My husband will not respect my need for sleep. Help!

[Girlmom35]

So, I'll start off by saying I'm a light sleeper. Always have been. I remember laying awake for hours as a kid. I have trouble falling asleep. The slightest noise wakes me up and once I'm awake, I don't fall asleep again easily. And most mornings, no matter how tired I am, I'll be awake 30 minutes before my alarm goes off. I've learned to live with little sleep, especially since motherhood. Although motherhood has helped in a way, because I'm so tired now that I do actually fall asleep faster.

My husband will fall asleep in an instant, and not wake up unless something big happens. He sleeps well and deeply and will sometimes sleep through the alarm or needs to be waken up multiple times. I envy him. He also has some autistic traits, like empathy being difficult for him. Unless he experiences something himself, he will have trouble understanding how someone else feels. This is where I need help. I have tried to talk to him every way that I can about needing more uninterrupted sleep, but he keeps not taking it seriously.

Every night it's something.
I will say that I'm heading off to bed and ask if he'll come too. Because if he walks in an hour later, he will do something stupid like turn all the bedroom lights on, or drop something on the floor. He doesn't get that if I wake up, it will take me an hour to fall asleep again. He will say he's right behind me, but then get distracted and come to bed late, when I specifically asked him not to.
Or he will come to bed with me, but decide he wants to fiddle on his phone before going to sleep. And I just know that at some point he'll open an app with sound and wake me up when I've just fallen asleep. This is despite me asking him repeatedly to check whether his phone sound is off before going to bed. Or he'll open a can of soda in the middle of the night.

I just can't take it anymore. Every night I beg him to please let me sleep. To be careful not to drop anything, not to play videos with sound on. And every single night he ends up costing me at least an hour of sleep. He apologizes, but then he expects me to just turn around and go back to sleep. I can't. I'm running on 5-6 hours of sleep and I'm exhausted.

Why do I not go to bed earlier? If I go to bed too early, I just end up laying awake. I wish I could. I need to be really tired before I can fall asleep.
Why I don't use earplugs? I have a 2 year old and a 5 year old and I'm not comfortable not being able to hear them in case they wake up crying from a bad dream, or if they get sick.
We have a guest bedroom with a very comfy bed. I know I might have to resort to sleeping there if this doesn't get better. I've asked my husband to go sleep there if he comes to bed late, and he will do that when I specifically ask him to. But when we sleep apart for a few days he gets sad and says he misses me. And honestly I would really prefer to sleep next to my husband as well.

And please don't set the MN maffia on me to tell me I need to leave my husband. He's a good husband and father in most other areas. We all have our flaws. I'm asking for advice on how I can get through to him so I can sleep next to the man I love and still get more than 6 hours of sleep every night.

Lack of sleep has so many negative effects, as you’re more than aware. Appreciate everyone us different but 5-6 hours is ok, though not ideal, and reframing that will help along with of course actually addressing the issue.

A few suggestions:

• no phones policy in the bedroom. This will also help you fall asleep due to the blue light issue messing with our brains, but also mean your husband won’t do the stupid app thing
• water only in the bedroom. No fizzy drinks or anything (as an aside, who wants a fizzy drink in the middle of the night!)
• get more exercise. It really makes a huge difference in falling asleep, as your body will be knackered so it will force your mind to shut down
• get earplugs. I know you want to hear your kids - I didn’t wear them whilst DS was a baby and woke up if he even shuffled around. Now wear silicon earplugs and all I do is increase the monitor volume by 1 and I can hear him cry and literally nothing else. It’s wonderful.

Or best case, all of the above and he comes to bed with you (you may need to adjust your bed time to later though, to be fair to him)

Or as other PP have said, a set arrangement of 4 nights in spare room, 3 in room with DH but I personally don’t like the sound of that.

DH was banished to the spare room 2 years ago, and we simply cannot share a room anymore. He's got a horrific sleep pattern - comes to bed, sleeps for half an hour then gets up and makes tea/eats toast, and repeats that cycle until around 4am when he then goes into a deep sleep. He then is exhausted and has about 5/6 naps during the day. He doesn't see anything wrong with this I'm a very light sleeper, any noise wakes me and it was getting to the point that i was horrible to live with because I was constantly exhausted.

I now have a fan on overnight which distracts my hearing, and have to sleep with the door closed otherwise I am still disturbed by him. I used to have a monitor in the kitchen to hear the dogs (one is a chewer!) but changed that for a video camera so I can check them on my phone. I'd also add that it's known form of domestic abuse to deprive your partner of sleep... I pointed that out to DH when he was resisting the spare room.

I don't agree with all those saying OP should move to the spare bedroom. She has a bedroom where she should be able and allowed to sleep. If her selfish husband stops her doing so, he needs to go into the spare room. So either he goes to bed at the same time as her, and takes care not to disturb her, or sleeps in another room. If they are in the same room, OP should get him to agree to no phones and no drinks cans in the bedroom, and get some definite commitment from him to actively help her sleep.

Honestly, separate bedrooms and spaces are more likely to save a marriage rather than break it.

I would not conflating staying separately to punishment. It will just make him resentful. I would not have set times etc. @MrsTerryPratchett is right that it is a natural consequence, so I would not seek to look as if I was imposing it.

I would absolutely be in the other room though and if he was sad, I would explain why.

I love y dh very much and he me, but we sleep apart. We start off together, but he goes into the spare room when I fall asleep and then we get together in the morning. I took a while to get used to it but it works so well. We both wake in the night and turn on the radio to get back to sleep and are able to do this without worrying about waking the other. It sounds as if you need to do something like that to save your sanity! Maybe just sleep in the spare and see each other in the morning. And you can still be very intimate while sleeping apart!

But when we sleep apart for a few days he gets sad and says he misses me.

Well he clearly doesn't miss you enough to motivate him to stop doing the things that wake you up, does he? A lack of empathy like this would be a dealbreaker for me in a relationship. If he has a lack of empathy, it seems very unlikely that this doesn't extend to other things inblife as well as the sleep situation. And Presumably it will affect his understanding of your children when they go through things he hasn't experienced.

@EyeOop, apologies if this has already been posted - I've only read all of OP's comments - but please Google CPAP machine and get your husband to get himself one. He should by start by asking his GP to test him for sleep apnoea, and from how severe his snoring is, they should definitely give him one.

My husband used to snore exactly like you describe, and I had years of absolute misery with sleep. The CPAP machine was a life changer. I cannot big it up enough.

I’d be in the spare room, maybe he’ll start to understand how badly it is affecting you. The first thing to consider with poor sleep is “sleep hygiene” so creating a good environment in which to sleep (including minimising the chance of being disturbed) and learning good habits which promote good sleep. If you went to a sleep therapist and told them that your phone wakes you by buzzing randomly after you’d fallen asleep then they’d tell you to switch your phone off or not to take it to bed. The same thing is happening here, it makes no sense to keep the thing that is disturbing you in the room with you. Opening cans, turning on lights and playing noisy videos are all things that would wake most people and lots of people find it hard to go back to sleep once woken. It’s not a sleep problem you have….

As an aside, I find the sleep stories on Calm are really good for helping me to get back to sleep if I do happen to wake in the night, they might be a generally useful tool for you if sleep doesn’t tend to come easily.

Separate bedrooms is the only way to resolve this.

You have to get to the stage where two bedrooms between is are the norm. Not that you each have your own room but that you both have two rooms.

If he’s late to bed and needs to faff around he goes to the one you aren’t already asleep in.
If you wake up because he’s on his phone next to you, you get up and go to the other room so that you are only ever disturbed once per night by him.
If you are particularly tired and know you can’t risk being disturbed you make it very clear before you go to bed which room you will take all for yourself so that if he disturbs you, it’s not by accident -it’s wilful.

If he wants to sleep next to you he has to be respectful of your needs.
If you want to sleep better you have to get tough and lay the rules down more firmly.

I am also an incredibly light sleeper op. I feel your pain. I wear a loop earplug in just one ear and have the other on my pillow. I hear my dc if they wake. I wish we had a spare room though, I’d be using it!

You’ll hear your DC with earplugs in. Particularly if everything wakes you up anyway. I feel for you but I’d also feel like I was imprisoned by my partner’s anxiety and sensitivity if I had to go to bed and be utterly silent and motionless whenever he decided it was bedtime.

I’m not a light sleeper, once I’m out, I’m usually out

however, I can hear my dog if he’s barking even with earplugs. You do, you just hear them.

my OH is also a bit painful like this (suspect some autism on his part too) he gets told regularly not to (fucking) whisper, and if he can’t find something he too will think nothing of putting on the light. Sneezing fits? Oh he’ll just carry on and sneeze right fucking next to me. He does drive me mad sometimes. And he snores. So I roll him but I still get disturbed

the earplugs muffle most things, and the silk eye mask really helps with the light being left on while he’s reading.

tell him phone outside of the room and insist on it

i get it, it would be FAR easier to go to the guest room, but I don’t want to sleep there away from him.

try the earplugs. They don’t block everything out. And anyway, won’t your H wake up?

If you want to make him understand the problem, I guess the answer is that if you're awake, you make sure he is also awake. after the third night he will get it. Then he will either stop disrupting your sleep, or stop being a sad pouty child if you decide to sleep in the spare room.

I am the same. The only solution is to go to bed at the same time or sleep in separate bedrooms. Earplugs won't work.

You're doing the right thing OP. Being chronically sleep-deprived is terrible for your health and also for things like your safety behind the wheel of a car. I don't know if you drive your kids, but if you do then you really don't want to be running on empty sleep-wise - it's simply not safe.

DH and I started sleeping in separate rooms when I was pregnant with DS2. He needed more sleep at that point, because I was up and down going to the loo, but we both slept so much better in separate rooms that 13 years later we still do. He snores badly and I'm a relatively light sleeper, but everyone needs their sleep.

And for everyone who can hear a pin drop or wakes early in the summer - can I recommend either a fan or a white noise machine and blackout-lined curtains?

I have to say I would absolutely hate it if DH expected me to go to bed the same time as him, though of course if I go up later than him I expect to be quiet, not put the light on etc. It is going to have to be separate bedrooms unless and until he can work out that, if this makes him sad, it is within his control to create a situation where it isn't necessary simply by being considerate.

I'm like you. Very sensitive sleeper. Even my DH turning over in bed would wake me up (he would lift himself up and flop down WTF). The resentment and exhaustion was really not good. I sleep in the spare room now and OMG what a difference. Do it. You won't know yourself.

Separate rooms.

So his argument if he is in a separate room is that he misses you? He isn’t thinking about you at all. He wants to be able to make as much noise as he wants and have you in bed with him even if it makes you unhappy. Why are you the bottom of the pile? And if you have ear plugs you can’t hear the children? What is he? Chopped liver? He can get up with them, it’s not your job all the time.

I have been in the exact position and I finally relented to moving into the spare room. It was absolutely the best decision I ever made and probably saved our relationship.

What I realised was my need for sleep didn't always trump his need to read his phone before bed or set his alarm 30 mins earlier and hit snooze 3 times (all things that drove me to distraction).
I have now turned the spare room into my sanctuary (which I give up when guests come to stay and move back in with DH for a sleepover).
We spend our evenings together and still have plenty of intimacy (probably more than before) and it's bliss saying goodnight and closing the door and slipping into my own bed to stretch out and enjoy some peace and quiet.
Navigate it calmly (don't do it as that's it I'm can't take any more flounce in the spare room) talk about it during the day, even position it as a trial if that would help? It truly is what all good relationships thrive on and that's the art of compromise.

This.

He opens cans of soda in the night? That is bizarre.

Dr Sears, the attachment parenting guy, said that the best sleeping solution for a family if the one where people get the most sleep. Separate rooms for the sake of your sanity and your family.

I sleep in the spare bedroom sometimes because I’m a light sleeper and my husband likes to stay up late too. It’s great. No it’s not perfect but I get a good nights sleep when I really need it.

I sleep so lightly that my husband wakes me up even if he’s trying to be quiet. We can’t help it but we’re wired differently when it comes to sleep. Other than that we are an almost perfect match..!

(edited as I pressed post too soon. Butterfingers)