Husband wakes me up and doesn’t like my natural reaction

[TheFluentViewer]

My husband will wake me up sometimes, knowing how incredibly tired I was before I had fallen asleep because we have a newborn and it’s 5 or 6 am, but he’ll wake me up by coming to cuddle me or touch and play with my face as I’m sleeping and for some reason since I’m coming out of a deep sleep I react by pushing him away or hitting his hand and seeming angry and violent, when in reality I’m not even conscious and have no idea what’s going on or what I’m doing. The same thing happens every time. He gets upset and asks me over and over why I did that and lectures me on how I need to get rid of that spirit that naturally comes out when I’m sleeping and he comes to me being loving toward me. I don’t know why I do that and barely remember what even happened and so I don’t respond the way he wants me to and he gets pissed and angry at me and sleeps on the couch but will swipe anything and everything that’s on the couch onto the floor first even if there’s something that breaks on the floor when he does, and I have to clean it up later. (We’re in a very small studio/guest house right now.) I haven’t been able to figure out the reason why I react this way and feel guilty about it and like something is wrong with me. Could it be some type of past abuse that I’m instinctually acting on? I can’t put my finger on it. He says every other girl he’s ever been with reacts lovingly by hugging back or just being nice.
I let him know how tired I am and that I need to go to sleep cause I work the next day, but I just teach piano and not for very long hours, so he says I’m fine because he used to get 2-3 hours of sleep and work hard labor for 10-18 hours a day. I’ve just been a little more sleep deprived compared to usual because I take care of the baby throughout the night and have to wake up every 2-3 hours to pump or make a bottle and feed him. My worry is that I’ll be so tired that I sleep through my alarms and don’t make it to work on time, or that I’m so tired on the drive to work and am all over the road or fall asleep at the wheel and get in an accident. I know I can teach fine without any sleep I’ve been doing it so long and it wakes me up, it’s more just about getting there on time and safely.

And this! 🚩🚩🚩🚩

?? its 2 paragraphs at best and at the top of the message board.

What a selfish entitled man? If this is true and given he is important to your life I would be very clear that him waking you up when you are exhausted is not okay.

YANBU about your husband, he’s being a selfish weirdo.

But you are being unreasonable with how you’re responding to posters who’ve taken the time to support you. Yes AI is a real thing but what good does snapping “are you all genuine?!” do? It will only alienate.

There are thousands of users of this forum. Your post would have come up p as a new one. The behaviour you have described from your husband would tend to provoke a strong reaction. Because he is acting like a cunt.

HTH.

It's not you with the problem op. You don't exist purely as some sort of comfort human for your husband. He should be leaving you alone to sleep.

Yeah, that won’t go down well with him at all. I can’t disrespect my husband like that. Could people give helpful advice without insulting my husband please? He’s actually very loving and I don’t hate him for this at all, I’m just trying to seek out a logical solution.

He knows you have been up all night with a baby but he:

(a) by waking you up, he is prioritizing his need for affection and ego-stroking, over your basic human need for sleep;
(b) gaslights you by acting as if your actions of hitting out while you are asleep are a moral flaw, when both he and you know that actions taken while asleep happen out of instinct or automaticity rather than out of free will;
(c) invalidates your right to control of your own body by expecting you to put up with his unwanted cuddles to soothe his ego;
(d) invalidates your need for sleep by claiming it's the same thing as when he had to do long days (note: it's not, because he was working at most 18 hr per day with a 6 hr break for sleep, whereas you are getting no more than 30 min to 1.5 hours of sleep at any given stretch. Also, even laborers get days off, unless they are literally slaves, which I bet he wasn't, and they can sleep properly on their days off. You are getting NO days off because that's not how a newborn works;
(e) when you fail to please him he sweeps objects off the couch, sometimes breaking them, and then expects you to clean them up, even though he is the one who broke them. He is punishing you for failing to subordinate even your innate instinctive behaviors to his will.

All of these are big red flags, I am sorry to say.

Tell him to stop waking you up? That's the most logical solution?

Is it him or you ‘just’ diminishing your job. I also teach piano, it’s a great job and I love it, but as with any teaching job you have to be bright eyed and bushy tailed the whole time so you can engage with your students and get the best out of them. When my dc were newborns I worked in finance and if I’d had a particularly bad night I’d find an annual return that needed doing and hide in an office so I just needed to concentrate on the report and not actually talk to anyone.

and the other stuff is creepy and unacceptable.

Nope, I'm out. There is nothing loving about waking a sleep deprived mum by touching her face for no other reason than you are a needy, entitled child.

The logical solution is that he stop doing a thing to you that you don't like.

It's not rocket science.

Have you never heard of “sarcasm” or “joking around”?

Nobody gives a shit about what goes down well with your husband when the behaviour you've described is abusive.

He's not loving. His behaviour is the opposite of loving. Asking him to stop waking you up isn't disrespectful!

Wake him up at 5am when he's knackered and having a lie-in.

Sounds like you have a baby and a giant man baby.

DH used to take the 10.30pm/11pm feed for me once I could express as I found it so hard to stay awake late in the evening. Then I'd be ok for the night feed(s) as I'd got in a chunk of sleep from about 9pm (or earlier!).

Yep this, what else is there to say. It is disrespectful to wake up a tired new mother. Communication around his disrespect doesn’t mean you are disrespectful. Just don’t be disrespectful in your communication with him.

Ok I’m serious when I say that that was legit me just being funny cause I’ve never used this app before and didn’t expect that kind of quick response from so many people. I was expecting to check tomorrow to see if one or two people had replied lol.

You tell him to let you sleep because you are exhausted. If he feels you aren't being affectionate enough and you believe that is a legitimate complaint then make time together to cuddle on the sofa or whatever.
You absolutely shouldn't accept being repeatedly woken up though.

He's not very loving, though, is he? It's not loving to know that your partner is so sleep deprived they're scared of falling asleep at the wheel and then waking them up anyway from a deep sleep, then making them feel guilty for their instinctual reaction. It's even less loving to KEEP doing that multiple times. And it's a very, very red flag that he's angrily shoving stuff out of the way to the point that it breaks to punish you for not responding how HE wants.

The 'logical solution' you seek is that your husband stops waking you up for pointless reasons when you need your sleep and stops putting his needs first. If you're too scared to tell him that or have no faith that he will, then there are bigger problems here.

I haven’t been able to figure out the reason why I react this way and feel guilty about it and like something is wrong with me.

You react this way because on some instinctive level you are angry and frustrated and resentful, for good reason, because he is consistently demonstrating that he does not care about your feelings and needs and thinks that his desire to cuddle you is more important than your need to sleep.

I bet you didn't always lash out. I bet that it is the result of repeated groping by him in the middle of the night even as you have begged him to please just let you sleep.

As for the "other women don't behave that way" that is one of those awful, creepy, manipulative statements that would make me want to hit him in the first place.

Perhaps suggest if he does more of the night wakings, you'll be more inclined to a cuddle.

Legally you are not responsible for acts you commit in your sleep. If the law respects that you do not have control over your actions so should your husband. Tell him never to touch you when you are asleep and your problem is solved. Maybe also get him to take your baby out for a few hours a day on the weekend so you can catch up on some sleep.

It's not loving to wake someone up because you are putting your needs for some affection ahead of their need to rest. It's selfish and it's wrong - and 5am/6am? Sod that. Tell him to stop waking you up.