So DP of nearly two years is a paramedic and works shifts. He's been doing this for fifteen years. His sleeping pattern is really messed up and over the time we've been together he has slept through alarms, fallen asleep at random times and been hard to wake as well as having periods of insomnia for days at a time. He also sleepwalks and has no recollection of events the next day. When he sleepwalks he usually binge eats and occasionally puts on the oven. He has no memory of doing this. I often come down to find him in the middle of
doing this. We usually then argue as I tell him to come back to bed, he declines, I grumble about what a mess he's making, he tells me he's going to leave and go back to his place and I tell him he would be dangerous to drive and we go back and forth like this until he gets in the spare bed and passes out or drives home.
His shifts are: four nights, one day off, day shift, one day off, day shift, two days off, three night shifts, two days off, four day shifts. Then eight days off. Shifts are all twelve hours, seven to seven.
He has his own place and we both have kids. He stays at mine as much as he can and I stay at his as much as I can.
Over the time we've been together he sleeps less well when he's got a lot on his mind/worried about stuff and if he gets into a bad run of sleep during his night shifts it can take a week or more to correct it. When he is extremely tired he fidgets constantly in bed, gets up and down and then the above happens.
Two nights ago I woke up to banging and crashing in my kitchen at 4am. Went downstairs, he's spilt a whole jar of coffee over the kitchen counter/floor, was on his second packet of crisps and various remnants of toast crumbs etc. I don't know how much he'd got through but when I checked the next day half a loaf was gone. He'd put the oven on although nothing was cooking.
AIBU for arguing with him? I just don't know how to manage this. In the end we both agreed he would stay at his place for the next few nights and we both got a great nights sleep last night.
My worry is him being like this when we go on holiday with our kids in August. There is a balcony at the villa and a swimming pool, I'm going to be worried the whole time that he will injure himself if he does this.
My kids have never seen him sleepwalking - he doesn't ever go in their room and they are good sleepers. I'm not sure about his own kids.
He's been to his GP and is seeing a counsellor as he thought it might be related to unresolved grief issues (he has had two sisters die). GP is now suggested he goes on antidepressants to raise his seratonin levels but he's reluctant to do that.
AIBU to be concerned? Is it just part of life as a long term shift worker?