I’m a 26M and my fiancé is 25F. This happened tonight around 3:15 AM and we ended up in a pretty frustrating argument. I was asleep and she came into the room and kissed me on the forehead. The issue is that when I’m asleep and someone suddenly touches me, it jolts me awake and I sometimes have a reflex reaction. When she did it, I woke up startled and kicked my foot out as I woke up. I understand that getting kicked probably scared or upset her, and I wasn’t trying to do that. It was just a reflex from being startled awake and I didn’t even fully realize what was happening until I woke up. After I woke up I said something like “hey, please don’t wake me up like that, it scares me awake.” She initially laughed, but when I kept trying to explain why it bothers me she told me to “shut up” and left the room. I went downstairs afterward to ask why she told me to shut up when I was just trying to explain why it bothers me. At that point she focused on the fact that I kicked her and said that because I kicked her she had a reason to be mad. I tried explaining that the kick happened because I was startled awake, and that the bigger point is I’ve asked before not to be woken up by sudden touch. For context, this isn’t the first time this has come up. Earlier that same night during the UFC fights she startled me in a similar way and I told her that waking me up by touching me scares me awake. We’ve also had this conversation in the past. Another part of the frustration is that we’ve been trying to work on how we handle conflict in general. Sometimes when I bring up something that upset me, it can turn into her getting defensive and the focus shifting away from the original issue. This situation felt like another example of that pattern. Her response kept going back to “all I did was kiss you” and “you kicked me,” which made it feel like she wasn’t really acknowledging the point I was trying to make. From my perspective, I’m just asking for a simple boundary: please don’t wake me up by suddenly touching me because it startles me and my body reacts before I’m fully awake. Instead the conversation turned into her repeating that I kicked her. AITA for expecting that boundary to be respected?
NTA, you didn’t do anything you could have avoided. More concerning is that you have had this issue before and she is not respecting your boundaries. Like she knew it would wake you up she could have waited to kiss you in the morning. She is deflecting because she can’t take accountability, I would seriously consider if you want to spend the rest of your life this way
NTA, and you and I both know this situation goes deeper than this. From the looks of it she doesn’t respect your boundaries and crosses them on several occasions. Afterwards she tries to shift the blame on you.
She needs therapy on why she acts like that in conflicts, because this isn’t healthy.