Sleeping on the sofa has DH annoyed

[Sleepybanana]

So .. I’ve been unwell over the past few weeks (chest infection) and chose to sleep on the sofa when I was really bad.
reasons being

1. living room is warmer which helped
2. i felt it was easier to breathe sleeping at an incline
3. no guilt at tossing and turning and coughing and waking him (and the kids upstairs) up etc.

DH was completely supportive of this as I was really unwell.
However now I’m back to normal and finding it hard to go back to bed.

background - I am a horrendous sleeper. I sleepwalk, sleep talk and have bad dreams very often and feel a lot of guilt about this, and feel bad about waking up DH. He’s a light sleeper and worries about me when I’m out on a midnight wander. He will tell me the next day the crazy stuff I was doing , where as obviously sleeping alone I don’t know I’m doing it so the emotional side has been removed.

also (I feel guilty about this) I am actually sleeping better. Despite me being a pain in the arse to sleep with, i don’t need much sleep and often really struggle to fall asleep whereas he’s out like a light but needs more sleep than me. I love having the freedom to just look at nothing on my phone until I get sleepy. He doesn’t like when I do this and just wants me to go to sleep ( me too but my brain just won’t turn off sometimes… very stressful job blah blah blah).

He has been hinting / asking when I am going to come back and made a comment tonight about how “if this is how you want to spend the rest of our marriage that’s your choice” but was quite cold.

I KNOW he’s missing me sleeping with him and he says he isn’t sleeping as well as a result, which is weird because I imagined he would sleep better without me annoying him all the time. this was my justification for doing it in a way.
He says he wakes up in the night looking for me, and feels like we are not as close anymore.
Very busy lives (don’t we all!) mean there’s not really intimacy outside the bedroom. I’m not a naturally “cuddly” person and he is, which also is another layer to this.

kids have started to pick up on it and comment.

I dunno what to do here? I feel sad/guilty that I’m hurting him and maybe that I am being quite selfish in choosing my own sleep first, even though now I’m no longer unwell. Do I just suck it up and go back and accept all the layers of guilt that go along with it? Or is there another comprise I’m not seeing?
also would love to hear perspectives from the other side of this.

My wife will sleep on the sofa sometimes when she is anxious and has been staring at the ceiling. A change of scene helps her.
This forum is an eye opener, to be honest, if I had a friend say he was getting upset at his wife for this, I would be horrified at his behaviour. I can understand a woman getting annoyed at a man, but not the other way round.

"I can understand a woman getting annoyed at a man, but not the other way round."

Out of curiosity, Why?
Men are allowed to like cuddles and be sad when there are no cuddles to be had too, they're human!

I think it is a question of expectations. I very much agree with what you say but it can be hard and almost insulting to have a man's feelings equated with his wife's. It is a question of roles that are still ingrained no matter how harmful that is.

I was similar to you. Shocking sleeper, and would sometimes lie in bed awake in the dark because I didn't want to disturb dh.

As a result, I prefer to sleep alone. Dh prefers to sleep together.

The compromise is we usually sleep together, but on my terms. If he's not sticking to my terms for whatever reason (usually because he's still on email on his phone until midnight), we sleep separately. And if I wake up at whatever time and want to read something on my computer, I do (he's never asked me not to, I just used to feel guilty if I disturbed him - now it's clear he would rather have me in the room and be disturbed, the guilt is gone).

And whenever I really want to sleep separately I do too. Just cos I feel like it. But turns out that provided I'm not trying to accommodate him and the way he sleeps, I'm fairly happy to sleep together most of the time. Still have my own bedroom though. And I'm not giving it up.

I'm like you, a terrible sleeper, always have been. I also sleepwalk and have night terrors...now I'm 55, menopausal and have hot flushes - mainly at night - to add to the list. I don't operate well on little sleep.

I've been with my current partner for 14 and a half years - we don't live together as he works away. Any spare time he's here. When I hit about 47ish my sleep got worse ... the final straw for me was the Christmas after I'd turned 50, I had the flu over the whole 2 week period and my partner still wouldn't go and sleep on the sofa bed in the living room ... to be honest I wanted him to go home and leave me alone to be ill full stop!

He finally (after about 2 years) saw sense and we now sleep in separate rooms when he's here. We are both far happier as we are both getting a good night's sleep - I can get up in the middle of the night and read/whatever without worrying about disturbing him and vice versa.

I’ve been single 4 years and I didn’t live with my last partner so I haven’t regularly shared a bed in almost a decade.

I think I’d really struggle now if I met someone to share a bed. I love sleeping diagonally across my king size bed and I’ve never enjoy snuggling up or spooning. Just stay on your side and I’ll stay on mine!

@Sleepybanana im presuming your partner sees it as a rejection of him. I know o would feel this way if it was me.

What has been done by you (and him) to improve sleep habits and the nighttime low blood sugar levels? What compromises from both of you have been done or is it you’ve said what you want and he has stated his place and that’s it. It’s not his/your way or the highway. There is a middle ground.

getting to grips with sleep walking would massively improve things would it not?

And your partner looking into his love language and how maybe you show your love in a different way might help. My partner shows love with small thoughtful acts. I show mine with silly little gifts/acts etc but also need physical touch to hammer it home (holding hand, occasionally cuddling etc). We have a cuddle in bed and the roll over from each other! So no koala bear hugging him for the night as that would be too much for me (and him)!

My husband choosing to sleep in the spare room was the start of the end of my marriage. I felt incredibly rejected and it caused a huge loss of intimacy. I understand his reasons (also a bad sleeper) but he ignored my feelings on the matter. A few years down the line and our relationship is sexless and falling apart.

This

a husband choosing to sleep on the sofa would be seen as an issue, withdrawing, probably up to something. However a husband wanting to sleep in the same bed as his wife is also wrong in mumsnet world

careful op.

I think going to bed together is far more than just lying next to eachother. I’d feel a bit disconnected if I was sleeping separately as though you might as well be friends because that large portion of intimacy has been taken away.
You don’t need it but he does and I don’t think that’s a bad thing or controlling as some people have commented. It’s completely reasonable to want to go to bed with your partner/spouse. You admit there is less intimacy outside of the bedroom and are now taking that away, don’t blame him for feeling the way he does.

I got really grumpy with my DH when I suddenly realised a few years into marriage the reason my insomnia was worse when he was home (he used to work away alot) was because I felt forced into going to bed at 10am and lying there for hours when my natural time I get sleepy is between 12 and midnight.

It's as selfish for an early sleeper to expect a late sleeper to go to bed early every night as it is for a late sleeper to expect an early sleeper to go to bed late every night

Tbf my DH was quite amenable to separate bedrooms because my insomnia is terrible and he could see how ill it was making me. We just find other times and ways to bring intimacy into our relationship