AIBU to not want to be woken up and sleep in spare room

[Franklyfrost]

We have recently gained a spare room and I want to sleep in it. DH gets up naturally about an hour earlier than I need to (he gets up between 5:50 and 6:10) with hours to spare before he has to leave the house. He’s a good sleeper. When he gets up he gets his clothes out of the drawers and gets dressed in the room. It only takes a few minutes but involves opening and closing four or five drawers. I’ve asked him many times not to and he’ll stop for a while then start again. On weekends if he’s awake he won’t stop the kids from waking me up so they’ll come and play in the bedroom or bang sauce pan lids outside the door etc. Again I’ll ask him to remind the kids I’m sleeping but he ‘forgets’.

I’m a poor sleeper. I sleep lightly and wake often for hours in the night. I’ve put a lot of effort into sleeping better but it doesn’t seem to be something I can change. Dp knows this. I do 99% of the night wakings for the kids too, all of them if they’re sick and I did all the nights by myself when the kids were babies so he wasn’t tired. An extra hour sleep a day is more than a full nights extra a week. The longer I’m kept awake for the less likely I am to get back to sleep. I’ve made compromises for him regarding sleep: we go to bed when he wants, no chatting in bed, duvets not blankets, no cuddling during the night, my own duvet because he won’t share, when I’m awake during the night I’m very careful not to wake him etc.

YABU: totally normal for dp to wake you up getting ready in the mornings, he shouldn’t have to put a dressing gown on or leave his clothes elsewhere just so you can get some extra sleep
IANBU: sleep in the spare room, sleep is necessary for health, you’ve explained lots of times and nothing has changed, look after yourself.

He doesn't forget, he doesn't care!!

Why cant he put his clothes in the spare room, get up and get dressed in there?

Why doesn't he care enough about you to keep the children downstairs and keep them entertained for while.

Because your sleep is less important

This would make me very cross, and I say this as someone who functions well on little sleep. Being woken up unnecessarily when there's at least a few options to avoid it, is just so disrespectful.

Have you asked your H why your sleep, and by extension your mental and physical wellbeing, is of such little importance to him?

FWIW my DP has a noisy belt, and often wakes for work at 4:45. So he puts all his stuff for work on the landing so he can get ready in our tiny bathroom. He does this by choice, because he woke me up accidentally a couple of times, and felt bad enough he wanted to avoid it in future. On his days off, if I wake first, I creep out and wear my dressing gown till he's awake.

Yanbu.

I have to go out to work before dh and dd wake up (dd still sleeps in our room). It's very easy, I pick out my clothes the night before and have them all ready in the family bathroom, on the heated towel rail in winter (so cosy!). I keep a spare set of deodorant, contact lenses and toothbrush etc there for work mornings. It saves me loads of time to have my outfit and handbag ready the night before, so I can get out of bed and be out of the house in just 8 mins. So I get a bit of extra sleep too, everybody wins.

You could tell him to do this and that if he does you'll be happier to sleep in the same room

I would be so annoyed!! I used to have to leave the house at 6am for work, I quietly got up (1 alarm) and went to the spare room to dress.

DH now leaves earlier than me, has his clothes beside the bed dresses and leaves. He does have more than 1 alarm, but that's a diff issue!

Your DH is a being a prick. I would be raging. Sleep is very important, I am sleeping badly right now and that hour after DH leaves is fantastic. Tell him he needs to be respectful of your needs. Also letting the kids down, unless it is a baby that needs breast feeding he can deal with them for a hour.

@MangoBiscuit Have you asked your H why your sleep, and by extension your mental and physical wellbeing, is of such little importance to him?

…

Yes, I’ve asked. He just thinks I’m being ‘angry’ and shouldn’t be. For him the problem is always my reaction, never the actual event. He says, ‘I didn’t wake you up on purpose, stop being so angry’.

we had the same problem with my husband getting up earlier than me.

we moved the majority of his clothes into our spare bedroom. Then he could get dressed with lights on etc. It became his dressing room. It also worked for me as he’s untidy so it kept our bedroom neat.

we now sleep in separate rooms as he snores so much.

Tbh he sounds like one of those people who’s so proud of being an early bird that they want everyone else to know about it. Wouldn’t be surprised if he was waking you deliberately to make you feel guilty about your lazy (in his eyes) lie ins! TLDR you’re definitely not being unreasonable

Thanks for the examples. It’s so difficult to know which of my expectations are normal. It’s not as if you get to see other peoples early morning routines! I’ll message him today so that I can be as inoffensive as possible.

I have this radical doubt about what is reasonable and unreasonable. DP does things that seem so outrageous to me that I can only assume I’m wrong and they’re actually totally normal because no one would do them if they’re that outrageous. Then I feel confused and unsure about if I’m being too precious or demanding. I wish I could trust my judgement. I wish I didn’t get angry because that’s what he then sees as the problem.

He isn’t very nice, is he?

I get up earlier than DH during week days because one of our children does swim training and I, unfortunately, am now hard-wired to wake at 445. If we decide to take turns I still wake the second I can hear my daughter getting up, he doesn’t.

I make sure clothes are ready the night before and get changed quickly, no banging about. This means I usually go to sleep earlier then he does and similarly, he doesn’t wake me at the end of the day or insist we go to bed at the same time.

Your DH sounds very unsympathetic.

Tell him you’re having 2 weeks in the spare room to catch up on sleep and normalise your sleep cycle. Then just stay there

There’s also nothing wrong with expressing irritation when you’re being woken up unnecessarily.

It’s not an unreasonable reaction to feel angry when your sleep is repetitively broken by your husband not listening to you and acknowledging your needs.

What’s wrong with saying, “of course I’m angry, I’m exhausted. I’ve asked you not to open drawers and stamp around in the morning because it wakes me up, but you’re still doing it!”

If he tries to say you are unkind, I'd say well it's unkind to wake someone who is sleeping when they've repeatedly asked you not to.

He sounds both demanding and selfish.

Your husband is a dick.

He is walking you up on purpose though. Waking you up by accident is something like tripping over and making a crash or sneezing that you can't control.

He knows you're a light sleeper, you've asked him not to make noise in the morning, and he just ignores you. You make compromises for him in how you sleep (separate duvets etc) and he isn't doing one easy thing that would make a big difference to your life. It's really controlling that he gets to decide when you go to sleep, how you sleep and when you wake up.

I think he should be getting up with the kids at night since he is ruining your sleep in the early mornings.

It's not about caring for you either, it's about respect. I'm quiet for guests that are staying with us that I don't particularly care about, but I'm just being respectful.

My husband gets up earlier than me. He gets his clothes ready the night before and puts them all in a pile that he grabs when he goes out the door and gets dressed in the bathroom or something. I do the same on the odd occasion I have to get up early and creep about.

I have a feeling though that this is the tip of the iceberg and when you move room he will still find some way of making sure he wakes you up

YANBU- your DH is being an inconsiderate wanker. When my DH has go into the office he gets his clothes ready the night before so go doesn't have to come in the bedroom at 5:20. He leaves them on the landing. He never wakes me up.

I get up at 6:45 and wfh

Does your DH go to bed too early if he's then awake so early? My DH sleeps badly but part of the issue is that he's in bed by 10:00 (which is too early for me) and then wonders why he's wide awake by six each morning.

The focus on you being angry rather than acknowledging his action that caused your frustration was classis in my DSIS's marriage. He always painted her as the emotionally-reactive and unreasonable one, ignoring his actions. Thankfully she divorced the twat.

You need to stop being considerate. Go to bed later, when you want. Make noise. Have your blanket. If the kids wake up at night, wake him up to deal with them 50% of the time. Let's see how he gets on with this for a few weeks.

He'll either realise that he has to be considerate as you are of him because not being able to sleep is torture, or will want you in the spare room. What a selfish arse

Oh and she now trusts her own judgement again!

I think he’s being inconsiderate but if you’re having problems I’m not sure moving out of your room is a good idea! It puts even more of a barrier between you?

bang sauce pan lids outside the door

Could you explain this? Why are your kids allowed to do this??

My ExP did this constantly, and his intentions were never anything other than vindictive, so I may be biased! But from you’ve said, YA(definitely!)NBU - a good night’s sleep is vital, so what you must to achieve that

This seems to be about a lot more than sleep = what else does he do that makes you doubt your response.

Here though why are you having to go to bed when he wants (earlier perhaps) and do all of his rules but none of his?

I would just move to the spare room OP

I'm with you, if we had a spare room I'd be in it, but for me it's more of a snoring noisy breathing issues waking me up. To be fair if dh knows he's going to be getting going earlier than me in the morning he makes sure he had everything he needs in the living room ready so he can get himself and our ds ready without disturbing me. Due to ill health I often have to have tested and naps during the day and DH is again very good at making sure he won't need to disturb me and keeping DS out of our room and being otherwise quiet as we live in a flat so even a bit of noise in the living room can transfer to our room which shares a wall with the living room. I'm afraid if he's not listened to you so far, I can't think of anything else you could say or do to help him understand/listen, unless you got up with the children and went back to bed when he gets up with a stern word to the children about being quiet while you finish your nights sleep, in the hope that he cotton's on too, or at least the children listen and refuse to make noise when he tries to encourage them to.

I love my room. I have a happy marriage but we can't sleep in the same bed.

Claim the room, tell him his habits are making you dislike him and you don't want to dislike him. Get it decorated to your taste. You won't look back.

I had never thought about it like that; that an extra hour in the morning is an extra night of sleep a week. What a brilliant way to look at it.

If I was you I'd happily start being a grump the whole day that I am woken up early, and sunshine and light the days where I haven't been woken up early. Show him the difference, make it very obvious. Just keep saying it's because you're so tired, but don't explicitly blame it on him (he doesn't see it as his fault, so no point). Keep hammering home the only reason you're not yourself is because you're TIRED. You are human, and we humans don't function at our best when we are tired. That's nothing unreasonable about that.

When you're tired, you don't have the energy for making his tea, putting his socks in the laundry, listening to how his day was... "Sorry I really don't have the energy for that right now. I'm just so tired" as much as possible.

When you're well rested after not being woken up early, you are the opposite. Chatty, bright, happy to help and listen to what he has to say. Nice and normal.

This worked with my selfish partner who felt that even though I was doing all the (hourly) night wakings with the baby, HE was the one that deserved the lie ins all morning while I did the morning routine.

I wish I'd have accepted sooner that it was okay not to be my best self, and that being angry/irritable was because I was TIRED, not because I had an anger problem.

I get up before my DH but I put my clothes in the spare room the night before and go get ready in there in the morning. When I get up I just grab my phone and leave quietly.