Husband’s gym habit making me ill.

[RubyRedEye]

My husband has been getting up early to go to the gym. He likes that it’s empty and he hasn’t got to wait to use any of the machines.

The problem is that he is getting up at 4.30am.

He tries to be really quiet, but inevitably he is waking me up.

I really struggle to go back to sleep and I’m working full time as a teacher. I’m exhausted. I am also getting dreadful headaches throughout the day, because I’m so tired. I can barely concentrate.

His solution is that he sleeps in the living room. So that’s it? No more sleeping in the same bed. That’s really not what I wanted from a marriage. The idea makes me feel really sad and disconnected from him.

I asked him to go at a different time, but he also goes to the gym from 8-10pm every day, so unless he goes 6-10pm, there’s no other option. He works full time too.

I feel upset that there’s no compromise. He’s all about his health, his fitness, his wellbeing. Whilst mine is going down the pan. He might be able to function on 5 hours sleep a night, but I can’t.

Who is being unreasonable.

It’s great to hear that update OP. You have to show that emotion at times in relationships. He finally sees you and understands the impact his behaviour has been having on you. Contrary to a previous poster I think you both sound like lovely people. With normal anxieties like most of us have.

Another idea I had for you is yoga nidra. There is a website packed with free recordings. It’s ’yogic Sleep’ - you lie and listen to a guided body scan. It can really help you recover from the effects of a night of poor sleep. It can bring your nervous system to a state of calm and that helps you sleep better at night too. If you wake too early you can do a body scan and fall back to sleep.

Bollocks. Sleep deprivation is literal torture. Ask any insomniac.

I’ve not rtft op - only your responses but I just wanted to say I sympathise and you’re not wrong for feeling so upset about this. Lack of sleep starts to play with your mental health, as does just feeling generally distant and on a different page from the person you love.

I had similar going on with my dh earlier in the year (although it wasn’t going to the gym but worse/more complicated really). It just ended up gradually over time making me feel like I didn’t want to be in the relationship anymore. I’d try to talk to him and he’d minimise my concerns or say he’d do x and y but then didn’t.

It took a huge cataclysmic situation and I suppose an ultimatum on my part where he was forced to listen and really face up to all of our issues. I told him I was thinking of divorce and wasn’t sure if I was in love with him any more. You should only say things like this if you really mean it of course but I honestly did - I was looking at houses and researching finances.

He was devastated and shocked. I’d had enough and he knew it.
Long story short he fought for me - he didn’t want to split at all and we talked and talked (more than we’ve ever talked in our 20-odd years together - his inability to discuss emotions/anything not just surface level was one of the problems). We decided to work on things - he has changed his behaviour so much in the last 9 months that I sometimes don’t recognise him!(in a good way). He’s still the man I fell in love with but better, he tries hard every day to convey that he loves me and has really taken on board everything I said and tried to turn it around.

So sometimes a build up over time of resentment/unresolved issues can ultimately lead to point where it all comes to a head and there’s a huge release of emotions and upset. But if this leads to communication and the beginning of trying to resolve things and fix what is broken it can ultimately be a good thing for the relationship as it forces you both to decide whether you really love one another enough to change things or to compromise on certain issues.

Im so glad you’ve talked and you’re feeling better - it sounds like he really loves you and wants to fix things.

He can be bothered to make the effort to go to the gym twice a day

However, he cannot be bothered to cook for himself ?

There is still something off with his behaviour

I know that some gyms are open 24x7x365.
I know people that go to the gym at odd times.
I have never heard of someone going twice a day, so many times per week ! He sounds obsessed. He will get an injury & will not be able to go at all.

I sympathise with needing more sleep

Do you speak to people in real life like this? What was your intention in posting? This is a site for support, not social media where you can anonymously post nasty comments.
I suggest you take a long hard look at yourself

What a horrible thing to say, the OP is obviously in a very distressed state and is not being pathetic at all, her tears are just a normal human emotion.
I hope you and your OH can come to a compromise OP, he sounds terribly obsessive about it all and that won’t be doing him any good either.

I'm so glad he won't be living on eggs and protein shakes. Is he managing to have regular movements?

Sounds like decent communication. Does the gym have a sauna etc? Maybe you could do an hour then chill? Or read? Be nice if you could go together.

@HarrietTheFireStarter you're a pathetic bully. Hth.

From an alternative perspective, would it be possible to go suit shopping with him on Saturday, I know they are expensive but fashions and body shapes change.

I agree. A new decent suit will help his confidence.

Well done OP!! Must have been hard.

Easy on here to say just communicate, just talk, and to forget that questions are about real people with a lot of complex factors. I do hope your DH gets some suits that fit him as he is now, and some advice on healthy sustainable workouts and meals

@RubyRedEye He’s not been sleeping well and is laying awake with sciatica early in the morning, so thought it would be better to get up and move than stay in bed suffering. It just seemed logical to get an extra workout in. is he for real??? does he really think that going to the gym will help his sciatica??? he needs to not go there and he needs to do the correct exercise to help ease his disc back into the space in the spine where it should be!! going to the gym has probably what caused his sciatica in the first place!!

Your husband suffers from sciatica and works out 3-4 hours a day, without any medical or physiotherapist supervision? This is both crazy and dangerous!

He urgently needs to see a specialist and have a proper PT assessment, with a view to arriving at a long term exercise plan. Otherwise he'll almost certainly cause himself long term damage.

Yes- this too. Working out like crazy with improper technique and inadequate rest periods will make it worse.

This I know you are pleased you have spoken but your husband is still showing worrying signs both in terms of his mental and physical well being

anyone else who does that amount of exercise for professional reasons would be closely monitored in terms of diet, physical and mental well being

to do that amount on his own in an empty gym is dangerous

@RubyRedEye it's nice to read a post where a couple actually communicate.

Glad you are feeling a bit better.

It sounds like he'd benefit from pilates or similar. Maybe you could do some together?

Men seem to go at the gym in a very, well male, way.

I'd be buying him a consultation with a PT for Christmas as it really does sound like he'd benefit from directing his efforts better.

And off topic but what kind of mattress do you have? When we moved from a double to a king size bed with a pocket sprung mattress, I stopped waking up when my husband got out of bed. Now he can get up and I don't even realise.

Perhaps a new mattress might help with both his sciatica and your waking.

If communication is hard then maybe scheduling in a regular time for talking would help so these things don't fester again in the future. If you can't be honest with your spouse then a relationship is in trouble imo.

And off topic but what kind of mattress do you have

Good question. And sleeping on the sofa is likely to aggravate his sciatica.

Honestly, @RubyRedEye , your husband needs to sort out his health instead of blindly ploughing ahead with all this nonsense - just to be able to fit into an old suit for a work event.

Get him to arrange an appointment with a spine specialist and an accredited physiotherapist - and a new suit!

The husband doesn't need to sleep on the sofa, they have empty bedrooms!!

I was a competing bodybuilder and I used to do an hour of running/walking outside in the morning and an hour in the gym in the evening.
Outside of competing I used to do just the hour in the gym on an evening.

The man is sick. I couldn't enjoy living with him (only beans for a year?!) and I'd be worried what his behaviour means for our future. It sounds like he is exhibiting symptoms of some kind of psychological disorder. Hopefully it doesn't get any worse. Obsessive patterns of behaviour and thinking can be dangerous.

So pleased you found a solution together. It’s really hard when a new hobby takes over - especially when it’s depriving you of sleep.
Have a chat with him about how the exercise will change (reduce) once he is on his post-goal maintenance routine, too, as he can’t keep up what he’s been doing forever!

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5386595/

@RubyRedEye ⬆️ A very relevant science journal article on Compulsive Exercise disorder.