My partner and I have different expectations around sleep

[tiredoldthing]

I’m not sure if either of us are being unreasonable here or if it’s just incompatibility.

I’ve been with my partner for seven months. We’ve recently started to stay the night on a regular basis.

I get up at 5:40 in the week, to go to the gym. He is happy to roll out of bed at 8:30, and start work at 9. I don’t wake him in the morning as I leave.

He thinks that the fact I like to be asleep by 11 in the week and midnight at the weekend is “pathetic”. If he had his way we’d be up until 2/3am everyday.

As it stands by Friday I’m exhausted. My eyes are going, I nodded off on the sofa watching the football, and now I’m in bed I’ve been falling asleep. I’ve just about settled down for the night when he’s started to call me boring and said I can cope with a later night because it’s the weekend.

I can obviously have a late night, if I have plans etc., I will. But on an ordinary night I do like my routine because sleep is important to me and I don’t think I get enough of it.

Is one of us being unreasonable? Or are we just incompatible when it comes to this?

This is a giant red flag to me, OP.

Is he like this about other aspects of your life?

You need to be in bed for about 9.30 or at least brushing your teeth etc at that time.

This 100%. He thinks you’re ‘pathetic’ ‘boring’ and ‘childish’? He sounds controlling,
unpleasant and completely unworthy of you. If you’re tired you need to sleep and it’s your decision when you decide to go to bed, not his. You sound lovely OP and are worth more than this abusive idiot. Time to show him the door I think!

It's not your sleep schedules that are at fault - it is his rude assumption that only HIS way is right, and his calling of you 'boring' when you don't immediately fall in with his way of doing things.

If he hasn't already, he will soon spread this to other areas of your life. You'll be 'boring' if you don't drink to excess at parties, 'boring' when you don't want holidays that involve lying on the beach all day....

Sorry, OP. You can try talking to him, but I think he will consider himself firmly in the right. This one doesn't have legs.

Don’t stay with him. He doesn’t respect your needs. I am exactly the same as you I go to bed early and wake early it’s how I function. I do my exercise first thing and then have early nights. My husband will go exercise when I go sleep as he goes to bed and wakes later we each respect each others preference and make time in the evenings. Don’t make someone force you to change what makes you function and feel better, find someone who supports you be the best version of you and will make it work, Sleep is so important… do not sacrifice it for a man 🤣

I'm like you and good sleep on a regular patter is better for your body and MH.

I'm a morning person and I wake up at five to five fifteen and get up at that time every day.

Being called names over something as non as this is worrying. If anything is pathetic, it's him calling you names.

Not wanting to lie in doesn’t put you on the autistic spectrum. Loads of people don’t like a lay in. Why is it boring to not want to stay up and watch tv. If there’s nothing to watch it becomes boring and you get tired. Your DP isn’t kind, I’d get rid.

Neither of you is wrong to have the sleep pattern you like but if he's calling you pathetic and other nasty things then he's not a very nice person. Have some self respect and refuse to be treated like that. If he can't respect the bed time you want, you may wish to reconsider the relationship but while you do stop staying over and go back to your own place at 10:30

I don’t think you are compatible.

The majority of my friends are very early risers. Several I met at a 6am gym class. We all go to bed 10 latest…

The fact he is calling you names, trying to force you to stay up when you are tired are red flags!

How on earth can you stay awake til 11pm?! I would be exhausted after being up since 5.40am.

Of course he’s wrong. OP says she needs her sleep, he’s wrong to suggest she doesn’t.

OP, he knows you’re getting less sleep than him (as he sleeps in til 8.30) and doesn’t care. Throw this one back.

My partner and I are like this so we live separately, spend the weekends together and one or sometimes two nights a week and holidays of course. I like my routine!

I’m a 5am off to the gym person. There are loads of us of all ages and backgrounds. Also lots of people up and about generally this time in the morning-even in winter. I go to bed at 9.30. My partner doesn’t comment. Your soon to be ex partner needs to grow up.

Please don’t stay with someone who calls you pathetic! Raise your bar! For what it’s worth I’m similar to you and my partner is very similar to your boyfriend. In 30 years he has never once called me names for needing to manage my sleep in a different way to him!

Your routine works for you. It makes sense to stick to it unless you are going out. He on.the other hand sounds selfish and unkind

I have zero opinion your individual sleep patterns because they are exactly that - individual.

i definitely have an opinion on your partner calling you childish, pathetic and boring. I definitely have an opinion on him expecting you to match his routine - but he wouldn’t compare moving closer to yours. He’s showing you who he is, so pay attention.

I don't think you are being unreasonable. I think he is nasty to call you pathetic. I am early to bed and my husband stays up late, been married 16 years. Sometimes I think it would be nice to be more in the same rhythm but it's not a deal breaker for us.

I don’t know a single adult who rolls out of bed at 8:30. And how exactly is she being judgemental?

@tiredoldthing I don’t know why people find it strange to wake at 5:40. I’m up at 5 every day. I’m a morning person and quite useless in the evenings. I exercise, read, meditate and have some time to myself before I leave for work at 7:30. I’ve even been known to cook at 6am!
He is being very dismissive of your needs and feels you should mould your lifestyle to his own. That is a red flag to me.

Im the same. I go to bed at 10.30pm and awake by 6.30am as I just don't sleep well so like to have a nice calm and regular sleep routine.

My DH goes to bed at gone midnight and can sleep through any noise.so just sleeps in late at weekends and as late S possible on work days.

I love mornings!

If he dared question or take the piss out of my routine then I'd be furious.

Christ he's got you diagnosing yourself now because you have perfectly normal habits 🙄

As somebody who has experienced both ends of the spectrum and tends to get more work done at night, I can tell you that while in the moment it feels good to stay awake late, even wasteful not to, you are unlikely to wake up refreshed and energetic, although of course everybody is different. When I force myself to sleep by 10pm, I feel like I've wasted the night but I feel better in the morning around 7-7:30am when I wake up. And when I sleep early I also start to wake up earlier naturally, which allows me to make up the time I missed by sleeping early. In any case, your partner should respect your opinions. If he doesn't, I won't tell you to leave him as that is your decision to make, but you should consider whether the fact that he is unwilling to listen to reason, appreciate your opinions and needs, or negotiate will be a problem, particularly in the long term. So he does sound unreasonable to me. There's nothing wrong with your wanting to keep healthy habits. It's your future, after all, and your life too. I hope this helps :)

Biggest problem for me is that you are only 7 months into a relationship and he’s calling you boring and pathetic. He sounds immature. Sleep is important for our health and wellbeing and we all have our own requirements. If you are awake and want to go off to the gym and are not disturbing him by doing so then no problem. If he wants to stay up until 2am and doesn’t disturb you equally no problem. Calling you pathetic and boring for not wanting to fall into his sleep schedule every night most definitely not ok!

The thought of staying up till midnight/2am sounds horrendous to me! It also doesn’t matter what time I go to bed, I never sleep later then about 6.30. Always been the same! The thought of dating a night owl brings me out in a cold sweat

Your boyfriend sounds like an arsehole.

That's why we date people, to find out what they're like.

This one is a nasty git. Dump.

PP on this thread calling your routine outside the norm, extreme - ignore them, they are all barmy! They’re projecting their own routines onto their thinking and assuming everyone is or should be like them.

5:40 is a perfectly normal and I would imagine pretty common time to wake up.

ditch the twat and keep getting up at 5:40