DH and I have become incompatible as sleeping partners but no spare room, what can we do?

[MybosswasMrMcGee]

I say 'we' but in reality I am having the issues with sleep, dh will mostly say he has a great night's sleep.

We have slept in the same bed for the last 26 years but during the last few years and especially this year I am struggling more and more.

I wake up exhausted, achy and headachy and for several reasons. One reason is that we could really do with a new mattress but can not afford that atm and dh says he feels fine laying on it so maybe it isn't the mattress?

I have been deep in perimenopause for the last 6 years and have recently found that I am having more and more 'hot' episodes during the night, it wakes me and I am doing the classic leg in leg out thing and flapping covers on/off (this summer's heatwaves where a nightmare for me). I also dream heavily which wakes me and I will lay there with a million thoughts running through my head, (I have quite a lot of stress in my life atm), I feel achy and uncomfortable and want to spread myself out for comfortable and toss and turn but can't do this as dh is laying next to me and I don't want to wake him. I will often wake around 3am and lay there for an hour or so before I fall back to sleep and then dh's alarm will go off a 5am which wakes me again and will take a while before I drop back off and then have to get up at 6.45. DH has also recently started waking in the night for a wee so by the time he has stomped off across the bedroom and opened the seemingly very loud door and then stomped back again I am often wide awake yet he drops back off in seconds.

I am dreading the winter as dh often works nights during this time and will come home at 2am or goes out to work at 2am which disturbs me even more.

I now wake up every morning and feel as though I have slept on a cobbled street.

I am not sure what do. I can't take HRT. I exercise, I consume no caffeine or alcohol. I stretch and do yoga before bed. I listen to the Calm app sleep stories every night (which does really help me drop off). I have even resorted to using one of those acupressure mats but I still have these annoyingly broken nights.

I'm sure my own bed and my own room would ensure me a better nights sleep every night. I can only but hope I win the lottery soon and can purchase a lovely spare room just for me.

Is there anything else I can do? Any tips for a deeper nights sleep?

Why can't you take hrt?

As two working adults are you sure you can't afford a new mattress?

Also, on the nights when he comes home at 2am he could sleep on the sofa until morning, then when you're up he could get into the bed.

You need to make a choice as to whether you prioritise a new decent mattress for the shared bed or whether you focus on finding a comfortable quality sofa bed and give up on sharing the same room. It sounds like the mattress thing could solve it, as you are likely sleeping more lightly due to physical discomfort and thus being disturbed by other things then being unable to fall back asleep.

I have endometriosis and adenomyosis and an additional issue of a failed uterine ablation. I have tried various forms of HRT under the guidance of my endo specialist but they all exacerbated the pain.

I am not working. I have some chronic health issues and gave up work last year. I started a new job yesterday but it is only part time so will take a while for me to build up my savings again.

The sofa isn't suitable to sleep on all night.

Earplugs/those sleep headphone things to deal with loud-DH?

You could try a memory foam mattress topper - Much cheaper than a new
mattress, and might make you more comfortable.

Just a thought - but have you been tested for sleep apnea?
These-
"I wake up exhausted, achy and headachy"
" I also dream heavily which wakes me"
-are sleep apnea symptoms - and it becomes more common during peri-menopause. But of course, it might just be the disturbed sleep itself causing that!

Get a decent mattress topper - or better yet two small ones so you're both sleeping on a separate mat, which will reduce how much you feel each other roll around.

Separate duvets will also help in the being aware of each other.

Magnesium and a white noise machine might help (or a fan!)

When DH does a night shift he sleeps on the sofa until I wake up and then moves into the bedroom - is that an option?

Would you not have to buy a new mattress for hypothetical spare room anyway as it sounds like you don’t have one? I don’t agree with buying things you can’t afford but a decent mattress is crucial so I’d be putting it on a credit card and cutting back over the next few months in your position. Could you also try separate duvets - so two singles instead of one double? Might help a tad with the hot flushes? Have you considered melatonin too?

I had a memory foam mattress topper but found it made me sweat- that was pretty menopause

I do need to try some ear plugs, will look on Amazon later.

We do have a mattress topper but it hasn't helped much.

I do wake up feeling pretty lousy, I hadn't considered sleep apnea. Will look into that, thanks.

I love a fan on but dh hates it. DD has a white noise machine which she never uses, I had forgotten about that, that may help if I have it on my bed side table.

I like the idea of separate duvets too.

We have two two-seater sofas and an armchair, they are all too short to sleep on sadly.

Could you get a futon and sleep in the living room? Do you have any other spaces in the house that you could utilise as a sleeping area?

Buy a secondhand sofa bed for your lounge and sleep on it.
Or if DH wants to stay up later than you and won't leave the lounge when you want to go to bed, then make him sleep on it.
You can't sleep in the same bed anymore.
I persevered with sleeping in a bed with DH who spent every night keeping me awake with his pneumatic drill snoring, interspersed with his tossing and turning every time he woke up because of near asphyxiation, before going back to the pneumatic drill again when he went from wide awake stressed frantically yelling "I've got to get up for work in the morning and I can't sleep!!!!" to snoring inhumanely within a nano second.
Then he'd get up in the morning moaning endlessly about how exhausted he is and he'd slump off to work white faced with bags under his eyes. But would not seek help. Would not accept he had a sleep problem. Would not display any thoughtfulness towards me.
So I spent years with no sleep because I was in my 20s/early 30s and I thought that's what you must do if you're married.
After a decade of sleep deprivation I was diagnosed with ME. My Dr told me it was a direct result of not being allowed to sleep for a decade.
We also don't have a spare room.
I kicked DH out of the bedroom after that and he's slept on the sofa ever since.
Though I still have to spend my nights listening to the pneumatic drill coming through the lounge ceiling up through the bedroom floor. But at least it's not right next to me.
I've told him it gets worse when he drinks beer, but he carries on drinking beer. He doesn't care.
He spends his days whining and whinging endlessly about being kicked out of the bedroom and wimpers about feeling unloved.
I also want to win the lottery so I can move out and buy my own house to completely escape even being in the same building as him at night.
But as things stand I am 100% financially trapped in a situation that has given me ME.
Neither you nor I are going to win the lottery though.
So take heed of my health advice and get yourself a sofa bed and use it.

Affordable and effective changes:
Mattress topper
2 duvets (a double duvet each)
Ear plugs
Face mask
Drink more water before 6pm

(Sorry I didn’t see if you have space / money for a bigger bed, but if you do I’d get a bigger bed too.)

We have a fairly cheap sofa bed that is juts as comfortable to sleep on as the bed.

Can you swap rooms in the house so that you have a bigger room and have 2 twin beds. When I look at holiday accommodation, usually airbnb self catering, I love it when theres 2 bedrooms or a sofa bed. We dont sleep together usually I cant stand sharing a bed, he snores and messes up the bed

Can you fit twin beds in the room you have, get second hand stuff

Can you convert your sofa to a sofa bed and one of you have that, take turns one month on, one month off

Even having 2 duvets on your current bed would help

You’ve described exactly where we were a year ago. Despite a super king bed my sleep was just too delicate (thanks peri!) and easily disturbed by movement, snoring, night wee trips, alarm or just DH getting out of bed when I was asleep.

i use HRT but need more to get me good sleep
a) ideally I sleep alone - sometimes we are back to sharing the bed but not regularly
b) ear plugs
c) magnesium glycinate
d) magnesium cream
e) a heavy cotton double duvet
f) double blackout curtains + blind
g) if I STILL wake up (night sweats / racing heart) then I resort to sleep gummies to knock me out

you can try all the non-HRT remedies, I’m sure some will help

Oh goodness, that sounds hard going.

I'll start looking on marketplace.

Thank you - Can I ask which sleep gummies you take?

I could have written this post myself. I still don't sleep well but things that have helped are loop earplugs and a fan, I have an expensive Dyson cool me fan which directs onto my face which really helps. I've also used one of those small fans when away and they work really well if you have then on your bedside table just aimed at your face, I find if my face is cool then it helps the rest of me stay cool. Cooling towels are also fab.

Thank you, I have heard that Loop earplugs are good, I will have a look for those.

I'll also check out the cooling towels.

Can you afford a mattress topper? My mattress has a built in latex topper and anyone who has ever laid on it claims it is the most comfortable bed they have laid on.

Could you do the 'Scandinavian' bedding? Where you have a duvet each?

https://amzn.eu/d/gqGNY8N

£70 - put up in living room each night
My dh snores for Britain, we take turns on this, and its brilliant

Just to add my husband doesn't like a fan but I try have it on me away from him and other than that he has to put up with it.

Lots of good ideas here but just wanted to say that your H is being a bit naughty not wanting you to have a fan. He’s getting a good night sleep every night, you are not. I’m sure you have a fan on will help you enormously and he will get used to it pretty quickly, so please give it another go.