I need some advice, sorry I know it’s long. I’ve been in a serious, committed relationship with this guy for 3 years and we love each other very much. He is not at all abusive, but he’s always liked to play wrestle/roughhouse a little bit. He’s a big guy, 6’4 and about 240 lbs. I’m smaller than him. Lately he’s been doing things like towel popping me, play wrestling with me, popping my fingers (he pushes way too far even when I tell him stop it hurts), things like that. He has never ever hit me and none of this has been out of anger or a genuine want to inflict pain on me. I truly believe he never would actually abuse me.

However, the issue lies in the fact that the things that he does do really hurt me. He’s very strong and I don’t think he realizes his strength. He also grew up with several brothers his same size, so he’s used to roughhousing all the time. The problem is that when I tell him to stop those things or at least do it more gently, he says that I’m being too sensitive and that he didn’t use that much force. The other day he towel popped me and it hurt really bad, but he says he that for any other human that wouldn’t have hurt because he didn’t hardly use any force. Another time we were playing this game where we were fake punching each other’s hands (I do it with him too, hardly any force at all it’s completely friendly) but I moved my hand and he ended up punching my boob. He felt bad because it was an accident, but it still really hurt and although he apologized, he still said I was being too sensitive. My stance is that it doesn’t matter if it would or would not hurt any other person, it hurt me, and that should be all that matters. His response to that is usually “well everything hurts you so how am I supposed to know the line”. Sometimes I tell him that if he can’t tone it down then I can’t be in the relationship anymore. Obviously I don’t want to be around someone that hurts me, even if it’s not malicious. But he always says “I’m just playing around and I want a relationship where we can play around”. Don’t get me wrong I love playing around with him, but surely he should listen to me if I say it hurts right?? I just don’t know if this is a red flag or if he genuinely does not understand how strong he is and doesn’t understand the pain that it gives me. In almost all other areas he is a perfect guy. If you have any tips on how to get through to him, please let me know. Thank you