, boundaries usually get crossed little by little and I think waking someone up the way he woke her up was a big crossing of boundaries and I don't believe for a second it was the first time his 'pranks' were nasty. Grown adults might joke around with each other but this was not a prank was it? The fact that he thought it was acceptable to wake OP up when she was tired to watch a film with him is a massive red flag and I don't believe that up until yesterday they had firm boundaries at all.

This relationship is not healthy at all

How are you OP? What's your next step?

u2 there was also a thread recently where the OP and her partner had had an argument and he pushed past her resulting in her hitting him but he was the one in the wrong because he'd pushed past her in a small space and therefore started it.

I have absolutely no doubt that if the OP had hit her DP at the point he woke her up he would have been the one to blame.

The problem with saying that everyone's boundaries is different is that where there is generally an accepted level of normal and an accepted level of wrong, for some people, that normal extends into other people's level of wrong.

So while we can all agree that pinning someone against the wall is wrong, there is clear lack of agreement in whether throwing water over a sleeping person is. In fact the OP originally started this thread to get other people to agree with her that she would be perfectly justified in throwing water over her partner. People took it as lighthearted, even saying things like "don't do it, you'll just end up with a wet bed," and some encouraged her. If the DP hadn't lashed out I have no doubt that the thread would eventually have become divided into the levels of wrong involved in throwing water over a sleeping person. In fact some already did stipulate here that throwing water over a sleeping person is assault.

The boundaries in this relationship have been extended and extended to the point where they have completely disappeared and have ended in an untennable situation. Only the DP is responsible for the fact he pinned the OP up against the wall, however they have both created an unhealthy dynamic where neither of them recognised where the point of no return might surface.

And while the OP absolutely should leave this man because of what he has done, she also needs to recognise that the level of "pranking" in this relationship does not make for healthy relationships in the future.

Waking someone in the night is bloody annoying and I would be beyond angry if my DP did that. But if he threw water over me I would leave him.

I think throwing water over someone sleeping is assault for sure.

I think it's easy to pretend you are just a happy couple who likes to prank one another instead of facing up to the fact that pranks like that are very rarely innocent and fun. You just don't wake someone up like that to watch a film and you don't throw water over someone sleeping. You most certainly don't pin someone up against the wall.

I agree with you Wannabe that the whole dynamic is unhealthy and they are both to blame for that part of it. Of course he took it further which there is no excuse for and for me I couldn't see any coming back from that.

Pranks are just horrible. I've never understood people who like them and I've never seen a 'pranking' relationship that looked healthy.

As for strangling someone up against a wall....

People still blaming a woman for being physically assaulted.
Fucking lovely.

Agree Spartacus. Pages and pages of it. Great, isn't it?

LiviaDrusillaAugusta

The witch hunters won't survive the pasting they would get on the Relationships board,

Wow. Just wow. Between this and the 'if he woke me I would stab him' comment, there is some really aggressive language being used

The comment about stabbing was clearly said by that PP in jest. And my comment about not surviving a pasting was clearly in relation to an online drubbing in a forum. How you can "wow, just wow" that, is incredible. Overreaction, much?

FFS

That wa sa good question that a pp touched on upthread. Is it him that starts the pranking most of the time?

I know people like pranks but I can't get my head around deliberately waking someone up because they want attention as anything other than quite nasty. You just don't do it. Sleeping in itself is a vulnerable act, poking at someone because you don't want them to be sleeping is fucked up.

Ffs, nobody has blamed anyone. The fact here is that this was an unhealthy relationship from the outset. It's entirely possible to recognise this fact and that recognission not be equal to saying that she was asking for it.

The OP has said she was previously in an abusive relationship. She is now in an abusive relationship but whether people want to acknowledge it or not the relationship is mutually abusive, except one partner has taken it to the extreme and the situation has become untennable.

If the OP leaves this man she will presumably seek new relationships in the future. And if she doesn't learn to recognise what amounts to an unhealthy dynamic she runs the risk of repeating the cycle over and over again.

It's entirely possible to accept that pinning someone against a wall has gone beyond the boundaries of acceptability and is the point of no return without saying to the victim "there there, you weren't to know, you were in a loving relationship this morning and it went wrong without so much as a hint that anything was amiss." The fact here is that boundaries were being overstepped all night and presumably for the past however long the OP and this man have been together. And they have both been guilty of unacceptable behaviour in the past, except it's now escalated beyond unacceptable into ltb teratory.

People need to stop shouting "victim blaming" at every turn because this is not what it was. The violence didn't happen in isolation. The OP didn't deserve to be pinned against a wall, but if you take that incident out of the equation the DP didn't deserve to have water thrown over him while sleeping, neither did the OP deserve to be woken up. None of these are good examples to set to an eight year old. Even if this hadn't ended in violence this relationship was already unhealthy, and they would both benefit from counselling to figure out just how it has got to this point.

But any therapy needs to happen away from this relationship, which needs to end, IMO.

They have, and that is not a FACT, that is your OPINION. Please try to keep the difference in mind.

I don't know why you eventually saw it funny that he woke you up, tickled you and put a cold can on your skin.
OK, so you wind each other up - but it is not funny. Waking someone up to watch a film with you is also totally wrong.
You are now sounding like you may let this go. Please don't!
Take no notice of the apology, It is not sincere.
The best thing to do is to get out of this relationship now.

WannaBe I'm sure the OP regrets having returned the prank. I would in the circumstances. I cannot see the value in going on and on about how this was always going to end this way, except to make the OP feel like shit. She doesn't need to hear how she can be a better partner in future or how her actions were less than perfect. None of us are perfect and we all do things we regret. Doesn't mean we deserve to be told this over and over by strangers.

Wish I just don't think the words were particularly well chosen given that this is a woman who has been violently assaulted. I appreciate that plenty of people will think otherwise.

And saying other posters 'won't survive a pasting' seems a bit excessive as well

People still blaming a woman for being physically assaulted

I would say the same if two men involved. I would say the man pouring the water shouldnt be suprised if tempers flare up and things get physical.

Clearly the OPs partner forgot that men arent supposed to hit women, unless its self defence. Which in this case it wasnt.

But there is definitely some blame on the person pouring the water.

Just because the OP is a woman, it doesn't mean she is automatically blameless.

Has op not been back?