This is really pissing me off.

[Amethyst8]

My DH often tickles me but absolutely will not stop no matter how many times I ask him to. It becomes uncomfortable and painful and really farkin irritates me.

Tonight he did it again so I pulled his hair really hard. I had already asked him to stop about 5 times.

He told me I was a nasty piece of work with a nasty temper and it was completely unnecessary for me to have done that. There was no other way to make him stop and tbh I dont feel at all sorry. He is still not talking to me now.

Am I in the wrong?

I put up with this kind of nonsense for years. At best it's insensitive, at worst it's bullying. You don't want to be married to an insensitive bully.

I am so glad you have had such good advice from everyone. Do NOT put up with it. It's a symptom of bad attitude and one of the things that broke up my marriage.

He is still sulking but not as badly as last night. I just know that forever and a day whenever we argue now he will bring up "that time you assaulted me just because I was tickling you". He kept looking at me in a horrified manner last night while I was watching tv or reading and when I asked "what?" he kept saying "I just cant believe that someone would react like that, I really have seen a nasty side to you, you have kept hidden before". It is like he is enjoying having something to hold over me.

YOU should be the one sulking, not him and if he makes comments like" I can't believe you did that, blah, blah, blah (yawn)" I would say " Well now you know don't you, hopefully you won't do anything as unpleasant again'

Or simply ignore his sulking, comments etc. He wants the attention, don't let him have it.

he can't hold it over you if you ignore him about it

you did nothing wrong and he is a nasty bullying shite bag

I love love love Mumsnet. Thanks kittywise. I think I have been living with his nonsense for far too long.

I did actually say "well if it stops you from tickling me then I am glad I did it". I suppose I am constantly expecting him to be reasonable about things. I just don t understand how all the things that he does can be just brushed away or dismissed but when I do just ONE thing to defend myself then I am the worst person in the world. I suppose that I should stop trying to get him to see my point of view because he is never going to.

I think that it would be very helpful for you to, when he has got over the shock of you standing up for yourself, saying to him, very clearly, 'I do not want to be tickled - it is not nice, and it hurts me. If you tickle me again I will ask you to stop once, then I will take whatever action I can to stop you doing it.'

This sets things out very clearly - that you want it to stop, you will not tolerate it, and that you will retaliate.

However, I would be really careful trying to tickle him, even for short lengths of time - this could just give him an excuse to start doing it to you again with the excuse that you started it.

I do hope things get better for you.

I reckon this will sort itself out. But it isn't about the tickling, it's about a renegotiation of the balance of power in your relationship. If you give in now you will be in a weaker position than before. If you stay strong, once he has had time to reflect, if he is a decent person underneath it all, it will work out.
All you are asking for is respect from your life partner. This is not an unreasonable thing to ask for.

This man thinks you are his property and that he is entitled to assault you. You've demonstrated to him that you are a person and will defend yourself. He will either learn this lesson or he won't. If he doesn't (ie keeps criticising you for defending yourself, or assaults you again) then get rid of him before he assaults you more violently.

I posted pretty much the same thing last week. Got pretty much the same respones too.

We've had a talk and hes stopped.

How he is acting now though, is ridiculous and TBH i find it more worrying than the actual tickling.

i mean your H Amythest not mine.

SS - yes, although he's clearly shocked that she is willing to stand up for herself, he is so used to getting his own way... Don't let it carry on, and certainly don't stand for it changing into anything worse Amethyst

Thanks all. I certainly will not be allowing him to make it into a malicious unwarranted attack on my part, which he has been trying to do. I feel really strong after the responses on here and have quoted them loads at him. I think he is surprised that I have become so eloquent all of a sudden. Tbh when he gets cold and nasty like this I am usually a gibbering tearful confused wreck because he ALWAYS manages to make me feel like the most horrible person in the world for the most minor things.

Anyway I took dd out this morning and when I came back he had tidied up before he went to work, now he has done this before but it is by no means a regular thing so maybe he is feeling a bit bad about things because he was really quite nasty last night. Thanks to all your advice though I managed to keep calm and not react to the crappy things he was saying.

He said that I didnt even care that such a horrible situation had happened and I told him I did care and I wish it had not happened at all but I was NOT unhappy with MY actions in any way. He told me that I was very arrogant (this is how he describes all women who argue with him or dont follow his advice). Then I went to bed and left it there. We shall see.

Well done, Amethyst.

XH tried tickling me once when we were newly married. I absolutely HATE tickling and kicked out really viciously. My idiot dog, thinking he was defending me, bit MY ankle! But it did make the point that I will not, cannot stand for tickles and he never did it again. Plenty of emotional abuse mind you... hence why he's XH. He's passive-aggressive, but I sometimes wonder if he would have got round to physical abuse if I hadn't nipped the whole thing in the bud at an early stage.

Controlling twunt (him, not you). Empty your mooncup into his coffee when he's not looking.
Fecker

Tickling is a kind of torture if you don't like it - I have never seen the "fun" side of reducing someone to helpless breathlessness and often the point of tears as well. Horseplay it ain't - controlling behaviour it is.

hope your DH understands that he pushed you past the limit of your endurance and that he is likely to get the same reaction again if he starts with the tickling thing again (Do remember to mention that, won't you). TBH I am amazed it took this long for you to react sufficiently for him to stop!

You are not being arrogant at all - that is the response of someone who can't stand being in the wrong in any way and throws it all back at you rather than take any responsibility for the situation themselves.

Well done - stay strong over it.

Well done amythest, keep holding your head up high and show that you expect respect from this man.

BTW I just rang my Mum and told her about this incident and all your responses. Apparently my dad was a bit of a tickler in his day WTF is wrong with men? For those of you who mentioned punching in the balls when I told my Mum she actually had to get off the phone because she was going to wet herself from laughing so much....not that punching in the balls is to encouraged in any way it was just the turn of phrase that made her laugh.

However it has now turned out that DH is having problems at work (with an arrogant woman no doubt) and I am thinking that he started the tickling thing knowing it would lead to a row and he would be able to offload all his negative crap on his wife (as usual). Well he got more than he bargained for this time didnt he?

Good for you, you sound stronger and much more positive , hooray!!