My view is that WH is deflecting to take the focus off his own behaviour. That is arriving home at midnight when he is M.
On the basis that attack is the best form of defence. You then put the focus on yourself rather than him. Clever tactic of WH, he will keep using it as long as it works. My answer was eventually ' I don't agree let's leave it at that'. When WH persisted ' I don't want to go to that place at the moment, I need to sleep/eat/make bottom burps/go laugh like a drain." Then broken record with a smile "not now" and "I am too tired/hungry/farty bottomed/headached/etc" and "please stop" and "I have asked you to stop"
Then I recorded the convo.
I like Al Turtle on Boundaries and recommend his paper on it, written mainly I think for teenagers, it's very understandable. Well it was to me, and useful tool to explain to others.
V
Absolutely it's a deflection. Arriving home after midnight - to be fair, he was visiting a fellow pastor. They didn't talk about anything serious - it was just a hanging out thing. Not worried about it - but he expected me to be up and wanting to talk with him apparently. I get up around 6AM every morning for work, so staying up real late isn't something I LIKE to do...but will when it's important or I choose to use that time to connect. I've tried that but his persistency is great than mine I guess. Crazy stuff, I know.
Depriving a spouse of sleep is a classic controlling tactic.
Let me know if you need a link to the abuse resource thread.
V V
V, I never thought about this, but my MIL used to call me every night at 11 or later and say "Oh did I wake you up?" and then the phone would be ringing again at 6 am, and she'd say the same thing. If I didn't answer she'd keep ringing every 15 minutes until I finally picked up. I remember I used to complain that I was losing an hour at night and an hour in the morning because of her. Turning off the ringer didn't work because then the answering machine would click on. At one point I was turning off the ringer AND answering machine every night. Telling her that she was waking me up didn't stop her, she would laugh. EVERY night and EVERY morning. This was way back in my 20's when H and I first started living together, H finally stepped in and put an end to that but it went on for a very long time. Sorry to hijack.
