Almost KO-ed by my husband (not a domestic dispute!)

[mamabearCali]

Perhaps some of yall have some sage advice for me and my husband. Last night my beloved husband was in bed watching a movie on his i-pod that gets me upset (it is not a bad movie I am just super sensitive) and it is bright and loud (compared to the hiss of a fan) and so there was no way I was going to sleep. I trotted downstairs and goofed around on the internet chatting with people for a while. Unbeknownst to me or my husband my six year old had crept into my spot in bed. I came trotting up the stairs an hour later and my husband feeling a body next to him freaked out and came to our bedroom door and came 1/2 an inch from punching me in the nose. He did not have time to get our gun (thank God!). So how do we avoid this in the future. I told him there was no way an intruder would have gotten in our house without breaking something, and just come trotting up the stairs in a noisy manner, but of course he was half lulled asleep by the movie at this point. Any sage advice to avoid one of us mistaking the other for an intruder?

[speedsix]

...short of little bells on your ankles...no...thank God for 1/2"...or he'd'a been sleepin' downstairs for the forseeable future!!!

[Dave2]

Don't watch movies in bed unless both of you are watching them?

[mamabearCali]

Slept on the couch would have been the least of it. Chris is a strong guy--had he hit me I would have likely been knocked out and would definitely have been at the hospital that night with a broken nose/other bones. It would have been a long night of me and him trying to tell the police that it was definitely an accident, and no I don't want to press charges likely multiple times. It would have been misery aside from the injury. Then me being pregnant would have added a whole other dimension. Just so everyone is clear, my husband has a temper like molasses--slow slow slow, and he has never ever not even once done so much as grab my arm in anger. He is just about as even keeled as you can be, but when faced with what he thought was an intruder in the middle of the night he got ramped up in a hurry to protect his family. Good man there, just need to find a way to communicate a bit better I guess.

[Keith B]

Maybe this should be your new nighttime wear.



And this can be his



LOL

[Texas Dan Mosby]

Sound off with a name / pet name prior to entering the threshold of the occupied room. You don't have to say it loud, just loud enough for it to register as familiar and not a potential threat.

[quidni]

... just need to find a way to communicate a bit better I guess.

And that's the key right there. A simple, "I'm going downstairs for a while, ok?" from you to him, especially if you wait for an acknowledgement from him, might have clued him in that it was you coming back upstairs. Now, if he was so wrapped up in the movie that he didn't notice the child climbing into bed with him, well.... ain't got a cure for that except maybe don't read or watch movies in bed?

The rule in our household has been to make just enough noise coming into the house that someone in the back, or asleep, will know who it is, without disturbing the neighbors. "Honey, I'm home!" or "Hey, Mom, it's me!" has kept me from reaching for my "friend" more than once. There was one time I was back in the den, and heard someone use a key to quietly come in the front door. That person made no other noise, and I unholstered my pistol and waited. When my son poked his head around the corner and saw the pistol at low ready, he grinned and said "good for you!" And I chewed him out for being too quiet.

[speedsix]

...good advice...bad things do happen to good people sometimes...and it's tragic...makes me re-think all my plans and strategy...Murphy's law is alive and well...

[CombatWombat]

I once had a nightmare about people intruding into our house, in my sleep I let loose with a left hook that connected with my wife's face. She started crying and I woke up feelin horrible( worst I've ever felt for my actions) and had to explain my self to her while checking her face out in the bathroom. She understood but had a welp on the side of her face. The ironic part is that in my nightmare I was defending her from the intruders. Now she sleeps with my left arm under her pillow.

[Charles L. Cotton]

Target identification is critical whether the defensive strike is with a gun or a fist. Quite some time ago I wrote a post describing a time in my teens when my father and I stalked each other around our home, each believing the other was out of town. It ended with the muzzles of our guns against the other's nose and neither of us fired.

The facts you describe created the proverbial "perfect storm," and there isn't much you can do about it, except to learn from the experience. Your husband can take more away from this than you and I'm not faulting him for a normal reaction. But we must recognize that a "normal" response can nevertheless be tragic.

Chas.

[Charles L. Cotton]

Target identification is critical whether the defensive strike is with a gun or a fist. Quite some time ago I wrote a post describing a time in my teens when my father and I staked each other around our home, each believing the other was out of town. It ended with the muzzles of our guns against the other's nose and neither of us fired.

The facts you describe created the proverbial "perfect storm," and there isn't much you can do about it, except to learn from the experience. Your husband can take more away from this than you and I'm not faulting him for a normal reaction. But we must recognize that a "normal" response can nevertheless be tragic.

Chas.

Here is the post I mentioned.
Chas.

I saw a post this morning on PDO about a father whose 10 year old son made him think there was an intruder in the home. It had a good outcome and it reminded me of something that happen when I was a teenager. This isn't really a "Never Again" story, but one that shows the importance of identifying your target, even when you are scared stiff. It's also a good example how some accidents often are a chain of events.

My mother died when I was 18. I was still living at home with my Dad while going to the University of Houston. I had been dating a girl that lived the next street over, but her father was transferred to Corpus Christi. I drove to see her every other weekend leaving on Friday evening after I got off work.

On one exciting weekend, I drove to Corpus Friday night and my Dad went to our weekend home in Montgomery County. It took about ½ hour for my girlfriend and I to get into an argument, so I drove back home arriving about 1:30 AM. We had a over-sized two car garage, but one side was used as a shop and my Dad kept his truck in the other side. My car stayed in the driveway. Since Dad was gone, I decided to put my car in the garage.

Dad had heart trouble and during the late evening or early morning hours Saturday he started feeling pretty bad. He decided it would be better to go back to Houston, rather than be alone in the piney woods. When he got home about 2:30 AM, he felt so bad he didn't put his truck in the garage. He came in the back door (sliding glass door on patio) and the noise woke me up. I jumped out of bed, open a drawer, took out a 1911 and racked the slide. Dad heard this and drew his S&W Model 19 from his belt. For the next 2 or 3 minutes (seemed like hours) he and I stalked each other through the house. We finally met rounding a corner with each of our pistols literally pointing at each other's noses. Neither of us fired, both of us turned even whiter, and it took over an hour for the adrenalin dump to subside and our knees to stop shaking.

In aviation, it is known that most accidents are not caused by a single failure or event, but a chain of errors or failures. There were no errors made in this story (other than our decision to search the house - more on that later), but there was clearly a chain of events that made it possible. What are the chances that I would get into an argument with my girlfriend on the same day that my Dad got so sick he had to come home? And what about the odds of me deciding to use the garage (something I never did) and Dad not trying to put his prized truck in its normal spot? In Dad's mind I was 220 miles away in Corpus and there was no Mustang in the driveway to indicate otherwise. In my mind, it couldn't be Dad because we always announced our arrival when we came in late and he would have known I was home when he tried to put his truck in the garage. None of our decisions were wrong, but they certainly could have had tragic results. As to whether we should have done our own house clearing, this was 1968 and no God-fearing Texan was going to ask for help when we could do it ourselves! Wise? Probably not. Would I do anything different today? Probably not. (At least I'm consistent.)

That night taught me that 1) I can perform responsibly even when scared to death; 2) no matter how convinced I may be that a certain situation exists, I may be wrong; and 3) "target identification" is not merely an esoteric concept to ponder, it is an indispensable step that can prevent a tragedy from which most of us would never fully recover.

I had been taught from a very early age to identify your target before shooting, whether hunting or firing in self-defense. Very few things in life are worse than getting shot, but killing a loved one by mistake is certainly one of those few.

Regards,
Chas.

[TexasVet]

I'm sure that episode would not help someone with a heart condition.

[mamabearCali]

Thanks yall. Chris and I had a chat and decided that we will call out anytime we are going upstairs after 8pm or whenever the kids are finally in bed--something simple like "sweetie are you still awake? . Just to keep that perfect storm from happening again.

[AJ80]

One thing to keep in mind is that a mans brain isn't as able to focus on multiple things as well as a womans. So if you do tell him that you're going downstairs or something similar and his attention is on something else, even if he responds, he may have no memory of it at all.

So if you want to make sure, it may take a bit more conversation to completely get his mind focused on the fact that you are going down stairs.

[74novaman]

One thing to keep in mind is that a mans brain isn't as able to focus on multiple things as well as a womans. So if you do tell him that you're going downstairs or something similar and his attention is on something else, even if he responds, he may have no memory of it at all.

So if you want to make sure, it may take a bit more conversation to completely get his mind focused on the fact that you are going down stairs.

Quoted because it is so true.