To ban spooning between certain hours

[Calmondeck]

DH is a hugger. He has 3 pillows, one for his head, chest, and back. But sometimes when his pillow fort fails him, he snuggles up to me, inevitably waking me in the process.

He thinks I’m a cold woman for grumbling about hugs, I think I’m going to murder him if I don’t get uninterrupted sleep.

I proposed a time ban - ie he can’t snuggle me before 7am (when our kids are waking up), he says that would defeat the purpose of him snuggling himself back to sleep if he had to look at the time.

Can I kill him?

So he:

Sees you as equivalent to a pillow
Thinks it's your job to provide your body to him whenever he wants it
Doesn't care how you feel about that
Ignores your reasonable requests to stop
Calls you names (cold) when you ask him to stop

These are red flags. He is at best selfish, and at worst abusive. How is the rest of your relationship?

We sleep on a double bed, but DH is 5' 8" and not overweight, and I'm 5'0" and 8 stone, so we're okay. I understand it wouldn't necessarily work for taller/larger couples.

DH understands that apart from intimate times, there's a no touch rule during sleep. Apart from when I nudge or elbow him onto his side to stop him snoring. We sleep back to back - I couldn't bear to have anyone sleep breathing over me. I think it helps that we are both rather reserved and not massively touchy feely, but we've been happy together for 29 years, so it suits us.

Buy him a full body pregnancy pillow and threaten divorxe if he wakes you again.

Most men will behave if their genitals are threatened - perhaps try that over killing first of all?

If he sees his need to cuddle as more important than your health and recovery, that's not someone you should be keeping.

Separate rooms, OP. Posh people, people with money do it. Madness to share a bed all the time. Share it when you both want to. Every women needs a room of her own — and it's not the kitchen.

You need a bundling board!

And the Berlin Wall down the middle.

@UtterlyUnimaginativeUsername this made me laugh - in the middle of a coffee shop queue! Now the lady behind me is trying to see what I'm reading.

Time to wean him off

Aw, memories of growling in the night if I moved around too much and disturbed my two.

I can feel the rage on this thread and I’m totally here for it 🤣

Exactly the same as me, with exactly the same solution!

I put up with having virtually no sleep every night for 5 years - not as bad as it sounds, me and Mr FreeRider don't live together so he's only here about 10 nights a month - before I finally cracked and told him that sharing a bed wasn't an option anymore. And yes, we did have a superking bed! Not only was I dealing with hot flushes, his snoring on top created the 'perfect storm' for my lack of sleep...

Oh goodness, you’d all hate sharing a bed with me. I have* to be cuddled in a particular position to fall asleep, and then in a different position if I need to resettle. I also need background noise while sleeping but if the radio goes off, I nudge my husband to put it back on/switch channel.
I also appreciate some morning spooning to get me set up for the day.

Luckily for us, we’re both exactly the same so we have our little routines and tolerances. Being with someone who woke me solely for his own purposes would drive me nuts.

(*Ok, I accept I don’t have to, but we have an established routine that works so haven’t had to find an alternative).

That's lovely for you. But yes, I would hate sharing a bed with you and in fact I wouldn't, however much I liked you. My DH used to sleep on the sofa bed for at least 6 months after we started dating. In fact the fact that he happily did so was one of the reasons I kept him around. One man I dated sulked and pouted. I tried sleeping with him but had to get up in the night and sleep in my (empty!) DS's bed. He didn't last long.

This is a joke, right?

There is only one actual problem here. Lots of people enjoy night time cuddles, a passing friendly squeeze in the corridor or an affection pat on the bum. Lots of people don’t.

The problem is a lack of respect for boundaries and taking it personally if someone wants their space for whatever reason. Policing your boundaries is also important - but OP has done that.

I'd hate that, especially as my DH's arms weigh a bloody tonne. On cold nights I do sometimes snuggle up to him and he says he doesn't mind at all, but then he's one of those wicked people who can fall asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.

Why is it a joke? Preventing someone sleeping is selfish and potentially abusive behaviour

Despite a ludicrous amount of pillows, he still uses you as a comfort aid so he can get back to sleep, and he doesn’t care that that disturbs you and leaves you tired?

So, he thinks he’s more important than you, and that you function as a sleep aid to him when he needs it?

Selfish prick.

I reckon OP should move her DH out into the spare bedroom (if they have one), and buy him a giant teddy bear.

Well, she's trying to police her boundaries but he seems not to be willing to respect her wishes.

I've tried that. They eventually just flatten the pillow and cross over anyway.

I had dh start sleeping in the spare room when I had our first dc "so as not to disturb him"(being the loving wife I am) and just never let him come back. Our relationship is actually much better now as I'm not seething with rage in the morning after telling him to stop fucking snoring or to move over 10 times a night

God this is giving me the shivers thinking about my ex, who snored, I think had sleep apnea, could ‘only sleep well’ starfish in the middle of the bed so I was tucked away on my side, talked in his sleep, and at random times would literally poke me in the back to wake me up and spoon with him so he could ‘feel close to me when he’d had a bad dream or his depression was playing up’. He would then threw a tantrum and literally glower at me all morning if he woke up in the morning and I’d had the audacity to go and sleep in my own spare room so I could sleep, and at one point when I laughed at him being so selfish said that ‘he wasn’t prepared to have a relationship where we didn’t sleep in the same bed, so when was I going to start learning to adapt as that’s what relationships were all about?’ I don’t think he liked the answer of me breaking up with him. the audacity of some of them!

Coud you stick these to your back before bedtime?

I agree - as I said, she’s done that. He is well aware of her boundaries, and choses to ignore them.