Husband woke me up with 5.30 alarm so he could do a work out!

[RooksAndRavens]

Dh doesn't work on a Friday. He looks after the dcs, aged 1 and 4. I'm a part time teacher and work on a Friday. My alarm is set for 6.55am and dcs wake up naturally around then too.
Dh has got it in his head that he wants to get up early every morning to do a work out or go for a run. But at 5.30am this morning, his stupid loud alarm went off and woke me up and I couldn't get back to sleep.
I think this is really selfish and unfair of him. I'm the one with a demanding job today and need all the sleep I can get. Dc2 is still in our room and has an awful cough at the moment so that's made sleep difficult this week. And I've been struggling with anxiety badly too recently and obviously that has a knock on effect to sleep.

I told dh that he was being unfair but he said that I was awake anyway (absolutely not true) and that most people are up before I get up anyway. He's also just said hoe much better he feels for doing his exercise routine early this morning... that's great, but he won't be teaching thirty 5 year olds today! I feel so exhausted already.

Am I being totally unreasonable here?

Sorry but this is sexist bullshit. It’s not about “man takes priority” it’s about encouraging good self care in a partner so they’re not dead before sixty. And you can call this an exaggeration all you want, I certainly thought it was a bit of one when I was in my 30s/40s and juggling it all but now I’m seeing 48yr olds, 54yr olds dropping dead due to not making this a priority and some even I know had tried but were sabotaged by partners who thought exercise was selfish and unfair or the “there just isn’t time when you’re a parent” myth. In this past year I have lost friends A, M, U, B and my BIL, all under 60 and all due to poor lifestyle choices catching up to them.

When I was getting up at 4am to exercise before work, my DH was in charge of getting up the four DC, breakfast and the school run. He never once complained about his sleep being interrupted even though his alarm was set for 7am, 3 hrs later.

You do have to work out a way to minimise the impact on your partner with types alarms, not turning on lights putting clothes on in the living room, having bags packed ready to go the night before. Little compromises, but the effort should be towards trying to make it work, not towards trying to shut it down.

im in a wheelchair now due to a RTA and even I do what exercise I can. I want to see my grandchildren.

I’m pretty sure there’s a function on some of the smart watches where you can set it so that your alarm is a persistent vibration on your wrist instead of a sound. Perhaps your husband needs to get one of those, he can use it to track his workout as well 😂

Really people making it a man vs woman thing, it really isn't. The OP is of course entitled to sleep but her DH is also entitled to get up and exercise before he needs to look after the kids as well, he just needs to figure out a way to be more quiet about it

If I had to wake up at 5:30, I'd need to be in bed before 8pm. I've had to wake up early for jobs before and never got used to it, I just had no life outside of work and went to bed extremely early every day. It's not the case that everyone can adjust to it. People's needs are different.

@Discovereads

Yes YABU. You should be encouraging such a healthy habit as exercise in the morning, not calling him selfish or unfair

You're missing the point. It's notnormal for OP. And it's not healthy for someone to be woken 90 minutes before they're expecting it when they're experiencing disordered sleep patterns - which OP's husband will clearly know.

It's also just really inconsiderate, and I fail to see how one person gets to be inconsiderate and the other one should just suck it up because they're being inconsiderate in the name of 'being healthy'. Pretty sure if OP says she's decided as a family they're not healthy enough so she's only going to serve meals made with kale, that her husband doesn't like, people would be saying that's not on. Same principle here. There's an easy compromise - husband makes an effort to not wake his wife; wife make something that everyone likes.

You do have to work out a way to minimise the impact on your partner with types alarms, not turning on lights putting clothes on in the living room, having bags packed ready to go the night before. Little compromises, but the effort should be towards trying to make it work, not towards trying to shut it down.

No one is trying to stop him exercising. Not a single person.

You'd really need to be in bed at 8pm to get up at 5.30am? 😮
I don't know anyone that needs over 9 hours sleep a night.

Yup! And when I've had jobs where I did have to get up really early, I just had to go to bed early. It was rubbish.

I just watched a thing with a doctor talking about sleep patterns - and now for shift workers it’s particularly crap, because your body actively wants to go into REM sleep at certain times. That’s why shift workers need more sleep, and are generally groggier when waking than those who go to bed at a normal time in order to wake at a normal time.

Good for him for taking fitness so seriously. Would that all husbands did!

Really? So because you get yup 5:30am therefore anyone who gets up later is a lazy bum who deserves to be woken up at the same time?

I think the time he’s waking up for exercise is fine, DH and I wake up some days around the same time as well for the same reason as otherwise, with work and family, there’s barely time to exercise.
However, the issue is that, his alarm is loud and inconsiderate. He needs to get a silent alarm and leave the room quietly, that’s the only way it’ll work long term

Pretty sure if OP says she's decided as a family they're not healthy enough so she's only going to serve meals made with kale..

What the actual fuck. On what planet is getting up early so you can fit in some exercise before a day with the kids the same as only serving meals of kale?!

Exercise is normal. Healthy. But most people choose not to bother and then criticise those that do.

The OP is…

Pretty sure if OP says she's decided as a family they're not healthy enough so she's only going to serve meals made with kale, that her husband doesn't like, people would be saying that's not on

one of more tenuous analogies I have seen in recent times on mumsnet. And that’s saying something

I think you’ll find if you read beyond the first sentence of my post that no points were missed as your final point husband makes an effort to not wake his wife was one I already made.

The point is that one person making a decision on how another person should behave under the guise of ‘health’ is not the way most relationships work.

I don’t serve you food you don’t like because ‘you need to be healthier’ and you don’t wake me up when you get up ‘because you’re going to be up anyway and I’m getting up TO EXERCISE which somehow takes precedence over your sleep’.

HTH.

The point is that one person making a decision on how another person should behave under the guise of ‘health’ is not the way most relationships work.

? But the OPs DH isn’t doing that? He’s decided that he will get up and go exercise. He’s not decided anything about how the OP should behave.

This won’t be about the alarm.
Clearly a marriage where they don’t really talk to each other, don’t compromise, don’t… we’ll, really like each other.

He won’t be worried about waking the op up because no doubt he is holding a grudge for something the op did.

This sort of interaction in a marriage isn’t a one off. It’s indicative of it rotting.

op - you should start a thread in relationships

I did. I read your whole post.

• YABU OP because he’s doing it to be <healthy>

• Waffle about people dying early because <not healthy>

• Maybe he could compromise with a quieter alarm clock <but only if it really IS loud and you’re not being a sensitive little cupcake, and if you are, then maybe you should just learn to sleep through it>

You’re on his side because he’s claiming to be healthy, insinuating she’s just being over sensitive, and not acknowledging that OP has said she’s not sleeping well for a variety of other reasons, all of which her husband will be cognisant of and should (and could) take some very easy steps to make things easier for his wife.

Again, the point is that he’s decided that because he’s getting up, there’s no reason for him to try and not wake her because she’s also getting up at some point. And he’s using ‘I’m exercising’ to make it seem virtuous.

Hands up who’d still be on the husband’s side if he said he was getting up early to game because that was the only time to do it? Yeah, thought not.

He probably thought she'd fall straight back asleep after his alarm.

All this needs is a conversation, like so many issues on here.

He hasn’t decided there’s no reason to try not to wake OP.
OP said he was being unfair to get up to exercise at all and he was defending himself. It was an argument where grumpy potshots are said. These aren’t “decisions” made unilaterally or otherwise.

He’s not “using exercise to make it seem virtuous” he wants to exercise full stop. There’s no indication he’s just saying he’s getting up to exercise and instead going to buy a dozen donuts and binge eat in his car or play video games or whatever other fancy you strikes your overactive imagination.

I’m on his side because I’ve had under 60 friends and relatives recently die and know first hand that it’s not “claiming to be healthy” to take steps to add healthy habits to your lifestyle.

She is being over sensitive about calling him unfair and presenting it all as “he’s got it in his head…” like it’s some stupid idea she needs to put a stop to. As for asking how loud is the alarm really, it’s a fair question that many other pp have asked because you can get used to lower volume noises after a period of acclimatisation.

Theyre parents of a 1yo and 4yo. I don’t know any parents of DC in this age range that do sleep well! Parenthood of preschoolers is a marathon of sleep deprivation. Then you get a break for some years (depends on birth spacing) and it’s another marathon of sleep deprivation when you have teenagers out late at night and randomly calling you to rescue them at 2am. So, it’s kind of silly to make out that a partner is inconsiderate for even wanting to get up early and exercise because sound, full nights of sleep aren’t happening. That’s just unrealistic when you’re parents.

I’m on his side because I’ve had under 60 friends and relatives recently die

WTF? That’s a thread in itself