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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to expect my husband to sleep with me?

122 replies

plumebaby · 02/12/2019 03:54

We’ve been married a long time and used to sleep together before the kids came along. We started using separate beds when I was up all night with the babies. They’re now older and sleep through and I’m still in a separate bed! He will only sleep with me if we have sex and even then he gets up and goes to the other bed after a while. Last night I actually said to him to get in my bed please, I’d really like a cuddle. We cuddled and it was lovely. 10 minutes then he gets up and goes again! I have spoken to him about it and he comes out with a variety of excuses. The result is I feel extremely lonely. I’m on my own every single night. I used to be ok with this when I was exhausted from the kids but now it feels like I want the company/intimacy/togetherness? I can’t put my finger on it but it feels like we’ve only got half a marriage? Has anyone been through this and got any ideas or can help me?

OP posts:
easyandy101 · 03/12/2019 11:31

The sleeping and cuddling part of our lives (for me and my partner) is a fortunately mutually favourite part of it

I can sleep fine without her, and she can sleep fine without me but there's a really important bonding and resetting kind of quality to it that i can't really explain. If we've had a bad day it just makes everything better

SunshineAngel · 03/12/2019 11:37

I don't understand how people can say you can't get lonely at night. Of course you can. Me and my partner spoon most nights apart from if it's really hot, and on the nights he's not there I don't like it. Also, if one of us wakes up in the night we will reach out for the other and cuddle while we go back to sleep. I like those sleepy cuddles, and if I happen to wake up in the night while he's not there I really hate it.

Being close to someone means different things to different people, but to me, sleeping together IS important.

Talk to him, OP. Say you'd like to sleep together every night again, and ask why that is a problem. It might be that you're not compatible in that sense unfortunately if he likes sleeping on his own, but it's at least worth a conversation.

Mintjulia · 03/12/2019 11:45

My ex didn’t like to sleep in the same room as me because “he could hear me breathing” - not much I could do about that Grin.
Does your dh say you snore? Grind your teeth? Take up too much space? Or does he get too hot? You can get duvets that are thick one side & thin on the other. Twin beds in the same room as a gradual reintroduction?
Turn the router off at night and see if he grumbles.

Cheeseandwin5 · 03/12/2019 12:03

I am not sure why ppl are blaming your DH.
For the last 10 years you have been quite happy to have the DC in your bed instead of him, I can understand this may happen on occasions but 10 years is a parental choice. Now they are in their own beds you think you can call and he will jump back in.

Vulpine · 03/12/2019 12:10

Rigid perfection - im not sure how you can put up with that. Why do his needs trump yours?

YetAnotherSpartacus · 03/12/2019 12:13

DH sees my reasons for bringing up the subject of separate beds as a variety of excuses too OP as - as far as he is concerned - sharing a bed is nice. We still share a bed as DH would be really upset not to, but when he goes away having uninterrupted sleep is bliss; it makes me feel like a new woman

Why don't you wake him each time he snores?

RidgedPerfection · 03/12/2019 12:17

Vulpine I barely put up with it - it's pretty much the only area of life in which he is capable of being so selfish and it's a constant source of annoyance for me. We have discussed it time and again - he just sees the fact that it wakes me and the broken sleep makes me feel awful as my problem not his. I get up at around 0400 - 0420 for work and can even use my hairdryer (I get ready in another room - don't have any lights on in the bedroom and have everything ready so as to create minimal disturbance) he sleeps so soundly - my alarm doesn't wake him either. I think that he simply cannot comprehend being a light sleeper and the effects that lack of sleep can have on a person!!

RidgedPerfection · 03/12/2019 12:19

YetAnotherSpartacus I do wake him a great deal but it is all night long, every single time he falls asleep. It's really difficult to wake him, he will wake, turn over but snores in any sleeping position too (and can't ever remember having been woken in the morning!). He will sleep through me banging on the door if I am trying to sleep in another room even. I have never known anyone sleep so deeply.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 03/12/2019 12:22

Yep. I’ve got one of those. I’m afraid I’ve resorted to physical violence at times to wake him when we are forced to share a room. Have you tried recording him? I sleep in another room on a proper bed with industrial strength earplugs.

RidgedPerfection · 03/12/2019 12:29

Yes - I have recorded him and have to say that I have also resorted to a swift dig in the ribs / shin at times to wake him. I don't think the snorer can comprehend how desperate a lack of sleep can make people! There's nothing worse that lying awake wanting to sleep so badly and being prevented from doing so by the noise of someone else managing to sleep soundly....rage inducing!!! I have slept through 24 hour helicopter noise and in some very noisy indeed situations but the sound of a steady snorer is something else!!

I do not wear earplugs as I feel vulnerable with one of my senses somewhat removed.

Longfacenow · 03/12/2019 12:34

If I was you OP I would completely disregard all the replies that don't say...talk to him !

It's really not going to help to bring it up in the context of what strangers on the internet have told you is normal or not for them.

For me, when something doesn't work for one of the couple, it is a problem for the couple. And needs a joint solution.

WarmSausageTea · 03/12/2019 12:45

We have discussed it time and again - he just sees the fact that it wakes me and the broken sleep makes me feel awful as my problem not his.

I feel your pain, mine is the same. I find it incredibly disrespectful and it really affects how I feel about the whole relationship. His solution involves ear-plugs; mine involves a frozen leg of lamb and a new patio.

TheSandman · 03/12/2019 13:55

I can sleep fine without her, and she can sleep fine without me but there's a really important bonding and resetting kind of quality to it that i can't really explain. If we've had a bad day it just makes everything better

^This!

MistyCloud · 03/12/2019 23:06

@TheSandman

You say bed is not just for sleeping and fucking, so as a few posters have asked, what on earth ELSE do you do in bed? Most posters agree they just sleep and fuck in it (even though you found that odd!) So what do you do? Eat your meals? Watch TV? Catch up on your emails/mumsnet posts?

Bed is for sleeping and fucking ... it's for nothing else. Anyone who does anything else in it needs to have a word with themselves!

I have noticed that - apart from the OP's situation - it seems to be that women are the ones who want to, (and prefer to) sleep alone, and without their man, as they are more comfortable, they get a better sleep, and they like their 'me-time.'

Yet their husbands and partners seem to be desperate to have their woman next to them in bed! Even in those cases where the woman is unhappy, uncomfortable, unable to sleep etc. As long as HE gets his own way, he is happy, no matter how uncomfortable or sleep deprived his woman is. Even coming to bed at stupid o clock, and pissing about on his i-pad for an hour with the screen lighting up the room! I would cheerfully sling the fucking thing out of the window if my DH ever did this.

Why is that? Why do so many men get arsey if their wife/partner wants to sleep on her own (preferably in a separate room?) Is it some kind of slur on their masculinity when his woman doesn't want to sleep with him?

The amount of women who come on here (not just this thread, but many others,) saying their man 'won't let' them sleep in another bed or bedroom is shocking. Sometimes citing the reason that they feel 'lonely,' and they need hugs in bed. Hmm

Are they scared people will find out, and will think they don't have a sex life, or his woman doesn't fancy him anymore?

Weird. Confused

I could never be with a man this controlling and needy. Some men are worse than clingy and demanding toddlers!

TheSandman · 04/12/2019 01:17

What do i do in bed?

I had a lesbian friend who, in response to the question, "What DO lesbians do in bed?" - and this was LONG before the internet when such things were a mystery to the general population - always used to answer. "Oh you know, the usual. Eat biscuits, read the Sunday papers..."

I read a lot in bed. Sometimes whole novels in one session. I love reading in bed - totally relaxed, totally immersed in the book.

I do a lot of writing and drawing too - sometimes waking up in the night with ideas that came to me (or resolved themselves in) dreams. Often, looking at what I drew or wrote in the cold light of morning, I find I have produced unintelligible garbage - but, sometimes, there's stuff in my notebook that surprises and delights me. Ideas I can work up into more considered pieces. Ideas that probably would never have occurred to my fully conscious self. It's like having a conversation with a hidden part of me.

I don't watch TV in bed - though we do have a TV in the bedroom. my wife will watch stuff with one or two of the kids piled in with her. We have vastly different tastes in what we watch, so, while I'm watching some dreadful 1980s Horror film on the (annoyingly inferior) TV downstairs with my eldest, she might be watching some silly sitcom in bed with the other two.

Sometimes I just lie there in bed and watch the clouds or stars through the skylight. I can do that for hours.

My wife will sometimes spend her whole day off work in bed doing her crochet and listening to audiobooks - until I ruin it by calling her down to eat with me and the kids. (I do 90% of the cooking in our house.) Sometimes, if I'm feeling generous, or she's feeling particularly tired, I'll not bother calling her down and take her meal up on a tray.

Most nights she is asleep when I join her in bed and will have been for hours. I can't get to sleep until I know everyone else in the house is asleep. Apparently elephants do this - the matriarch of a herd will remain awake till all the others are asleep before she sleeps. It's not a compulsive thing. i just feel happier like that.

Saying my bed is just for sleeping and sex is like saying my kitchen dining table is only for eating at. We do all sorts of stuff on our kitchen table: art projects, bookbinding, paperwork, play games, make things. I do the ironing on mine. Throw a blanket and an old sheet over it and away you go.

Or it's like saying the bath is just for bathing in. (And, to answer the obvious question: fucking, watering houseplants, cleaning carpets, science experiments, etc. etc. .)

differentnameforthis · 04/12/2019 06:58

Who has the main bed now? Did he opt for another bed, or did you?

CodenameVillanelle · 04/12/2019 07:01

YABU if he has got used to sleeping alone and struggles to sleep next to you.

AlexaAmbidextra · 05/12/2019 00:42

Bed is for sleeping and fucking ... it's for nothing else. Anyone who does anything else in it needs to have a word with themselves!

Oh good. The bed police have arrived. 🙄

paperbeatsrock · 05/12/2019 01:59

@TheSandman - wonderful reply

Horsemad · 05/12/2019 09:32

Where's the OP? 🤔

Blindandfrozen · 05/12/2019 12:19

You snore absg

Blindandfrozen · 05/12/2019 12:19

Sorry! You snore and he doesn’t want to tell you

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