My wife will not respect my requests to not be snuck up on. This makes me startled or even frightened at times. Im 34 and she's also 34; married for over two years.

I suffer from anxiety, among other things, and likely undocumented PTSD. GAD is well documented and my wife's well aware of the extent of the problem.

My wife gets a big kick out of scaring me. It doesn't happen on the daily, but it happens frequently; I'd say up to twice a month she gets me in various situations. Everytime, I do not laugh. I show anger and disappointment. Frustration. Usually I'll say something passive aggressively, like tonight after being snuck up on in a completely dark room putting my child to bed, I suddenly and unexpectedly felt a hand on my back. I said, "yeah that's not freaky..." and walked out to leave her with the baby.

These seemingly minor things she does are a constant, and she will defend her actions 100% of the time through a facial expression that reveals she really almost can't hold back her laughing out loud

It's always relatively minor things she does, but because of how my body naturally reacts it feels a lot more significant for me. I just wanted to scream tonight because I'm so fed up with swallowing my feelings.

We've talked about it in the past and she might apologize, but her attempts have never ceased. I'm so tired of it...

What can be said to my wife so that she never sneaks up on me again. Like, instead of the sneaky put tonight, give a light finger nail tap on the door before entering the pitch black room and touching me?

Tldr: after years of explaining why me and my diagnosed GAD doesn't play well with my wife's idea of fun and games, her scare tactics, what can be said to make me feel confident that I don't have to worry she will flake off everything we've talked about in the past and stop her attempts to frighten me. She's a great person outside of this. It's a very isolated problem for me.

Submitted April 03, 2021 at 11:54PM by commanderchris https://ift.tt/3mkBtFS