AIBU to think a 10pm bedtime and 6am start is relatively normal in your 40s?

[Alwayschillyatnight]

A recent ex found it a real issue that i would go to bed between 9.30 and 10.30 (this is going upstairs to bed, not going to sleep. That takes a while longer!) and then regularly get up around 6-7am.
Twice a week i had to commute into London, about 90 minutes, so i would have to be up by 6 on that days immaterial. The rest of the week it just suited me to keep to that routine. I like being up early and going to bed a bit earlier stops me late night snacking.

The ex, a man in his mid 40s, without children stated categorically (and dont get me started on his always thinking he was right) that "most people our age wouldn't go to bed that early and get up early".

I believe he is skewed by his own - responsibility-free life and his ex wife who was also nocturnal in tendencies.

Personally everybody else i know my age generally keeps similar hours to me , except on rare occasions when you might stay up late to socialise and then regret it the next day!

So who is being unreasonable? This has been bugging me for weeks, despite the fact he is now an ex!

YABU - you live like a nun, he is right. Lighten up and stay up late.
YANBU - you are right and he is living like a teenager because he can and assuming its normal.

I go to sleep around 12 and get up at 7.30. but then I have a small child and if I went to bed at half 9 I'd be able to watch half of one episode of something rated 15 or 18 on telly.

Everyone is different in the sleep requirements. I go to bed at around 12.30 and always wake up at 6.00. That's enough for me. I'm 76 and still working full time.

Yes, we wfh part time and work 11 am - 6 pm, because we get the state pension. It doesn’t matter what hours we work, so long as the work is done for the deadlines. If the client sends me the information at 5 pm, and the deadline is tomorrow, I’ll do it that night. DC are grown up, so it makes no difference to us, if we work all day, or evening or weekend! I can just take my weekend in the week, if I have to!

Not everyone works office hours you know. I sometimes can finish work at 10 then start 8 the next day. At least 3 or 4 days a week I do this

So being in bed 9.30/10pm just wouldn't be useful

Think it depends on the distance people have to commute. When I worked in London in my 20s but loved in Gloucestershire I was up at 6.30 am and in bed around 11 pm.

In my 30s, 40s and now fifties my commute has usually been between 20-30 minutes, so I'm up at around 7.30 am and in bed around midnight.

That's my exact routine. Pre-children though, I could not have entertained the idea of getting up at 6am and going to bed at 10.00 but now its normal. Getting up at 8am is a lie-in for me.

What’s less normal is you mulling over an ex’s opinion. He had an issue with your bedtime, you have made his opinion of your bedtime an issue. You are both kind of doing the same thing but over different details.

Human beings are not some homogeneous blob who all operate at the same time.
10pm is early for some, late for some and just right for some.

We did this all our working lives.

I am not quite 40's but close.

I would say in my friendship group 9-9:30pm is the early end for bedtime for a few people, 10 ish is probably about the average and then a few night owls 11-midnight. Everyone is up between 5:30 - 6:30am (the early end all have small kids)

Personally I function fairly well on low sleep so I am usually 11-11:30pm and am up by 6:15am if the kids have slept in and anywhere from 5am onwards if not.

I don’t think it’s hugely weird for someone to go to bed at 10pm in their 40s, but I also don’t think it’s some kind of default standard.

I certainly don’t think wanting to go to bed later than 10pm is ‘living like a teenager’.

Personally, at the age of 50, I could never in a million years have a relationship with someone who wanted to be in bed by 10pm every night. It’s an instant ‘ick’ for me, to use a Mumsnet term.

That doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with it, or with that person. It does mean we wouldn’t be at all compatible.

It’s really just an ‘each to their own’ thing.

I dont know - ive always been a super late sleeper - last night was down about 130am and i was up at 8am today. When the kids go to school, im down by 1am, and up by 715am...

Christ don’t let this one bother you .. pat yourself on the back for a lucky escape. We are up at 530 and pretty much in bed by 9 every night . He sounds a right one 😳

Go to bed between 10-10.30 - awake by 7.

Not normal no, in as much as human beings are all very different. Whilst lots of people probably do have that routine, many won't, and it'll all fine.

Personally I go to bed between 10-11 and sleep in till about 10-11. I like a lot of sleep!

But what this guy thinks should really be neither here nor there as a) he's an ex and b) he sounds like an idiot.

So true. If I had a partner who was tucked up in bed at 10pm I'd never spend any time with them. And don't people ever go out socially? Like meet at 8pm but run home at 9.30 for a 10pm bedtime

I do agree with this- I find people who lay in give me the "ick" too - it feels lazy and unproductive for a grown adult to be laying in until 10am to me so definitely wouldnt be compatible

Sound perfectly normal. I’m not sure what his problem with it actually is. DH and I have different sleep patterns; I go at about 10pm, and he stays up later. We both get up at roughly the same time, around 6:30-7am. It’s fine, a non-issue.

Why do partners need to go to bed at the same time?

At a table of around ten of us everyone who had a partner said they’d argued with them about this! All of our dps or dhs went to bed much later and got up later. I think it’s a man vs woman thing (before that I thought it was a morning person/ night person thing!!)

They don't but if you never see them because they are in bed what's the point

I usually go to bed between 11pm and midnight and get up around 7.30 so I don’t think going to bed at 9.30-10 is normal at all.

@Alwayschillyatnight
I don't think it's about what others do, or what is "normal". It's more about compatibility.

I'd struggle with your schedule. My teens don't go to bed as early as you do, and certainly don't wake up at 6. But again - if that works for you - then it's what you need to do. And you can find a partner who is on the same schedule.

Anyone who says 'most people are [insert speaker's preference]' is an arse.

Agreed. I fully accept there are night owls out there who keep very different hours from me. It was being painted as an anomaly for my age for keeping the hours I do that pissed me off. My hours may not be what everybody does, but they are by no means abnormal, either.

Annoy away! I don’t get the snooty replies on here. Just scroll past if you’re not interested.