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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

I hate sharing a bed with dh

154 replies

NeedACleverNN · 15/03/2016 10:55

I love him to bits but seriously sometimes it's hard not to smother him in his sleep!

Despite knowing I like my space, he still ends up wiggling closer and closer to me, finally ending up trying to spoon me. He gets an elbow in the gut for that.

He has a bad habit of sleeping with his legs in the air, which then crash down on the bed.

I like sleeping with the duvet cacooned around me.

He lifts it slightly so there's a draft going down my back.

He literally turns into an 8 legged lead octopus when he's asleep. One limb everywhere and weighs a ton so I can't move him.

He manages to angle his head so he is breathing directly in my face Angry

It's all silly petty things I get that and at weekends he sleeps downstairs so I can get some proper rest, but I am not sleeping when he is bed.

He won't entertain separate beds.
He's worried that it's going to push us apart.

I'm worried I'm going to commit murder if I continue to lose sleep.

I'm waking up with a splitting headache and it makes me very irritable.

What can I do?

OP posts:
superfringe · 15/03/2016 11:09

I could have written this post myself! My OH is exactly the same, in fact several times a week I wake up to find his head has found its way onto my pillow, so I have no space at all!

The breathing thing is the worst, hot stale breath aimed at my face. Yuck. I do occasionally wake him up and make him roll over, but he is never very pleased about it.

I have tried to tell him how this makes me feel but his response was to call me antisocial. I wasn't aware that sleeping was a social activity but apparently it is!

My main tactic now is to go to sleep facing away from him, with my head in the middle of my pillow to take as much space as I can.

Can you put a pillow between you and explain that you being knackered will drive you apart too, so he needs to give you space to sleep?

So YANBU but I can't offer you much advice I'm afriad!

Original poster
NeedACleverNN · 15/03/2016 11:12

I already do the pillow trick and I tend to go to sleep on my right which is facing away from dh but I need to turn regularly or my hips get sore and I end up with an ear ache. I also have a curved spine so I can't even lay flat on my back

OP posts:
Newes · 15/03/2016 11:13

Having you sleep deprived, irritable and resentful at his sleeping activities isn't going to do much for keeping your relationship together, is it? He needs to stop being mard about the separate beds.

feellikeahugefailure · 15/03/2016 11:13

separate duvets?

TriJo · 15/03/2016 11:15

We sleep in separate beds, have done pretty much since the day we moved into a 2 bedroom apartment - and it hasn't done anything at all to push us apart. It's a great solution if you have the space for people with totally different sleeping styles, hours or other reasons to sleep apart (in our case, DH has a sleep disorder and also gets up for work two hours before me).

StepAwayFromTheThesaurus · 15/03/2016 11:16

It sounds like you need a really big bed (can you fit a super king size in your room?) and separate duvets. That'll make all the difference.

I also like bring cocooned inside the duvet and I get very annoyed when DH introduces a draft.

VoldysGoneMouldy · 15/03/2016 11:17

Two duvets. It's the only way I haven't divorced DH Wink

Original poster
NeedACleverNN · 15/03/2016 11:18

We have plenty of room just not the money.

No way could we afford a super king size

OP posts:
doughnutslikefannys · 15/03/2016 11:18

I hate sleeping beside DP, he's a foot taller than me and it's like sleeping next to a windmill! He elbows me in the face, kicks me, drags the covers off me and wiggles closer and closer until he's on my pillow Angry

I love the nights where he falls asleep on the sofa watching TV, the dog and I can starfish Grin

SaucyJack · 15/03/2016 11:20

Would a clip-on table tennis net down the middle of the bed help?

You could take it off for sexytimes.

SohowdoIdothis · 15/03/2016 11:21

The way to solve sharing a bed problem is to have a king size duvet each, you will never look back.

acasualobserver · 15/03/2016 11:22

He literally turns into an 8 legged lead octopus when he's asleep.

You may need to contact a zoo.

MrsJayy · 15/03/2016 11:22

My dh chats in his sleep and chomps God sake the chomping makes me want to kill him

PinotEgregio · 15/03/2016 11:23

Every time he does something that wakes you up, you wake him up. When he complains that he is getting a shit night's sleep, explain to him, as many times as necessary, that this is what is happening to you every night. Maybe he will become less inconsiderate.

BTW, lack of sleep is not a 'silly petty thing'. It's unpleasant and very unhealthy. Which is why sleep deprivation is outlawed as an 'interrogation' technique under the Geneva Convention.

MrsJayy · 15/03/2016 11:26

You know when you see 1970s couples on TV in separate beds I always think what a genuis idea

MillionToOneChances · 15/03/2016 11:27

Two single duvets in the double bed would probably be enough to help with the drafts, but as for the rest of it... Could you swap your big bed into one of the kids' rooms and take their single and obtain another?

As for separate beds pushing you apart, have you explained that when he steals your sleep night after night you lie there feeling further and further and further apart from him? The best thing he could do to bring you together is help you find a way to get some sleep in spite of his bedtime antics.

MillionToOneChances · 15/03/2016 11:27

And what Pinot said.

Original poster
NeedACleverNN · 15/03/2016 11:31

I daren't contact a zoo...they might take him away and then who will cook Shock

He is a really good man and very understanding but he had anxieties about us breaking up and me saying I want to sleep in separate beds, translated to him as I want to break up.

He tries at night to be still but no one can help what they do when they are asleep.

OP posts:
lorelei9 · 15/03/2016 11:34

ugh, there's another thread going on about this

what is it with these fragile egos - what is wrong with separate beds?!

leelu66 · 15/03/2016 11:35

Sometimes when DH turns in our double bed, I wake up and think I've been in an earthquake Grin Definitely need a larger bed.

I wouldn't mind the earth shaking for other reasons.

TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams · 15/03/2016 11:35

Hide a mattress under your bed and stealthily pull it out and camp on the floor as soon as he falls asleep? Grin

I'd murder him.

Define plenty of room? Space for two double beds side by side, hotel style? Then you don't have the expense of super pricey linen, never mind trying to actually put the sodding duvet on without climbing into it.

lorelei9 · 15/03/2016 11:37

OP why does he sleep in a different room at weekends? surely whatever reason can be stretched to cover weeks? But ultimately you need sleep, if he doesn't care about that, that's not nice.

AnotherEffingOrangeRevel · 15/03/2016 11:40

You're far from alone.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/08/separate-beds-key-good-sleep

Introduce your DP to the work of Dr Neil Stanley.

gamerchick · 15/03/2016 11:40

I can't sleep with mine either so I have my own bedroom. It certainly hasn't affected our relationship, in fact not wanting to regularly suffocate him has been a plus.

It isn't mandatory to share a bed.

fusionconfusion · 15/03/2016 11:41

My grandaunt told my mother the secret to a happy marriage is separate beds. I understand this, absolutely.