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.

Nope, can't give a proper response without insulting your husband so won't try. He sounds like a prince

You’ve got this all wrong. You should be SFURIOUS he is waking you. Stop apologising to him, he shouldn’t be waking you for cuddles he’s not a child. He’s got an absolute nerve. Sounds like he’s a selfish twatt with breaking things and presumption you do cleaning too. Please have a serious talk with this man about stepping up and consider LTB

Are you a very traditional family with ideas about male headship? Because I can't see any other reason why you would think it's OK for him to disturb your sleep like that when you are already taking care of a baby.

If he was really good and loving, he would let you have the sleep you need and set aside his selfish wants.

This is a board filled with women (literally hundreds of thousands at any given moment), many of whom are mothers, and many many who have seen and experienced and lived the abusive behaviour your P is displaying and who know that it's the tip of the iceberg.

That's why you're getting this many responses, so quickly.

I'd go to sleep with a knife in my hand, he wouldn't be able to try it again.

That

If someone is tired and asleep you creep out the room, maybe turn the heating up a bit if it's cold for them
Loving would be doing stuff while you're asleep like washing up

Read this answer again and stop being surprised about people "disrespecting your husband"

If he's deliberately waking you up when you need to sleep then he doesn't respect you.

Posters are quite horrified that you seem to accept this as normal. It is not.

His behaviour is appalling. You need to take the blinkers off and look at what is really going on here.

He has no right to 'play with your face' or touch you with the intention of disturbing you when you are in a deep sleep. Just tell him you need to sleep and would appreciate not being woken up for no reason. Anyone is capable of reacting as you have been doing when they are exhausted. Its not disrespectful for you to tell him you need some peace and to be left alone to rest and if he has led you to think otherwise you have a problem as this is not normal behaviour.

Based on your responses OP, I suspect this is a bit overwhelming for you to get these responses. And that there's probablu quite a lot more going on that you haven't even thought about. Unfortunately, it is often when a woman is pregnant o has a baby that behaviour like this ramps up and/or she starts to push back.

Other red flags might be

financial inequality - he earns the money, yoyu hav enough access to it or have to justify spending or have to spend your savings to pay your share/for things for the baby.

Pressuing you for sex or other physical things when baby was small/you're tired or touched out/ still recovering from childbirth etc. Accusing you of being cold/frigid/unkind if you are not keen.

Expecting you to do all the heavy lifting of child rearing while his life continues very uch as it always has.

And a whole bunch of other behaviours that can both appear to be smaller and less important or much worse.

I'm sorry OP if you're overwhelmed with the responses, but in your op you describe obvious examples of abusive attitudes from your husband, and you do it very nonchalantly. How long have you been with him?
He is not loving, he is selfish and disrespects the mother of his children. He may lovebomb you. There are signs that are very obvious from the outside. And it's true that the word "abuse" gets thrown around a lot. But you should know that at MN posters are very good at spotting abusive patterns that may be completely oblivious to the one suffering them.
I personally apologise for being blunt (or insulting), but please don't go away thinking that we all got him wrong. Because, seriously, your op is worrying.
Stay here and keep asking, reading and answering.

Omg if my husband 'played with my face' after I'd been up all night with the baby and suffering sleep deprivation....at best he would get a punch in the mouth. If he did it more than once and complained about me not being nice, sad to say I would probably have a murder conviction!

It's unkind to wake a sleeping person up when they do not need to be woken. Even more so if that person has recently given birth and has a young baby waking in the night.

The only way to manage this is to ask him not to wake you , if you need to be up you can set an alarm and if you don't then he doesn't need to wake you.

His want to cuddle shouldn't override your need to sleep. I would be furious if dh did this

Yeah, that would definitely make sense if I had a 3 year old. Yeah it’s real all right. That’s why I wrote this right now cause it literally just happened. I was sleeping with the baby on the bed and the baby woke up so I sat him up to burp him but my husband came and was like grabbing my nose and stuff and I was trying to get him to stop and then he said that I was punching him when I really don’t remember punching him just kinda pushing his hand away over and over as I was trying to burp the baby cause he was crying.

He said that he was just coming to have me move to lay the correct way on the bed so we could both lay down and go to sleep but he didn’t say that til later, he just touched my face and grabbed my nose over and over and then said I’m being violent.

😅midday lull, people are scrolling and some of us are trying to stay off other SM

I'd wait until he fell asleep and wake him up. Every night.

Sorry, what does “uch” mean?

I am very very sorry for you op. But more, your poor baby who has been brought in to this situation and will grow up thinking a woman being abused is normal. You are being abused. I am very sorry for whatever has happened in your life that have made you think this man is lovely. He isn't. He is selfish, cruel and nasty.
Please call women's aid who will help you.

The thing it’s not disrespectful to be grumpy when you get woken up.
It’s not disrespectful to push away his hand when he ‘lovingly’ caress your face. That would be true if you were awake too but not wanting the touch at that time. But as you are asleep and not really conscious of what you’re doing, how could you control that anyway?
If dh had woken me up at 5.00am just because when the dcs were newborn, he would have got an earfull. And yes I would strongly pushed his hands away. Agd probably swore at him too,

Throwing everything on the floor and breaking stuff because he is upset you’re not loving when he wants/expects you to be IS being a twat. He CAN control his reaction then.

And he isn’t respectful when he dismisses your tiredness ‘because he can function in 2 hours of sleep a night’ (which isn’t true btw). He isn’t respectful when he makes you feel guilty for a total normal reaction.

Your husband was grabbing your nose? Why? I thought you meant the baby was grabbing your nose.

I know you want a logical solution here, but your husband's actions are not logical, or normal at all. I don't know what the solution is aside from him not grabbing your face. My husband has never played with or grabbed at my face.

I wouldn't say he's being abusive but definitely being a massive prick.

Why on earth would he think that's normal and a nice thing to receive?! I'd go mental if my partner started poking around my face, never mind when I've just woke up.

Next time he tells you other girls liked it, tell him to fuck off back to them then so you can sleep. This is insane

I was trying to get him to stop and then he said that I was punching him when I really don’t remember punching him just kinda pushing his hand away over and over as I was trying to burp the baby cause he was crying.

DARVO and gaslighting in one.

"uch" is much. Sorry. I dropped my computer the other day and the keyboard is not quite working correctly! I am losing a lot of m's in particular.

I am, although I can't speak for anyone else.😂

Why would he need to grab your nose to move you? Why doesn't he use his words like can you move over? He's basically assaulting you when you are very sleepy by grabbing you repeatedly in a way that no normal person does and then is upset that you react back.

My husband once poked my nose 'for fun' in the night when I was asleep and sadly for him, and the only time I ever did, I punched him. I reacted instinctively in my sleep and then I was sorry but I explained to him you cannot 'surprise' someone in sleep by poking their face and hoping for the best. He never did it again and I never laid hands on him again.

It's abuse leave the bastard