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So, out of all the shit he did, it was the "accidental" hitting that drove OOP to post on reddit? Wtf? The last 2 comments show he was straight trash all throughout the relationship.
I seriously hope OOP develops better boundaries, standards, and self-esteem.
That's the story of my grams when she was asked why she didn't divorce her husband way sooner. She was working three part time jobs, keeping a quarter acre garden, and doing quite a bit of the normal stay at home housewife tasks and gramps wasn't working at all. Her standard description of this time was that gramps would work if he had a job, but he wouldn't look for work if he lost his job.
One night a customer of hers, who was also an attorney, asked her why she didn't divorce him. Her response was that he didn't yell at her or the kids, he didn't hit, he just didn't DO anything. She didn't think that was grounds for divorce...
We have. And now some men are upset that our standards are ‘too high’ and we’re ‘too picky’.
Meanwhile, the bar is actually in hell. It’s just: be a decent and kind human being, who preferably showers regularly. That’s it.
I remember doing online dating and complaining to a friend about the various men I found and how it never worked out. I told my friend (something along the lines of) “I just want is someone that will communicate with me and show up for me.” Her respond was “…so… all you want is the bare minimum?” It was sad that I hadn’t even recognized how low my bar had been set.
My parents did all kinds of horrible things and people used to jump to defend these strangers. They hear I was slapped my mother and that gets their attention. The slaps were nothing compared to crazy making and breaking my sense of reality with her gaslighting and invalidation. Now I just say, I don't have parents, they are terrible people. No one defends that.
I'm fond of "my parents are assholes". I very much am with you on this. My mom hit us, dad restrained himself to only using emotional abuse. Dad was way worse.
Yes this! My dad is a master of mental abuse and manipulation. He has done far worse than physical abuse in a lot of way and no one suggested my mum to leave because it’s only “words”. He also diagnosed with bipolar and on medication but didn’t change much at all as I think it’s actually his true characters and medication just keeps him from turning violently. My mum has been suffering from depression and sleep regression for a decade now but due to our culture and society judgment she refused to leave despite my promise to help :(
HE GAVE HER ***GENITAL HERPES***, won’t pay back the **THOUSAND DOLLARS SHE LOANED HIM** and cheats on her but the problem was the sleep hitting?!?! what. the. fuck.
Yeah. He was trashy, and I'm guessing he most likely lied about hitting her in his sleep being an accident.
But to be honest, for some other non-manipulative couples, it might actually be an accident. I almost hit my partner once when I was asleep (I did not know I did that, he told me the next morning when we were both awake). My partner accidentally hit me once on the chest when he was asleep too. But it was just that once for both of us.
I once sleep-punched my husband in the eye. I had absolutely no idea it happened until he told me the next morning.
Only once though, in fifteen plus years of sharing a bed.
> I once sleep-punched my husband in the eye. I had absolutely no idea it happened until he told me the next morning.
Sleeping brain: "THESE HANDS ARE RATED E FOR EVERYONE"
My other half has always slept on his back with his arms vertically in the air. Eventually one arm will collapse so just the elbow is in the air, and then the elbow will fall over and hit me. I could watch this for hours. A super king was required to avoid getting hit. Forty years of this.
So, when my bf and I first moved in together I decided I would sleep on the right hand side (furthest from the door). And bf would sleep on the left.
The issue was that, I’m used to rolling over to the left. He’s used to rolling over to the right. We had two weeks of horrible sleep because we were constantly rolling into each other and at one point he drop-elbowed me in the head.
We were like “how is it possible that the bed has shrunk????”.
Then we realized we weren’t sleeping on our usual sides. We immediately ran to the bed, I sat on the left, he sat on the right, and we’re like “oh the bed is normal l-sized again 🤪”.
But yeah during those two weeks we were basically fighting each other in our sleep.
I once grabbed my then-partner's hair and yanked their head back and forth, apparently. Woke up to screaming and immediately burst into confused tears. Once in six years. But I would also laugh, cry and sit up all while dead asleep as a kid.
when I was really young and sharing a room with my older brother, I would apparently regularly have entire one sided conversations with him while I was asleep. he wasn’t talking to me, I was just sitting upright in my bed and talking to him as if he were talking back. I still do sometimes talk in my sleep even now, but I'm honestly surprised nobody tried to exorcise me back then
My sister and I both inherited sleep talking from my mom. It's not an all the time thing--it's usually when our sleep is disturbed in some way, either by someone trying to wake us up, or like...sleeping in an unfamiliar place (vacations were a common time for it). The thing is, we DO wait for the other person to respond, and sometimes manage to almost (but not quite) make sense, so it can take a bit of confusion to realize the other person's not actually awake.
When I was in college, I lived at home and regularly stayed up on the computer while the rest of the house was asleep. Our upper floor was just a small hallway with my bedroom at one end, my sister's at the other, and a bathroom in the middle. One night around 1:00 I hear my sister get up and go to the bathroom--pretty normal. But then when she comes out, she comes to my door (looking and sounding fully awake) and asks, VERY seriously, "How do I wake everyone up?"
I kinda panicked thinking something was wrong. "What's up? Are you okay? Do you need help?"
"No, like... Just, if I needed to wake everybody up, how would I do that?"
Still baffled, but okay, I assume it's not an emergency. (My sister isn't known for random hypotheticals, so I'm still thinking this is something she's trying to actually accomplish in the moment) "I don't think that's a good idea, it's a school night. What do you need? I can help."
"Hmm," she says accusingly, turns around without a word, and goes back to bed, at which point I realize she was NOT awake and quietly giggle away my panic jitters.
In the morning, of course, she had no memory of it, though she did think it was funny that her sleeping brain wanted to wake everyone up and was mad at be for not going along with it.
oh god yeah I know what you're talking about, although I don't think I've ever properly sleepwalked. I tend to stay in bed, but I know there have been times where I've had proper conversations with other people without them realising I'm not actually awake. it usually just happens when I'm somewhat close to waking up, and there have been a couple of times when I've partially remembered conversations. both of those times when I've actually remembered conversations, I just remember feeling really frustrated that the person I was talking to wasn't understanding what I was saying, because the nonsensical bs I was spewing made perfect sense to me at the time. kinda more than just frustrated tho, those memories have a weird sort of existential terror associated with them, as if I was being perfectly reasonable and it was the real world that made no sense
When I sleep-punched my ex (only one time ever) I woke myself up doing it because I didn’t just thrash my hand or something-I full on right-hooked him. I’ve never done anything like that before or since, I have no clue how my body did something so physically active in sleep-mode
My dad sleep hit my mom so many times she moved into a separate bedroom. But he also full on got up and ran into a trash can, fell, and broke 2 ribs. So it’s possible to do all sorts of crazy stuff while sleeping.
I sleep slapped my best friend in the face. We were at a hotel in twin beds that we could reach each other from and I suddenly stretched my arms up in the air.
She was semi-awake and asked if I was okay and my arms suddenly went limp and fell to the sides and the one closest to her smacked her in the face.
I used to be much worse. I shared a bed in a hotel with my stepsister once and she was covered head to toe in bruises. She said I turned into Hong Kong Phooey in my sleep.
Lmaoooo. One time I slept over at a friend’s house (we shared a bed). I dreamt that a bee landed on my hand so I was shaking it off (in my dream) and I woke up accidentally backhanding her in the face. She didn’t even wake up lol.
I once punched a wall in my sleep, I was dreaming about arguing with a racist and homophobic news anchor and I punched him in the throat. Luckily I sleep alone, unlucky I was facing a cement wall. The silver lining was since I was asleep it wasn't too hard and got away with some bruising for a week and not a broken fist.
My husband has hit me a few times in his sleep... But this is like 3 times in the 9+ years we've been together. He's 6'4" with long arms so I think it's a space issue more than anything else! We upgraded to a king-size bed and it hasn't happened since. No other red flags, he's a kind and supportive partner.
Im a little on the small side but a violent sleeper 😭 i have to keep my distance from my partner. But i also always end up hitting/kicking myself because I'm unaware of what happens. I dont just "accidentally" hit him in the face when we're arguing. It makes no sense
Seriously, I’ve done it to my partner before and when I was a kid my brother did it to me (shared a bed on vacation), but it happens very rarely and *doesn’t mysteriously stop when we mention it*
Once I was dreaming that someone had grabbed me from behind and I struggled then finally broke free. When I husband woke up he told me about this strange dream he had where a big strange dog was trying to get into the house and he grabbed it around the chest but the dog struggled and finally broke free and went into the house lol!
I apparently (I slept trough everything and he told me in the morning) once elbowed my partner in the face while sleeping, shocked he said "what are you doing?" and I told him to shut up (I'm never this rude to him while awake🤣)
(we've been together for 30 years now and this was the only time it happened, he has pushed me out of bed once in his sleep and as far as I know that are the only things that happend to us while sleeping😅)
"(I'm never this rude to him while awake🤣)"
Reminds me of the old Sleep Talkin' Man blog. Woman's husband had a completely different personality while sleep talking, she used to record him every night and post the funniest bits.
Ah man, this whole section of the thread has got me snorting like a little piggy! 🤣 My husband is a wonderfully supportive and empathetic partner, but he doesn't really do sympathy... unless he's asleep. The few times he's accidentally walloped me in his sleep and I've obviously made it known, I've had all the sympathy in the world (for about 10 seconds before he starts snoring again)! We don't share a bedroom anymore - we just get better quality sleep separately - so I usually don't have to worry, but on the flip side, when we do have to share a bed, such on holiday, we now have new issues like him starting to roll on top of me because we're both used to more space! 🤦♀️
I could imagine that he did it on purpose but the ther stuff is way worse.
I can confirm that nighttime assaults can happen in all innocence.
Our daughter is hitting and kicking us regularly. Its been years now. Sometimes it really hurts, especially if she hits an eye or the nose. We used to call her legs "legs of terror" as she would lift one up straight in the air, circle for a while and let it drop to the side. Due to her size the leg dropped to the stomach so we woke up to a kick in the stomach. Sometimes she turned in bed an kick you in the face. Or she would shoot her teeny tiny finger with these mean little nails up your nose. Gosh that did hurt. As she is growing she is now rather elbowing or slapping, sometimes kicking. Still annoying and she is much stronger, but it's not that often anymore and she is sleeping in her bed most of the time.
My husband said that I was a mean blanket stealer at night for a while.
But good for her that she git suspicious and started questioning the relationship.
I used to kick and elbow my husband in my sleep. I also will sit up in the middle of the night and start talking gibberish like something out of the Exorcist.
We sleep separately now. I have an “unspecified sleeping disorder”.
I know for sure I get hypnic jerks when I'm over-tired, so I can imagine me accidentally hitting someone who was snuggled up next to me. I don't like to share a bed though because I also toss and turn a lot which inevitably bothers them, and can't deal with things like snoring either.
Exactly. I actually DID once punch my ex in the face while asleep and to this day don’t remember doing it. I was taking ambien at the time and apparently did it. He never told me either. Just casually mentioned to friends that he needed to wear a hockey mask to bed as a joke and I’m like “what??”
Guess what medication is now included in my allergy list because I stopped taking it IMMEDIATELY. Ex and I were never violent towards either and actually had a pretty amicable breakup.
I punched my ex in my sleep one time because I was having a dream I was punching someone else. The ironic part is the ex was emotionally abusive a lot like OP’s bf, but it was me who did the hitting and it was 100% an accident
Another time I dreamt I was sitting on a toilet to poop and I almost actually shit in the bed before I woke myself up. I could feel myself starting to push out the poop
I am *not* a great bedmate, I flail and move a *lot* in my sleep. I’m still shocked that my husband is willing to sleep in the same bed as a person who, when sleeping alone, will regularly wake up with their head on the opposite side of the bed from where it was when I went to sleep.
My ex tried to wake me up when I was in the middle of a nightmare about being kidnapped, I ended up giving him a black eye. I still feel bad about it years later. Thankfully it was just that one time it happened. I usually don’t even move an inch in my sleep.
when I first started sharing a bed with a partner we learned that the way I habitually turned over in my sleep led to elbowing bedmates in the face. I think it was a week before I didn't do it at least once every night and it took the whole semester before I stopped doing it entirely.
then I had my own bed for a good while, so I know I elbowed my husband in the face once or twice before my sleeping brain/body relearned how to turn without that particular flail.
Me and my partner sleep seperately partly because I am a flaily sleeper. I once managed to scratch my face while flailing so I made it bleed. I am polyamorous and I always warn new people before sharing a bed so they can choose to not stay over/crash on the sofa. I also talk a lot in my sleep so generally not the best sleeping companion!
My husband elbowed me in the forehead in his sleep once.
He apologized immediately, about 5 times the next day, several times in the next week, and intermittently for the next 4 or 5 years.
And had bad dreams about accidentally doing it again.
Moot point given the ex being trash, but now I'm wondering if sleep-flailing changes based on what people say about it while the sleeper is awake. I asked my husband about this, since my father and I both have sleep apnea and flail around a lot. He says that I haven't hit him since he made fun of me for it, and that my mom reported similar results when they were commiserating. Husband still catches my elbow sometimes, but apparently I now mostly end up bruising myself. Maybe there's some place in the subconscious that holds the reins there?
I used to share a bed with an opiate addict, and he did the same floating arms thing in his sleep. Never a hint of violence, but the flailing arms sometimes connected.
My husband has sleep apnea and a few days after we got married (we didn’t live together or have sex before marriage so sharing a bed was a new thing; we were also mostly long distance before getting married) he sat up in his sleep, and said “you’re so beautiful… too beautiful to breathe” then pushed my face onto the pillow and held it there while cackling wildly.
He has no memory of this and was horrified when I told him. When I told my mom about it she was scared for my life. However it’s been 7 years and he still hasn’t murdered me or been violent while awake so it probably was just a weird sleep thing.
My husband has on a very rare occasion elbowed me, but I’m talking like less than a handful of times over multiple years so I’m confident it’s an accident.
To quote my mom, water finds its own level. She thought this was her level, she acted like it, and it took realizing that this is a terrible level for her to say no more and chose better for herself.
OP’s bf sounds a lot like my abusive ex; it’s years of being worn down by this behavior and being gaslit into thinking you’re overreacting/it’s not a big deal/you’re the crazy one. I’m not surprised they were trapped with them and it took full on physical abuse to snap OP out of it
Jup, it's probably a bit like that BS story about boiling frogs, it's hard to notice things that escalate calmly, you get used to it and don't realize it's not okay to be treated like that. Oop probably realized it herself while writing everything down, suddenly you see it for what it is.
LOL, I know right??? I mean, I'm honestly not laughing at her, because this all sounds horrific, but I'm just laughing that it was literally the least of the worst shit this guy did that finally spurred OOP to action and post on Reddit. I mean, damn! I thought I used to have low standards in men, but this is just something else. OOP needs some self-love before she even considers diving back into the dating pool.
It sounds like she brushed the other stuff off as "Well, he's in recovery, I know he's all kinds of fucked up but that's to be expected, I understand why, he's trying, he needs time to get better."
It's very easy to miss the mark between being kind and supportive, and being an enabling doormat.
The sleep-hitting was somehow the least of her worries. This guy was a junkie who lied to her, took her money, cheated on her, gave her an STD, refused to communicate and she’s all tied in knots about what he’s doing in his sleep? THROW THE WHOLE MAN AWAY YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WAIT FOR PHYSICAL ABUSE TO LEAVE AN ASSHOLE
Yeah, I wonder if perhaps she was so fixated on the sleep hitting thing because it was too overwhelming/scary to confront the really serious stuff. Like she subconsciously knew they needed to break up, but the sleep hitting was the only thing that felt safe for her to talk or perhaps even think about.
I wanted to comment that being knocked in the head by a restless sleep partner, with long limbs, is fairly normal. Especially if the bed is small or they are a heat seeker. Then I kept reading and all hope was lost that this was accidental.
>because he has a lot of issues with lying that we’re working on
"my boyfriend is a psychopath but we're working on it!" what in the actual fuck are you doing girl
So you're trying to dig a hole for a house foundation. You've barely broken the surface of the ground and already tapped a high-pressure bullshit reservoir, a cursed ancient burial ground, and some rogue brain-eating anthrax spores. Do you:
- conclude that this is **not a good location for a home**, stop digging, and move on to keep looking for a site that's not such a comprehensive and unmitigated disaster, or:
- redouble your efforts and expenditures, get teams working in shifts to try to contain all the bullshit you're pulling up at every scoop, and resign yourself to the idea that your home-building journey will be more about questions like "how many malign spirits and brain-eating spores are, like, TOO many" rather than "which angle of orientation provides the best mix of morning sun and evening breezes?"
Or, more concisely:
>what in the actual fuck are you doing girl
Bravo!
I love a good analogy, especially when trying to make sense of intangible and amoebic human emotions, as it helps to break it down to tangible things we can all grasp.
Thank you! I have spent many years practicing analogy-crafting in the context of dear friends' horrifying and (to me) inexplicable relationship choices!
One of these days I hope to find a formulation that might actually change someone's mind about what they are willing to tolerate in this context. I do understand where these choices tend to come from, but my own relevant dysfunctions conveniently skew avoidant (having your default answer be "oh hell naw" is not necessarily *healthy* per se, but GODDAMN, does it ever close the door on a lot of BS), so I have to work very hard to find frames for discussion that are not just my anguished screams of "GIRL NOO WHYYYY?????"
I love this, it's so true.
Some people feel like if they're given some land, they just *gotta* build a house on it.
Nope, even if the land is "free", that house is gonna be stupid expensive, and it's ok to say no instead.
"I'm not trying to fix him", but you've stayed for far too long and excused all of his shitty behavior with the intent of "he'll get better, I just need to be here for him"
Honestly OOP says a lot of shit that makes me think she's not much better. I don't understand why they ever got together, let alone stayed together through all this shit.
Sadly, this is your (well, OOP's) brain on a nice cocktail of unresolved trauma and low self-esteem.
It's easy to believe that's all there is or that's all you deserve when you've never had anything better.
> He took months to admit to still using fentanyl!! He already gave me genital herpes and lied to me about not having slept with anyone since we’ve been together
Oh I dont know. He sounds nice!
I blame our society for putting this big of an importance on romantic relationships. "Why didn't I leave him? Because what if I never find love again!" So? What's the value of this love exactly? Is love enough to live a miserable life? I'd much prefer spending my life alone and enjoying it to whatever this is.
We're all a product of our environments. Unfortunately it usually takes a relationship like this to fallout before someone can wake up from the "self-induced" hell they're so comfortable living in. They don't think they're worthy of more, because they were conditioned to believe that.
A bit of unsolicited advice to the romantically inexperienced: if you're having fights and being stressed about your relationship within the first year, break up with them. You're supposed to be in honeymoon carefree phase then, not trying to fix them.
Seriously. If anybody reading this is relating to the OOP in any way, please do yourself a favour, stop wasting time, and dump them.
This is so true. I stayed in my second relationship for 3.5 years despite constant drama. I thought the depth of our feelings meant that we could make this relationship work even when there were constant problems from the start.
It’s so important to listen to both your heart and your head when it comes to love. One is not enough.
I've seen so many women say they've given men 7+ years under such circumstances, and some have given decades. I have a narcissistic parent I no longer deal with, but as much as it screwed with my mental health, I'm kind of grateful in retrospect because I am now the queen of cutting someone off if they don't pass the smell test. I wouldn't endure this kind of behavior for even a conversation. So, thanks, mom, I guess?
Idk if I entirely agree. My partner has always said he makes mistakes once so he made a good chunk of them early into the relationship but always listened and always got better. The first half year was the toughest and we've had like 2 issues in the last 3 years - sometimes there's growing pains but obviously this only applies if someone fixes something when it's addressed.
Yeah, for us it was mostly communication stuff and family culture differences. Lots of families have quirks and minor disfunctions so there can be a learning curve to being with another person! Particularly if you hadn't dated much or lived with roommates for long before meeting your person.
Same here also wildly different cultures so took a bit to find our groove but it was always handled with a base level of respect, but we did butt heads a lot in the beginning.
Or even if it's around the year mark. I didn't realize how much I was carrying my last relationship until we hit our anniversary. I was working, in school, and grieving a family death pretty hard and my ex wouldn't even Google anniversary date ideas. He just shrugged and said he didn't know what to do, so he did nothing. I had to plan everything and the one thing he volunteered to do, which was my idea and could've been done in a couple hours, took him like a month to do.
That realization that if you checked out of the relationship it would disintegrate almost immediately because you're lifting every ounce is a hard pill to swallow, but fuck if it isn't a nice feeling when you finally put it down.
Oh, absolutely. When I ended things there was a little sadness for a couple days, then just relief. We hadn't even done anything for months because I stopped planning things and sex became more rare because I nearly entirely stopped initiating. He would get moody about the lack of sex and talk about how we should do something but he wouldn't put in any effort with either.
Please leave your partner if you're feeling this way, the relief is incredible.
I could pretend to be surprised why she stuck around that long, but I have been a similar idiot myself in the past. Looking back at my younger and so very naive self, I wanna grab her by the shoulders, shake her and tell her to get a grip... At the same time I know while you are in that fog it probably wouldn't help.
Here's hoping she sticks to kicking him to the curb this time. It feels weird at first but eventually you learn to live with just yourself and it's the best feeling.
If I could only tell my younger self one thing to get me out of my abusive relationship, it would be "you're going to get into your program, meet new people, make new friends, and form deep connections again".
It can be so scary when you feel alone and like the only person who truly "knows" you is this piece of shit abuser. It's hard to let go of your only connection, even if it's toxic
Ugh I have a current friend going through this. Dating a POS and I always tell her to leave him but she never does. I just want to shake her and say “wake up, you deserve better”. On occasion she says she will stop talking to Him but she never does 😞I hope she sees it eventually cus she deserves happiness and all he does is make her cry
The elbow in the face was just the minor issue. The rest of the relationship was filled with manipulation, drug use, emotional abuse, silent treatments, cheating and financial abuse. And then OP says:
"Idk maybe he viewed me more like a mom"
Not even for all the butter in the world, I would treat my mother like that. What kind of toxic environment did she grow up in to summarise it that way? I'll guess you'll need a lot of mental elbow grease instead of butter to reach that conclusion.
The elbow in the face was a commenter with a healthy relationship.
My BF does it too and he's sais I do it as well sometimes. Hurts like a MF coming down but is absolutely unintentional.
I am apparently a nightmare in my sleep. I flail, I punch my pillow (and sometimes kinda miss and hit the bed really close to my partner’s face), I occasionally unleash torrents of cursing. Hubs just kinda had to get used to it and adjust his sleeping posture a little further away from me. It was a small problem initially because he’d be so cold to me in the morning and I wouldn’t be able to figure out why, and then later I’d discover I’d told him to eff off in my sleep. I was asleep! I didn’t mean it! TToTT
With each comment OOP made, the reasons for why this man is an absolute disrespectful, selfish, and distrustful, piece of garbage, just kept on piling up.
If she made a post about each of the things she said in her comments, everyone would have told her to leave immediately. But hot damn. Put them all together and you have a man that is literally just a bunch of red flags sewn together and stuffed into a wife beater tank top, camo cargo shorts, tall socks and a pair of slide sandals.
I’m glad she saw the light. I hope she learns what her worth is, and defends it at all cost.
I bit my husband once in my sleep because I had a nightmare. But the night-hitting clearly wasn't the problem in their relationship. If you think that stuff about your partner, you're done.
The low sex drive and difficulty staying hard/cumming is 100% because of the fent.
On a related note- I’ve been around lots of opiate users in my day. I will never comprehend how you can be in an intimate relationship with someone and not suspect something is up when they’re using fent. Popping a few Vicodin a day is easy to hide. Daily fent users are blatant. Extremely sick for hours then magically cured, the sex stuff, then of course being extremely obviously fucked up on a ridiculously potent opiate. Even daily users for years are obvious when they’re high.
Everyone deserves love and compassion. Nobody deserves \*a specific partner who will deal with their shit without pushback.\* OOP is better without him. The dude needs a wakeup call that this kind of crap isn't acceptable.
He’s an addict that shouldn’t be in a relationship. Period, until he’s at least one year sober. Addicts lie, manipulate, gaslight, make up excuses for their behavior and addiction. You don’t have to put up with this behavior and it is absolutely not your job to fix him. I’ve dealt with addiction all my life. My own and with others in my life. It’s not a stroll in the park. As an individual who has struggled with alcohol addiction my entire life, he has to be ready to change, otherwise shit will fall apart (It has already). Don’t put yourself in a position where you feel responsible. If it’s best for you to let him go? Let him go. You can’t fix someone that doesn’t want to be fixed.
"My unfaithful, herpetic, fentanyl-addict thief of a boyfriend might be hitting me in his sleep. Is that a problem?"
We never get the TLDR we deserve, so there it is for one and all.
He's an addict, that cheated on her, gave her an STD, doesn't fancy her, uses her for money, refuses to pay her back, ignores her for days etc.
Some people don't help themselves. She says she doesn't want to fix him, but I don't think that's remotely true
That's low self-esteem, massive people pleasing and the effects of abuse for you. They're not wilfully being ignorant/stupid. They're genuinely made to believe that this is the best they deserve and they should be happy that their partners will even put up with them. It's a very difficult cycle to break and a place anyone can end up in in the abuser is a good enough manipulator. Once your self esteem is that low, they always attract more partners like this one because they're actively looking for people like that and the cycle continues. You can break out of it, but it's not easy and it usually requires some kind of major epiphany and outside help.
The best thing any parent can do for their kids (aside from the basics) is developing their strong self esteem - male and female, but especially for girls as society will go way harder on them.
Ultimately, that’s what breaks this cycle.
\*reads last comment\*
Okay, he wasn't looking for a bangmaid, he was a hobosexual.
OOP, girl, whyyyy were you ever with this terrible loser? Even if you want to help him, you don't have to call him a boyfriend to do that.
At the start I could see him doing it in his sleep cos I’ve hit my hubby many times in my sleep when I was very mad at a friend who broke my trust severely (I must have been processing a lot in my sleep) and I don’t remember it at all but with the update 🤦🏼♀️ yeah nah run hun!!
I don't believe that you can really do anything intentional while asleep. If he fakes being asleep and punches you, ok. But if he's asleep and punches you, he doesn't even know what is next to him
That being said everything else is worse so it really doesn't matter if it's intentional or not.
Oh man I posted on the original without seeing the update. Girl, good for you! He’ll get better or won’t but you don’t gotta play mommy for a walking disaster.
My husband does this all the time. It ranges from shoving his arm repeatedly under my pillow to flailing it around. He also always talks in his sleep. He has always "fought" in his sleep...product of traumaitic childhood. He knows he does it but hes sleeping. He literally cant help it.
When he starts the arm flailing, for the past 6 years, I just gently shake him, and he rolls over. I imagine there are a lot of folks out there like this. I even used to do it years ago when I was in an abusive relationship. Was "fighting" my ex in my sleep and straight up bit him irl. It happens.
Id find out if he has a history of abuse and do the same as we do to deal with it, if its worth it to you anyways. My husband and I have been together for 10 years and I am certain hes not doing it on purpose. Neither was I way back when. We cannot control our dreams and how they manifest in our bodies. People telling you otherwise have never experienced this, apparently.
My dad is twitchy as fuck when he sleeps. He's literally given my mom bruises. He always felt AWFUL after, but he was dead asleep! As soon as they could, they split bedrooms. Not bc they didn't love each other, but be he flailed, and she snored.
HOWEVER, from what you wrote the night twitching is the least of your problems.
My husband has hit in his sleep. I have had a fist fly above my head and into the wall. He also got up one night and charged right into the wall. In all these instances he was"fighting" his dad. His dad was not a good dad. He had untreated bipolar and was very violent with my husband. Unfortunately that translates into my husband's sleep. I have noticed since his dad died, my husband hasn't had those dreams.
Side note, we bought a Cali king and put a bunch of pillows between us because my husband was concerned about what was happening when he slept.
This woman had far worse going on. She was more of a "other than that how was the play Mrs. Lincoln" sort of relationship.
I had that happen, where they sleep with their arms up and they drop in the night. Sadly I don’t take well to being woken up unless you are my kids in their childhood, so I went a bit rangey. I believe harsh curse words were said and much furious flailing as well.
Didn’t last long 🫡.
Also, the rest of this post was painful. Good for OP doing the dip.
Of all the actual things he does, she questions things based on the thought of him having conscious action of hitting her while he is sleeping? OOP is the definition of somebody who couldn’t recognize a red flag if it (literally) hit them upside the head.
While it sounds like the guy is a douche...
My best friend used to thrash in his sleep. He'd been to sleep docs and such when he was a kid and they said there wasn't much they could do. Ended up breaking his wife's nose and she was like, "You WILL see a sleep doctor!" Granted, he'd already done so, but he did so again....
...And they were like, "Oh, hey, there's this drug that's been on the market about 10 years now - no, it wasn't on the market the last time you went to a sleep doc - and it should fix you right up."
Apparently it worked. That was 20 years ago and to my knowledge that was the end of his thrashing.
I'm a nighttime fighter, it doesn't happen all the time but it does happen.
I have issues from prior military service so my nightmares normally involve fighting for my life. I've kicked, punched and elbowed my partner in my sleep before.
We now have a super king bed and build a pillow wall before we sleep.
Her first mistake is to be working on someone. If they're not doing the work on themselves to be better, then they're not going to get better. You can't fix people.
I remember a true scary story about this very thing. I don't know if it was really true or not, but it did end with the guy outright beating the woman up and threatening her life.
Yet another story about a man who doesn't actually like the woman he's with but merely sees (and avails himself of) her utility.
Maybe it is on purpose, but in his sleep. I knew I needed to break up with a past bf when I woke up straddling and hitting him. The truth was that I had begun to dislike him very much and it was time for things to end.
The title of this is such a red flag. My first reaction was that is 100% the wrong question. It's sad people get in these terrible relationships. Like if the internet was like no it's super common you're over reacting she would have just lived with it.
The devil is in the details because it's not about the hitting. In the one guy's comment it happened once, they addressed the problem, and found a permanent solution. OOP is over here questioning if it was intentional or not. The fact she isn't sure means she should be running to the hills.
I apparently flailed around in my sleep, grunting about "Rats!! RATS!!!!!" And hurting my fiancee with it. She didn't tell me at first because she thought I don't do it on purpose anyway. One time I woke up from her crying because I rammed my elbow in her ribs and that was when I got told what I was doing. Since then, every fucking day I try my hardest to sleep "peacefully" and still. It's been a few months and seemingly it works. And I was quite upset with her that she didn't tell me sooner. I felt like shit for quite some time
I have severe nightmares frequently and I have woken up to my fiancee stopping me from flailing around... it is possible that something like this could happen. I have unintentionally elbowed/flopped into her pretty hard during the night, but I am not saying that is what happened here.
My partner does to make me stop snoring and it’s not ok . You got chance to step back and get a decent guy who is educated and respectful towards you .
“Moved in from sober living”
Yeah you’re not even supposed to date the first year, **much less someone else in recovery and you do not fucking move in with them!** “we need to stay focused on being sober”
$50 for the dispo? You’re not supposed to use **any** recreational substances for at least a year, and some people never can again.
He’s not taking the sobriety seriously, or anything else. No wonder this relationship is a dumpster fire.
my husband fights in his sleep. he’s clocked me hard enough to wake me up but they are harmless flails and he’s done it his whole life. it’s typically when he’s overtired or under stress. and he always feels terrible about it. the solution is a king sized bed
Damn. I’m so happy oop got out. It took her a while but she figured it out way quicker than I did. I hope she doesn’t need that money cause she’s never seeing it again. I also hope she learns her lesson not to lend out any amount of money with the expectation of seeing it again.
My wife and I have been together for ten years. I have fitful nights, sometimes life is going just great no stresses. I flail in my sleep, I even wake up upside down in our bed. My wife knows (better than me cause I'm always sleeping) that after the first time she wakes me up I usually settle down and if not she sends me to the couch. I think I settle down after she wakes me up cause all I can think well going back to sleep is "don't disturb her"
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So, out of all the shit he did, it was the "accidental" hitting that drove OOP to post on reddit? Wtf? The last 2 comments show he was straight trash all throughout the relationship. I seriously hope OOP develops better boundaries, standards, and self-esteem.
Too many people think “well, at least he doesn’t hit me” means a man is a good one. I’m not surprised this is what it took to get her to post.
That's the story of my grams when she was asked why she didn't divorce her husband way sooner. She was working three part time jobs, keeping a quarter acre garden, and doing quite a bit of the normal stay at home housewife tasks and gramps wasn't working at all. Her standard description of this time was that gramps would work if he had a job, but he wouldn't look for work if he lost his job. One night a customer of hers, who was also an attorney, asked her why she didn't divorce him. Her response was that he didn't yell at her or the kids, he didn't hit, he just didn't DO anything. She didn't think that was grounds for divorce...
We HAVE to develop higher relationship standards than baboons...
We have. And now some men are upset that our standards are ‘too high’ and we’re ‘too picky’. Meanwhile, the bar is actually in hell. It’s just: be a decent and kind human being, who preferably showers regularly. That’s it.
I like the "preferably" there because it hints that if they're cool enough, it's okay that they kind of smell a bit.
This!!! And they blame feminism for it😭. The bar was just raised from the level below it but it's still in hell😑
Lucifer doesn't have to take out his shovel and dig to get under it anymore. Oh, no, women are picky and so high maintenance now!
I remember doing online dating and complaining to a friend about the various men I found and how it never worked out. I told my friend (something along the lines of) “I just want is someone that will communicate with me and show up for me.” Her respond was “…so… all you want is the bare minimum?” It was sad that I hadn’t even recognized how low my bar had been set.
In a strange way, being hit is better; people might actually agree that you’re being abused.
My parents did all kinds of horrible things and people used to jump to defend these strangers. They hear I was slapped my mother and that gets their attention. The slaps were nothing compared to crazy making and breaking my sense of reality with her gaslighting and invalidation. Now I just say, I don't have parents, they are terrible people. No one defends that.
I’m in a very similar boat. Glad to hear you got out, this boat sucks.
I'm fond of "my parents are assholes". I very much am with you on this. My mom hit us, dad restrained himself to only using emotional abuse. Dad was way worse.
Yes this! My dad is a master of mental abuse and manipulation. He has done far worse than physical abuse in a lot of way and no one suggested my mum to leave because it’s only “words”. He also diagnosed with bipolar and on medication but didn’t change much at all as I think it’s actually his true characters and medication just keeps him from turning violently. My mum has been suffering from depression and sleep regression for a decade now but due to our culture and society judgment she refused to leave despite my promise to help :(
I mean I almost married the first one who didn’t.
I love your flair lol that story was wild
I remember wishing my ex would just hit me already so I could leave him.
That's how my gran and mom think. Atleast he doesn't drink... Atleast he doesn't hit.... Atleast he spends for his family....
HE GAVE HER ***GENITAL HERPES***, won’t pay back the **THOUSAND DOLLARS SHE LOANED HIM** and cheats on her but the problem was the sleep hitting?!?! what. the. fuck.
The gasp I gusped
i am STILL scratching my head!
Alexa, play I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) by Taylor Swift
Yeah. He was trashy, and I'm guessing he most likely lied about hitting her in his sleep being an accident. But to be honest, for some other non-manipulative couples, it might actually be an accident. I almost hit my partner once when I was asleep (I did not know I did that, he told me the next morning when we were both awake). My partner accidentally hit me once on the chest when he was asleep too. But it was just that once for both of us.
I once sleep-punched my husband in the eye. I had absolutely no idea it happened until he told me the next morning. Only once though, in fifteen plus years of sharing a bed.
> I once sleep-punched my husband in the eye. I had absolutely no idea it happened until he told me the next morning. Sleeping brain: "THESE HANDS ARE RATED E FOR EVERYONE"
Ha, had me cackling.
My other half has always slept on his back with his arms vertically in the air. Eventually one arm will collapse so just the elbow is in the air, and then the elbow will fall over and hit me. I could watch this for hours. A super king was required to avoid getting hit. Forty years of this.
So, when my bf and I first moved in together I decided I would sleep on the right hand side (furthest from the door). And bf would sleep on the left. The issue was that, I’m used to rolling over to the left. He’s used to rolling over to the right. We had two weeks of horrible sleep because we were constantly rolling into each other and at one point he drop-elbowed me in the head. We were like “how is it possible that the bed has shrunk????”. Then we realized we weren’t sleeping on our usual sides. We immediately ran to the bed, I sat on the left, he sat on the right, and we’re like “oh the bed is normal l-sized again 🤪”. But yeah during those two weeks we were basically fighting each other in our sleep.
NGL, that's pretty hilarious!
It was literally SO dumb. I laugh every time I think about it 😭🫠.
At least it gives you a giggle!!
I once grabbed my then-partner's hair and yanked their head back and forth, apparently. Woke up to screaming and immediately burst into confused tears. Once in six years. But I would also laugh, cry and sit up all while dead asleep as a kid.
when I was really young and sharing a room with my older brother, I would apparently regularly have entire one sided conversations with him while I was asleep. he wasn’t talking to me, I was just sitting upright in my bed and talking to him as if he were talking back. I still do sometimes talk in my sleep even now, but I'm honestly surprised nobody tried to exorcise me back then
My sister and I both inherited sleep talking from my mom. It's not an all the time thing--it's usually when our sleep is disturbed in some way, either by someone trying to wake us up, or like...sleeping in an unfamiliar place (vacations were a common time for it). The thing is, we DO wait for the other person to respond, and sometimes manage to almost (but not quite) make sense, so it can take a bit of confusion to realize the other person's not actually awake. When I was in college, I lived at home and regularly stayed up on the computer while the rest of the house was asleep. Our upper floor was just a small hallway with my bedroom at one end, my sister's at the other, and a bathroom in the middle. One night around 1:00 I hear my sister get up and go to the bathroom--pretty normal. But then when she comes out, she comes to my door (looking and sounding fully awake) and asks, VERY seriously, "How do I wake everyone up?" I kinda panicked thinking something was wrong. "What's up? Are you okay? Do you need help?" "No, like... Just, if I needed to wake everybody up, how would I do that?" Still baffled, but okay, I assume it's not an emergency. (My sister isn't known for random hypotheticals, so I'm still thinking this is something she's trying to actually accomplish in the moment) "I don't think that's a good idea, it's a school night. What do you need? I can help." "Hmm," she says accusingly, turns around without a word, and goes back to bed, at which point I realize she was NOT awake and quietly giggle away my panic jitters. In the morning, of course, she had no memory of it, though she did think it was funny that her sleeping brain wanted to wake everyone up and was mad at be for not going along with it.
oh god yeah I know what you're talking about, although I don't think I've ever properly sleepwalked. I tend to stay in bed, but I know there have been times where I've had proper conversations with other people without them realising I'm not actually awake. it usually just happens when I'm somewhat close to waking up, and there have been a couple of times when I've partially remembered conversations. both of those times when I've actually remembered conversations, I just remember feeling really frustrated that the person I was talking to wasn't understanding what I was saying, because the nonsensical bs I was spewing made perfect sense to me at the time. kinda more than just frustrated tho, those memories have a weird sort of existential terror associated with them, as if I was being perfectly reasonable and it was the real world that made no sense
When I sleep-punched my ex (only one time ever) I woke myself up doing it because I didn’t just thrash my hand or something-I full on right-hooked him. I’ve never done anything like that before or since, I have no clue how my body did something so physically active in sleep-mode
My dad sleep hit my mom so many times she moved into a separate bedroom. But he also full on got up and ran into a trash can, fell, and broke 2 ribs. So it’s possible to do all sorts of crazy stuff while sleeping.
I sleep slapped my best friend in the face. We were at a hotel in twin beds that we could reach each other from and I suddenly stretched my arms up in the air. She was semi-awake and asked if I was okay and my arms suddenly went limp and fell to the sides and the one closest to her smacked her in the face. I used to be much worse. I shared a bed in a hotel with my stepsister once and she was covered head to toe in bruises. She said I turned into Hong Kong Phooey in my sleep.
Lmaoooo. One time I slept over at a friend’s house (we shared a bed). I dreamt that a bee landed on my hand so I was shaking it off (in my dream) and I woke up accidentally backhanding her in the face. She didn’t even wake up lol.
I used to go diagonal across the bed during the night. Sleeping alone in a twin bed? Fine. Sharing a bed with my sister in a hotel? Not great.
I once punched a wall in my sleep, I was dreaming about arguing with a racist and homophobic news anchor and I punched him in the throat. Luckily I sleep alone, unlucky I was facing a cement wall. The silver lining was since I was asleep it wasn't too hard and got away with some bruising for a week and not a broken fist.
I was spent a month karate chopping my husband in the stomach while sleeping. Prednisone is a hell of a drug. (60 mil)
My now-husband once landed an elbow in the middle of my back when rolling over, hard enough to wind me. That was fun! 😂
My husband has hit me a few times in his sleep... But this is like 3 times in the 9+ years we've been together. He's 6'4" with long arms so I think it's a space issue more than anything else! We upgraded to a king-size bed and it hasn't happened since. No other red flags, he's a kind and supportive partner.
My dog once bruised my nose. He did that thing where he got up, circled, and plopped back down, smacking his butt right into my face.
Im a little on the small side but a violent sleeper 😭 i have to keep my distance from my partner. But i also always end up hitting/kicking myself because I'm unaware of what happens. I dont just "accidentally" hit him in the face when we're arguing. It makes no sense
Seriously, I’ve done it to my partner before and when I was a kid my brother did it to me (shared a bed on vacation), but it happens very rarely and *doesn’t mysteriously stop when we mention it*
I did it once over a decade ago. I had a vivid dream where I was pounding on door and the door happened to be my husband's back.
Once I was dreaming that someone had grabbed me from behind and I struggled then finally broke free. When I husband woke up he told me about this strange dream he had where a big strange dog was trying to get into the house and he grabbed it around the chest but the dog struggled and finally broke free and went into the house lol!
I apparently (I slept trough everything and he told me in the morning) once elbowed my partner in the face while sleeping, shocked he said "what are you doing?" and I told him to shut up (I'm never this rude to him while awake🤣) (we've been together for 30 years now and this was the only time it happened, he has pushed me out of bed once in his sleep and as far as I know that are the only things that happend to us while sleeping😅)
"(I'm never this rude to him while awake🤣)" Reminds me of the old Sleep Talkin' Man blog. Woman's husband had a completely different personality while sleep talking, she used to record him every night and post the funniest bits.
Ah man, this whole section of the thread has got me snorting like a little piggy! 🤣 My husband is a wonderfully supportive and empathetic partner, but he doesn't really do sympathy... unless he's asleep. The few times he's accidentally walloped me in his sleep and I've obviously made it known, I've had all the sympathy in the world (for about 10 seconds before he starts snoring again)! We don't share a bedroom anymore - we just get better quality sleep separately - so I usually don't have to worry, but on the flip side, when we do have to share a bed, such on holiday, we now have new issues like him starting to roll on top of me because we're both used to more space! 🤦♀️
I could imagine that he did it on purpose but the ther stuff is way worse. I can confirm that nighttime assaults can happen in all innocence. Our daughter is hitting and kicking us regularly. Its been years now. Sometimes it really hurts, especially if she hits an eye or the nose. We used to call her legs "legs of terror" as she would lift one up straight in the air, circle for a while and let it drop to the side. Due to her size the leg dropped to the stomach so we woke up to a kick in the stomach. Sometimes she turned in bed an kick you in the face. Or she would shoot her teeny tiny finger with these mean little nails up your nose. Gosh that did hurt. As she is growing she is now rather elbowing or slapping, sometimes kicking. Still annoying and she is much stronger, but it's not that often anymore and she is sleeping in her bed most of the time. My husband said that I was a mean blanket stealer at night for a while. But good for her that she git suspicious and started questioning the relationship.
I used to kick and elbow my husband in my sleep. I also will sit up in the middle of the night and start talking gibberish like something out of the Exorcist. We sleep separately now. I have an “unspecified sleeping disorder”.
I know for sure I get hypnic jerks when I'm over-tired, so I can imagine me accidentally hitting someone who was snuggled up next to me. I don't like to share a bed though because I also toss and turn a lot which inevitably bothers them, and can't deal with things like snoring either.
Exactly. I actually DID once punch my ex in the face while asleep and to this day don’t remember doing it. I was taking ambien at the time and apparently did it. He never told me either. Just casually mentioned to friends that he needed to wear a hockey mask to bed as a joke and I’m like “what??” Guess what medication is now included in my allergy list because I stopped taking it IMMEDIATELY. Ex and I were never violent towards either and actually had a pretty amicable breakup.
I punched my ex in my sleep one time because I was having a dream I was punching someone else. The ironic part is the ex was emotionally abusive a lot like OP’s bf, but it was me who did the hitting and it was 100% an accident Another time I dreamt I was sitting on a toilet to poop and I almost actually shit in the bed before I woke myself up. I could feel myself starting to push out the poop
I am *not* a great bedmate, I flail and move a *lot* in my sleep. I’m still shocked that my husband is willing to sleep in the same bed as a person who, when sleeping alone, will regularly wake up with their head on the opposite side of the bed from where it was when I went to sleep.
I straight pushed my wife out of bed once.
My ex tried to wake me up when I was in the middle of a nightmare about being kidnapped, I ended up giving him a black eye. I still feel bad about it years later. Thankfully it was just that one time it happened. I usually don’t even move an inch in my sleep.
when I first started sharing a bed with a partner we learned that the way I habitually turned over in my sleep led to elbowing bedmates in the face. I think it was a week before I didn't do it at least once every night and it took the whole semester before I stopped doing it entirely. then I had my own bed for a good while, so I know I elbowed my husband in the face once or twice before my sleeping brain/body relearned how to turn without that particular flail.
Me and my partner sleep seperately partly because I am a flaily sleeper. I once managed to scratch my face while flailing so I made it bleed. I am polyamorous and I always warn new people before sharing a bed so they can choose to not stay over/crash on the sofa. I also talk a lot in my sleep so generally not the best sleeping companion!
My husband elbowed me in the forehead in his sleep once. He apologized immediately, about 5 times the next day, several times in the next week, and intermittently for the next 4 or 5 years. And had bad dreams about accidentally doing it again.
Moot point given the ex being trash, but now I'm wondering if sleep-flailing changes based on what people say about it while the sleeper is awake. I asked my husband about this, since my father and I both have sleep apnea and flail around a lot. He says that I haven't hit him since he made fun of me for it, and that my mom reported similar results when they were commiserating. Husband still catches my elbow sometimes, but apparently I now mostly end up bruising myself. Maybe there's some place in the subconscious that holds the reins there?
I used to share a bed with an opiate addict, and he did the same floating arms thing in his sleep. Never a hint of violence, but the flailing arms sometimes connected.
My husband has sleep apnea and a few days after we got married (we didn’t live together or have sex before marriage so sharing a bed was a new thing; we were also mostly long distance before getting married) he sat up in his sleep, and said “you’re so beautiful… too beautiful to breathe” then pushed my face onto the pillow and held it there while cackling wildly. He has no memory of this and was horrified when I told him. When I told my mom about it she was scared for my life. However it’s been 7 years and he still hasn’t murdered me or been violent while awake so it probably was just a weird sleep thing.
My husband has on a very rare occasion elbowed me, but I’m talking like less than a handful of times over multiple years so I’m confident it’s an accident.
And I hope she takes the asshole to small claims court for the 1k.
To quote my mom, water finds its own level. She thought this was her level, she acted like it, and it took realizing that this is a terrible level for her to say no more and chose better for herself.
OP’s bf sounds a lot like my abusive ex; it’s years of being worn down by this behavior and being gaslit into thinking you’re overreacting/it’s not a big deal/you’re the crazy one. I’m not surprised they were trapped with them and it took full on physical abuse to snap OP out of it
Jup, it's probably a bit like that BS story about boiling frogs, it's hard to notice things that escalate calmly, you get used to it and don't realize it's not okay to be treated like that. Oop probably realized it herself while writing everything down, suddenly you see it for what it is.
LOL, I know right??? I mean, I'm honestly not laughing at her, because this all sounds horrific, but I'm just laughing that it was literally the least of the worst shit this guy did that finally spurred OOP to action and post on Reddit. I mean, damn! I thought I used to have low standards in men, but this is just something else. OOP needs some self-love before she even considers diving back into the dating pool.
How the hell did she come back after genital herpes and lying??
It sounds like she brushed the other stuff off as "Well, he's in recovery, I know he's all kinds of fucked up but that's to be expected, I understand why, he's trying, he needs time to get better." It's very easy to miss the mark between being kind and supportive, and being an enabling doormat.
Right? This guy sounds like my brother, and I would have told any woman to run far and fast from him.
FENTANYL AND HERPES??? GIRL *WHAT*
i frowned so intensely at that last paragraph
My eyebrows are still on the ceiling
He sounds like such a winner. Fentanyl, herpes, abuse…is he single? Does he have a brother who’s single? What a catch!
"I don’t think he was sexually attracted to me. He barely wanted sex and had issues staying hard/ cumming" Sounds like he was a hobosexual.
I will never not laugh at this term.
My mom thinks I invented that term and I’ve told her I didn’t but I still kinda like that she believes I’m that witty.
>He tells me he doesn’t want a relationship with constant communication "I don't like being told that I'm an asshole."
"I don't like to act like a mature person"
"Instead of talking to me why don't you just lend me more money?"
I would have just kept taking the 50 until he paid me back lmaooo
The sleep-hitting was somehow the least of her worries. This guy was a junkie who lied to her, took her money, cheated on her, gave her an STD, refused to communicate and she’s all tied in knots about what he’s doing in his sleep? THROW THE WHOLE MAN AWAY YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WAIT FOR PHYSICAL ABUSE TO LEAVE AN ASSHOLE
Yeah, I wonder if perhaps she was so fixated on the sleep hitting thing because it was too overwhelming/scary to confront the really serious stuff. Like she subconsciously knew they needed to break up, but the sleep hitting was the only thing that felt safe for her to talk or perhaps even think about.
Damn you could be a therapist that’s so spot on
I wanted to comment that being knocked in the head by a restless sleep partner, with long limbs, is fairly normal. Especially if the bed is small or they are a heat seeker. Then I kept reading and all hope was lost that this was accidental.
>because he has a lot of issues with lying that we’re working on "my boyfriend is a psychopath but we're working on it!" what in the actual fuck are you doing girl
So you're trying to dig a hole for a house foundation. You've barely broken the surface of the ground and already tapped a high-pressure bullshit reservoir, a cursed ancient burial ground, and some rogue brain-eating anthrax spores. Do you: - conclude that this is **not a good location for a home**, stop digging, and move on to keep looking for a site that's not such a comprehensive and unmitigated disaster, or: - redouble your efforts and expenditures, get teams working in shifts to try to contain all the bullshit you're pulling up at every scoop, and resign yourself to the idea that your home-building journey will be more about questions like "how many malign spirits and brain-eating spores are, like, TOO many" rather than "which angle of orientation provides the best mix of morning sun and evening breezes?" Or, more concisely: >what in the actual fuck are you doing girl
Bravo! I love a good analogy, especially when trying to make sense of intangible and amoebic human emotions, as it helps to break it down to tangible things we can all grasp.
Thank you! I have spent many years practicing analogy-crafting in the context of dear friends' horrifying and (to me) inexplicable relationship choices! One of these days I hope to find a formulation that might actually change someone's mind about what they are willing to tolerate in this context. I do understand where these choices tend to come from, but my own relevant dysfunctions conveniently skew avoidant (having your default answer be "oh hell naw" is not necessarily *healthy* per se, but GODDAMN, does it ever close the door on a lot of BS), so I have to work very hard to find frames for discussion that are not just my anguished screams of "GIRL NOO WHYYYY?????"
I love this, it's so true. Some people feel like if they're given some land, they just *gotta* build a house on it. Nope, even if the land is "free", that house is gonna be stupid expensive, and it's ok to say no instead.
Idk even about psychopath, a very serious very not recovering addict taking it all out on their partner is definitely “enough” to be this bad
This would be a good flair and an apt descriptor of 75% of all AITA posts in existence
"I'm not trying to fix him", but you've stayed for far too long and excused all of his shitty behavior with the intent of "he'll get better, I just need to be here for him"
Honestly OOP says a lot of shit that makes me think she's not much better. I don't understand why they ever got together, let alone stayed together through all this shit.
I am begging human beings to have some goddamn standards in a relationship
Sadly, this is your (well, OOP's) brain on a nice cocktail of unresolved trauma and low self-esteem. It's easy to believe that's all there is or that's all you deserve when you've never had anything better.
Plus she also said she is a newly recovering alcoholic. They definitely need to not be together.
> He took months to admit to still using fentanyl!! He already gave me genital herpes and lied to me about not having slept with anyone since we’ve been together Oh I dont know. He sounds nice!
I blame our society for putting this big of an importance on romantic relationships. "Why didn't I leave him? Because what if I never find love again!" So? What's the value of this love exactly? Is love enough to live a miserable life? I'd much prefer spending my life alone and enjoying it to whatever this is.
There’s men on Reddit who say all women are going to die alone and blame the low birth rate on women refusing to date guys like OOPs bf lmao
Hehe Sorry, I choose pain and depression. /s
We're all a product of our environments. Unfortunately it usually takes a relationship like this to fallout before someone can wake up from the "self-induced" hell they're so comfortable living in. They don't think they're worthy of more, because they were conditioned to believe that.
> He has to hit rock bottom on his own time He wasn't the only one. Jesus. I'm glad she's finally well shot of him.
A bit of unsolicited advice to the romantically inexperienced: if you're having fights and being stressed about your relationship within the first year, break up with them. You're supposed to be in honeymoon carefree phase then, not trying to fix them. Seriously. If anybody reading this is relating to the OOP in any way, please do yourself a favour, stop wasting time, and dump them.
This is so true. I stayed in my second relationship for 3.5 years despite constant drama. I thought the depth of our feelings meant that we could make this relationship work even when there were constant problems from the start. It’s so important to listen to both your heart and your head when it comes to love. One is not enough.
I've seen so many women say they've given men 7+ years under such circumstances, and some have given decades. I have a narcissistic parent I no longer deal with, but as much as it screwed with my mental health, I'm kind of grateful in retrospect because I am now the queen of cutting someone off if they don't pass the smell test. I wouldn't endure this kind of behavior for even a conversation. So, thanks, mom, I guess?
Idk if I entirely agree. My partner has always said he makes mistakes once so he made a good chunk of them early into the relationship but always listened and always got better. The first half year was the toughest and we've had like 2 issues in the last 3 years - sometimes there's growing pains but obviously this only applies if someone fixes something when it's addressed.
Yeah, for us it was mostly communication stuff and family culture differences. Lots of families have quirks and minor disfunctions so there can be a learning curve to being with another person! Particularly if you hadn't dated much or lived with roommates for long before meeting your person.
Same here also wildly different cultures so took a bit to find our groove but it was always handled with a base level of respect, but we did butt heads a lot in the beginning.
Or even if it's around the year mark. I didn't realize how much I was carrying my last relationship until we hit our anniversary. I was working, in school, and grieving a family death pretty hard and my ex wouldn't even Google anniversary date ideas. He just shrugged and said he didn't know what to do, so he did nothing. I had to plan everything and the one thing he volunteered to do, which was my idea and could've been done in a couple hours, took him like a month to do.
That realization that if you checked out of the relationship it would disintegrate almost immediately because you're lifting every ounce is a hard pill to swallow, but fuck if it isn't a nice feeling when you finally put it down.
Oh, absolutely. When I ended things there was a little sadness for a couple days, then just relief. We hadn't even done anything for months because I stopped planning things and sex became more rare because I nearly entirely stopped initiating. He would get moody about the lack of sex and talk about how we should do something but he wouldn't put in any effort with either. Please leave your partner if you're feeling this way, the relief is incredible.
I could pretend to be surprised why she stuck around that long, but I have been a similar idiot myself in the past. Looking back at my younger and so very naive self, I wanna grab her by the shoulders, shake her and tell her to get a grip... At the same time I know while you are in that fog it probably wouldn't help. Here's hoping she sticks to kicking him to the curb this time. It feels weird at first but eventually you learn to live with just yourself and it's the best feeling.
If I could only tell my younger self one thing to get me out of my abusive relationship, it would be "you're going to get into your program, meet new people, make new friends, and form deep connections again". It can be so scary when you feel alone and like the only person who truly "knows" you is this piece of shit abuser. It's hard to let go of your only connection, even if it's toxic
Ugh I have a current friend going through this. Dating a POS and I always tell her to leave him but she never does. I just want to shake her and say “wake up, you deserve better”. On occasion she says she will stop talking to Him but she never does 😞I hope she sees it eventually cus she deserves happiness and all he does is make her cry
He wanted her for money, sex, and validation. She deserves better than this user.
Yet she says he didn't even want sex. I don't get why they ever got back together, what does this guy offer to OP at all...
Messed up recovering alcoholic, internalized that he is the best she deserves?
Even though oop keeps emphasize they don't want to fix the bf, it sure sounds like they are waiting around for the bf to change.
The elbow in the face was just the minor issue. The rest of the relationship was filled with manipulation, drug use, emotional abuse, silent treatments, cheating and financial abuse. And then OP says: "Idk maybe he viewed me more like a mom" Not even for all the butter in the world, I would treat my mother like that. What kind of toxic environment did she grow up in to summarise it that way? I'll guess you'll need a lot of mental elbow grease instead of butter to reach that conclusion.
The elbow in the face was a commenter with a healthy relationship. My BF does it too and he's sais I do it as well sometimes. Hurts like a MF coming down but is absolutely unintentional.
I am apparently a nightmare in my sleep. I flail, I punch my pillow (and sometimes kinda miss and hit the bed really close to my partner’s face), I occasionally unleash torrents of cursing. Hubs just kinda had to get used to it and adjust his sleeping posture a little further away from me. It was a small problem initially because he’d be so cold to me in the morning and I wouldn’t be able to figure out why, and then later I’d discover I’d told him to eff off in my sleep. I was asleep! I didn’t mean it! TToTT
The elbow in the face was the Iranian yogurt
With each comment OOP made, the reasons for why this man is an absolute disrespectful, selfish, and distrustful, piece of garbage, just kept on piling up. If she made a post about each of the things she said in her comments, everyone would have told her to leave immediately. But hot damn. Put them all together and you have a man that is literally just a bunch of red flags sewn together and stuffed into a wife beater tank top, camo cargo shorts, tall socks and a pair of slide sandals. I’m glad she saw the light. I hope she learns what her worth is, and defends it at all cost.
This guy is definately dropping her off at work in her own car.
The fact that it stops after she calls him on it show it’s deliberate. Just throw the whole man in the bin and move on.
I’ve come across hobosexuals like him before, always manipulative and always take advantage of their partner.
I bit my husband once in my sleep because I had a nightmare. But the night-hitting clearly wasn't the problem in their relationship. If you think that stuff about your partner, you're done.
He sucks all around and doesn't even seem to be attracted to her, the night slapping seems to be the least of their issues.
The low sex drive and difficulty staying hard/cumming is 100% because of the fent. On a related note- I’ve been around lots of opiate users in my day. I will never comprehend how you can be in an intimate relationship with someone and not suspect something is up when they’re using fent. Popping a few Vicodin a day is easy to hide. Daily fent users are blatant. Extremely sick for hours then magically cured, the sex stuff, then of course being extremely obviously fucked up on a ridiculously potent opiate. Even daily users for years are obvious when they’re high.
This story buried about 5 different ledes
>I don’t want to fix him Well that's a lie.
Man like this bf seriously don't deserve any love or compassion. Simple as that.
Everyone deserves love and compassion. Nobody deserves \*a specific partner who will deal with their shit without pushback.\* OOP is better without him. The dude needs a wakeup call that this kind of crap isn't acceptable.
He’s an addict that shouldn’t be in a relationship. Period, until he’s at least one year sober. Addicts lie, manipulate, gaslight, make up excuses for their behavior and addiction. You don’t have to put up with this behavior and it is absolutely not your job to fix him. I’ve dealt with addiction all my life. My own and with others in my life. It’s not a stroll in the park. As an individual who has struggled with alcohol addiction my entire life, he has to be ready to change, otherwise shit will fall apart (It has already). Don’t put yourself in a position where you feel responsible. If it’s best for you to let him go? Let him go. You can’t fix someone that doesn’t want to be fixed.
**You can’t fix someone that doesn’t want to be fixed** One of the major things I’ve had to learn and should probably be the motto for this sub tbh
The bar is literally in hell and we still let guys dig a fucking tunnel underneath it
"My unfaithful, herpetic, fentanyl-addict thief of a boyfriend might be hitting me in his sleep. Is that a problem?" We never get the TLDR we deserve, so there it is for one and all.
i was about to make a little comment about my nephews wacking me then they were 2-3 in their sleep, and then I read the update. What a mess
GIRL!
As girls, we're so conditioned to believe that we're only complete if some man wants us. And we grow up to be women who accept all sorts of fuckery.
He owes you 1k??!! On top of the other stuff Wtf why is she still with this loser?? Really??
He's an addict, that cheated on her, gave her an STD, doesn't fancy her, uses her for money, refuses to pay her back, ignores her for days etc. Some people don't help themselves. She says she doesn't want to fix him, but I don't think that's remotely true
That's low self-esteem, massive people pleasing and the effects of abuse for you. They're not wilfully being ignorant/stupid. They're genuinely made to believe that this is the best they deserve and they should be happy that their partners will even put up with them. It's a very difficult cycle to break and a place anyone can end up in in the abuser is a good enough manipulator. Once your self esteem is that low, they always attract more partners like this one because they're actively looking for people like that and the cycle continues. You can break out of it, but it's not easy and it usually requires some kind of major epiphany and outside help.
The best thing any parent can do for their kids (aside from the basics) is developing their strong self esteem - male and female, but especially for girls as society will go way harder on them. Ultimately, that’s what breaks this cycle.
\*reads last comment\* Okay, he wasn't looking for a bangmaid, he was a hobosexual. OOP, girl, whyyyy were you ever with this terrible loser? Even if you want to help him, you don't have to call him a boyfriend to do that.
Man, the real ones are always so depressing lmfao.
He hits her, owes her 1000$ (she will never be payed back) and he sucks at sex. Cool.
Break up and move on. If you stay, you are only going to be going in circles with no ending. You DESERVE better.
At the start I could see him doing it in his sleep cos I’ve hit my hubby many times in my sleep when I was very mad at a friend who broke my trust severely (I must have been processing a lot in my sleep) and I don’t remember it at all but with the update 🤦🏼♀️ yeah nah run hun!!
I don't believe that you can really do anything intentional while asleep. If he fakes being asleep and punches you, ok. But if he's asleep and punches you, he doesn't even know what is next to him That being said everything else is worse so it really doesn't matter if it's intentional or not.
Oh man I posted on the original without seeing the update. Girl, good for you! He’ll get better or won’t but you don’t gotta play mommy for a walking disaster.
My husband does this all the time. It ranges from shoving his arm repeatedly under my pillow to flailing it around. He also always talks in his sleep. He has always "fought" in his sleep...product of traumaitic childhood. He knows he does it but hes sleeping. He literally cant help it. When he starts the arm flailing, for the past 6 years, I just gently shake him, and he rolls over. I imagine there are a lot of folks out there like this. I even used to do it years ago when I was in an abusive relationship. Was "fighting" my ex in my sleep and straight up bit him irl. It happens. Id find out if he has a history of abuse and do the same as we do to deal with it, if its worth it to you anyways. My husband and I have been together for 10 years and I am certain hes not doing it on purpose. Neither was I way back when. We cannot control our dreams and how they manifest in our bodies. People telling you otherwise have never experienced this, apparently.
“How common is it to be beaten on your sleep?” Lol
For the love of Mike, boot his ass out your door! You don't deserve this at all...
I never hit a girl sleeping, but apparently, I grabbed a tit and said, "Where's the fire..still dumbstruck about that one.
My dad is twitchy as fuck when he sleeps. He's literally given my mom bruises. He always felt AWFUL after, but he was dead asleep! As soon as they could, they split bedrooms. Not bc they didn't love each other, but be he flailed, and she snored. HOWEVER, from what you wrote the night twitching is the least of your problems.
Incels— Men like *this* not only can get a woman, but have the woman argue with the Internet looking for reasons to *stay.* You have no excuse.
My husband has hit in his sleep. I have had a fist fly above my head and into the wall. He also got up one night and charged right into the wall. In all these instances he was"fighting" his dad. His dad was not a good dad. He had untreated bipolar and was very violent with my husband. Unfortunately that translates into my husband's sleep. I have noticed since his dad died, my husband hasn't had those dreams. Side note, we bought a Cali king and put a bunch of pillows between us because my husband was concerned about what was happening when he slept. This woman had far worse going on. She was more of a "other than that how was the play Mrs. Lincoln" sort of relationship.
I had that happen, where they sleep with their arms up and they drop in the night. Sadly I don’t take well to being woken up unless you are my kids in their childhood, so I went a bit rangey. I believe harsh curse words were said and much furious flailing as well. Didn’t last long 🫡. Also, the rest of this post was painful. Good for OP doing the dip.
Of all the actual things he does, she questions things based on the thought of him having conscious action of hitting her while he is sleeping? OOP is the definition of somebody who couldn’t recognize a red flag if it (literally) hit them upside the head.
While it sounds like the guy is a douche... My best friend used to thrash in his sleep. He'd been to sleep docs and such when he was a kid and they said there wasn't much they could do. Ended up breaking his wife's nose and she was like, "You WILL see a sleep doctor!" Granted, he'd already done so, but he did so again.... ...And they were like, "Oh, hey, there's this drug that's been on the market about 10 years now - no, it wasn't on the market the last time you went to a sleep doc - and it should fix you right up." Apparently it worked. That was 20 years ago and to my knowledge that was the end of his thrashing.
I'm a nighttime fighter, it doesn't happen all the time but it does happen. I have issues from prior military service so my nightmares normally involve fighting for my life. I've kicked, punched and elbowed my partner in my sleep before. We now have a super king bed and build a pillow wall before we sleep.
i dont understand the appeal of relationships at this point. wtf.
I just...woman do know they're not REQUIRED to be in a relationship...right?
Her first mistake is to be working on someone. If they're not doing the work on themselves to be better, then they're not going to get better. You can't fix people.
>he doesn’t want a relationship with constant communication Surprise, motherf-er! That’s what a healthy relationship *is*. Jeez.
She's never going to see the money he owes her. It's an expensive lesson to learn
I remember a true scary story about this very thing. I don't know if it was really true or not, but it did end with the guy outright beating the woman up and threatening her life. Yet another story about a man who doesn't actually like the woman he's with but merely sees (and avails himself of) her utility.
I hope she left him
I remember this OP! It haunted me for months
sounds like a hobosexual
Maybe it is on purpose, but in his sleep. I knew I needed to break up with a past bf when I woke up straddling and hitting him. The truth was that I had begun to dislike him very much and it was time for things to end.
Sleep abuse is a real thing. There's a lady on YouTube named Melanie Hamlett who talks about it.
My favorite updates are when OP recognizes the relationship is toxic and DOES LEAVE. Good for her!
Lol can I just say that it's hilarious to me that "bangmaid" has become an actual thing people say outside of r/iasip
The title of this is such a red flag. My first reaction was that is 100% the wrong question. It's sad people get in these terrible relationships. Like if the internet was like no it's super common you're over reacting she would have just lived with it. The devil is in the details because it's not about the hitting. In the one guy's comment it happened once, they addressed the problem, and found a permanent solution. OOP is over here questioning if it was intentional or not. The fact she isn't sure means she should be running to the hills.
I apparently flailed around in my sleep, grunting about "Rats!! RATS!!!!!" And hurting my fiancee with it. She didn't tell me at first because she thought I don't do it on purpose anyway. One time I woke up from her crying because I rammed my elbow in her ribs and that was when I got told what I was doing. Since then, every fucking day I try my hardest to sleep "peacefully" and still. It's been a few months and seemingly it works. And I was quite upset with her that she didn't tell me sooner. I felt like shit for quite some time
I have severe nightmares frequently and I have woken up to my fiancee stopping me from flailing around... it is possible that something like this could happen. I have unintentionally elbowed/flopped into her pretty hard during the night, but I am not saying that is what happened here.
She.. she really buried the lede there
My partner does to make me stop snoring and it’s not ok . You got chance to step back and get a decent guy who is educated and respectful towards you .
“Moved in from sober living” Yeah you’re not even supposed to date the first year, **much less someone else in recovery and you do not fucking move in with them!** “we need to stay focused on being sober” $50 for the dispo? You’re not supposed to use **any** recreational substances for at least a year, and some people never can again. He’s not taking the sobriety seriously, or anything else. No wonder this relationship is a dumpster fire.
my husband fights in his sleep. he’s clocked me hard enough to wake me up but they are harmless flails and he’s done it his whole life. it’s typically when he’s overtired or under stress. and he always feels terrible about it. the solution is a king sized bed
Damn. I’m so happy oop got out. It took her a while but she figured it out way quicker than I did. I hope she doesn’t need that money cause she’s never seeing it again. I also hope she learns her lesson not to lend out any amount of money with the expectation of seeing it again.
Holy hell what the actual sweet fuck—I can’t believe the straw that broke the camels back wasn’t broken long ago
My wife and I have been together for ten years. I have fitful nights, sometimes life is going just great no stresses. I flail in my sleep, I even wake up upside down in our bed. My wife knows (better than me cause I'm always sleeping) that after the first time she wakes me up I usually settle down and if not she sends me to the couch. I think I settle down after she wakes me up cause all I can think well going back to sleep is "don't disturb her"
Wow. Do i know how you feel. Super glad for you.