NC, obviously.
My partner hit me. He was snoring and I nudged him to roll over so he punched me in the face. I genuinely believed he did it involuntary in his sleep and we both nodded back off. In the morning I had a swollen black eye and he had no recollection of what had happened. When I told him what had happened he said he felt awful and I believe him.
Aside from this our relationship is generally good. There’s some room for improvement, same as all relationships, but this is the only time he’s ever been violent and I feel safe with him. Sometimes he’s guilty of stonewalling when I want to talk about things he doesn’t want to but I think that’s a character flaw (he does have some ASD traits) rather than coercive or controlling behaviour. I’ve described 2 negative examples of our relationship but there are hundreds of positive ones.
Ironically, I work very closely with domestic abuse survivors and have a lot of expertise in this area (but only when it comes to others, it seems) so I’m worried I’m seeing things through a distorted lens and would love some impartial views.