DH's night terrors are affecting my sleep and I need solutions

[NoMoreBedTime]

DH has night terrors and I have had enough.

He is a wonderful man, seriously, and he hates that he does this but he is so reluctant to have separate beds as he thinks this will be detrimental to our relationship.
But I can't deal with this anymore. He has nightmares that I am being attacked all the time and in his efforts to 'save me' or the kids in his dreams I end up getting lumps knocked out of me in real life.

I have just been woken again by 3 consecutive knees to the back and I am done.

He has been to the drs. They say its a side effect of a medication (but it happened before the meds too) He has been prescribed different things, like something to make him sleep heavier. Nothing works. He's changed the medications that cause it. He has tried many things.

I know what the responses are going to be.

"He isnt a good man if he is hurting you but doesn't want to have separate beds to stop that" and I do get that he is being selfish in that regard and I don't really want to have separate beds either :( but I don't know what else to do.

He spends the night tossing and turning, talking and shouting at people in his dreams.

It's at the point now where I just don't feel safe and if he is 'sleep talking' I can't sleep because I'm waiting for him to lash out :(

If we got separate beds they would have to be singles too as 2 doubles wouldnt fit and neither of us are going to be comfortable in a single bed. Its going to look weird in the room and our sex life will probably go down the pan.

I just don't have any other solution :(

I don't know if OP is still reading but it very much sounds like the night terrors are related to childhood traumas (as will the need for the SSRIs). I can see you've had recommendations for EMDR. It could work, and it could be treatable, but it is not a quick or easy fix. The process will bring up repressed and very painful memories and things may get worse before they get better. A responsible therapist will make this very clear before beginning treatment.

Of course it is different! And you cannot compare 'bad dreams' to night terrors...they are entirely different things.

This is a medical sleep disorder that is detrimental to anyone in his vicinity unfortunately. That he doesn’t get the disruption shows he’s being pretty selfish IMO. No it’s certainly not his fault but it’s completely detrimental to your sleep & sleep is everything. You can still be intimate & spontaneous if you have separate rooms & enjoy cuddling up together will feel even nicer when it’s not on tap all the time. Again he fears losing out on intimacy over your wellbeing & needs. Teeny bit selfish of him. Sorry OP. If it were the other way round would he be so tolerant? So many people suffer from sleep problems that the old fallacy that your relationship will break down if you prioritise both parties sleep & wellbeing is ridiculous & often said by people with no experience of chronic sleep deprivation /disruption & its side effects. Get separate rooms & enjoy the peace. And the time you then spend together.

I'm so sorry you've had to deal with some ignorance about sleep disorders on this thread. Please do come back later and let us know if the solutions suggested have helped.

he is so reluctant to have separate beds as he thinks this will be detrimental to our relationship

Does he seriously think that what's happening now isn't going to be detrimental to your relationship?

DH suffers from restless legs, and refused to take the medication the GP offered. Hence he was booted out to the spare room. He used to kick me black and blue, and it didn't matter that he didn't do it deliberately... it still hurt and bruised my legs as well as disturbing my sleep.

We had to share a room on holiday a few months back and I nearly drove home on the 3rd day, it was torture. It's simply not safe to share a bed with this man, OP long term. The only suggestion (and we tried this) was getting a superking base with two single mattresses and putting a plywood divider covered with foam/fabric in between the two mattresses. He just woke me up when his legs battered into that.... so at that point, we gave up!

What ignorance? The OP’s husband is hurting her and is not prepared to agree to a viable solution. The reasons are irrelevant. And it’s not on the OP to find alternative solutions. Her husband needs to do that while she sleeps in a separate room to ensure her safety.

What he’s doing now doesn’t affect him so he won’t care. What he does care about is having cuddles and sex in the same bed, so that is what he is prioritising.

Can he see a sleep specialist? Surely there's more to it than just sleep separately, especially if that's not what you both want.

I had EMDR (for something different) it isnt hypnotherapy and I wasn't convinced it would work but saw it as a last resort. It was really useful. Just go in with an open mind. I saw it as the only thing I'm loosing at this stage is my time and any thing gained will be a bonus.
What about zip and link beds?

You place a lot of emphasis in sharing a bed for sleep? Why?
many long term happy relationships involve couples who don’t sleep together. Cuddle yes, snuggle yes, have active sex life yes, sleep together no. Not sharing a bed to sleep in no way dimishes intimacy - in fact can increase it as you’re not sleep deprived and generally well rested improves so many things

and yes, he needs to try things like EDMR or try to figure out any underlying trauma that may be going with this

My husband would only have to do this less than a handful of times before HE insisted on separate beds, because he would hate hurting me, and he'd recognise how much of a threat he poses while asleep and lashing out.

Why is your husband happy to keep hurting you? For YEARS? Why isn't he taking responsibility for his condition?

On a practical note, would a king single (for snuggling up) and a single work? Sex isn't curtailed by single beds if you want it!

To be specific my bad dreams will result in my crying out in terror during the night. It arises from dream-situations where I am attacked and in physical danger. My partner who was awoken would try to comfort me, but initially I would be confused and think he was the aggressor in my dream. The point is that our dream life is gendered. Women may re-experience past assault. Though men may be the victims of rape and assault, they are more likely to dream about taking (violent) action. And their physical strength in this situation, where there is no rational, inhibiting consciousness makes them a risk to any female partner.

@NoMoreBedTime I really hope you see this post because there are medications that reduce the effect of bad dreams and terrors. I take one, Topamax at a low dosage (it's an off-use anti epilepsy med, not an SSRI).

It is changing my life. No understatement. I still get terrifying dreams but they're infinitely more manageable. The Topamax works apparently by reducing the considerable overactivity of nerves in the brain or somesuch.

But there are other meds too, Im told.

If you can get to a sleep specialist privately, this could be worth pursuing. I knew of the medicine in this context for some years before trying it, and it really does help reduce the intensity of nightmares.

You have no idea who or what he’s dreaming about. Even he probably doesn’t remember. Justifying beating the shit out his sexual partner (who he wants to remain by his side on high alert while he slumbers peacefully) by saying it was all to protect imaginary you in his head and getting upset you’ve finally had enough after a decade and a half is the height of selfish and entitled behaviour.

If you took to playing loud music intermittently on your phone right next to his head bc you could t sleep and it soothed you, do you really think he’d have tolerated this for 15 bloody years?

Bullshit op. Plenty of people who don’t sleep in the same bed have had children together, these are ridiculous excuses. I hope your dc wouldn’t put up with this from partners.

Just a thought - perhaps OP should try getting out of bed and smacking him thoroughly a few times with a foam cricket bat while he's sleeping every night, so he knows what it feels like, as he obviously has no empathy for her. Give him a week of that and I bet he'd be furious, find it totally unacceptable, and be demanding different beds. But somehow she's expected to just put up with it?

A plastic one would at least be closer
to what she’s experiencing at his hands.

I honestly can’t get my head around how she’s been expected to entertain this shocking behaviour for 15 years! There is no way on earth any man would have tolerated such sleep disturbances for a short period - let alone a decade and a half - LET ALONE getting beaten up and not just gently woken by noise or their partner shifting position in bed next to them. Think of how many fathers lose their shit when their own baby is sleeping in the same room as them and how many never get up in the night to attend to them.

I am sick to bloody death of women accommodating such vile and selfish (and dangerous) behaviour by their partners bc they love and care about them and are willing to sacrifice their own health and safety to ensure their feelings aren’t fucking hurt by sleeping in another bed - seriously?!!

Wake up OP. You should test how reciprocal his feelings are towards you and your wellbeing by waking him randomly over a series of a few weeks and gauge his reaction. If he is startled but goes back to sleep without a fuss and isn’t bothered in the morning, then you have a good man who loves you. If he gets angry and is his mood is affected the next day (and the days after) it tells you all you need to know.

I suspect you won’t do this bc you don’t want to find out.

EMDR will be life changing. There’s trauma in there that hasn’t been dealt with. It’s not woo at all.

Absolutely this. A man’s feelings are more important than a woman’s safety. Doesn’t that say it all?

I am built like a brick shithouse and even I would not attempt to to give a man like this a taste of his own medicine in the middle of the night - I’d be too scared of his reaction.

The number of threads on MN from women whose husbands and partners purposefully withhold sleep from them for years and decades is appalling. Whether it’s snoring, late night gaming, refusing to turn out the lights, refusing to use quieter alarms or night terrors. It all points to the same thing: he is more important than she is.

And the fact that the OP paints him as some sort of superman for just being a standard person (in daylight hours) says a lot.

I would suggest this too. My OH differs from the same issues and just found out recently a friend of his does too. Mostly it's feeling he is being attacked but in his desire to defend himself I have been woken up multiple times and he did once bite me. He's the kindest person ever but was bullied relentlessly at school and I think has issues from that time. He sleep talks a lot, like long monologues and conversations. It is really bizarre. I'm sure it's stress related and his friend says the same.

I would try hypnosis but you definitely need to sleep separately from now on, however that works. You need proper sleep. We got a super king bed because I was being woken every night by him twitching and jerking apart from anything else.

I do think the entrenched belief that if you sleep in separate beds you are failing your marriage is a deeply patriarchal one. It’s been used to maintain men’s untapped access to women’s bodies dressed up as some kind of moral failing on the part of the woman if god forbid medical conditions make it literally impossible or dangerous to continue. Even the medical condition is on the part of the man! Yes you may want equally unrestricted access to your DH, cuddles and intimacy at night too but I really don’t think he would be tolerating this if it were the other way round. Yes he may be physically more powerful than you so you may argue you thrashing about in your sleep or hitting him may not bother him so much, but seriously any distrurbance to sleep over a chronic period of time is really detrimental to wellbeing & mental health - everyone knows that. The male privilege that he has made this about you being the bad one to consider leaving (purely as a means of coping) the marital bed to seek peace & not him is outrageous! He’s the one with the sleep disorder - so why is it down to you to leave him to sleep elsewhere? I’d be saying for the sake of your marriage he will need to move to a separate bed as normal relations can’t continue unless he does. No ofc it’s not his fault, it’s not draconian or punitive of you it’s just practical necessity. And I’m sure he’s not a toxic, awful man - far from it - he’s clearly a loving & good DH & father. But male privilege runs deep & can be so insidious it’s almost impossible to believe any man, least of all the good & living man your DH is, could be guilty of it. But it’s there with bells on! Please try & reframe this - he’s being extremely thoughtless with your feelings and needs. You can still have sex & cuddle up - just in a way that accommodates a chronic, debilitating & serious medical condition. Accomodating doesn’t need to mean you just putting up with it & tolerating it - blow after blow. Even people with lesser (physical impact wise) sleep disorders frequently cannot survive sleeping long term with someone with RLS, Periodic Limb Movement Disorder, Nightsweats /Hot Flushes, even night shifts or early shift work. It’s not evidence of you failing him, that you (like him) need your basic right to refreshing, uninterrupted sleep too. Thinking about it, it’s It’s actually crazy he could actually view it that it is.

This is crazy.

The OP wants to share a bed with her husband. She wants to.

She's looking for solutions to make it workable.

Instead she's being told he's selfish, appalling, awful, doesn't care about her.

I know a lot about sleep deprivation and about the short term and the long term effects on the individual and on others (crashing a car among other things because of sleep deprivation sucks, luckily no one was hurt).

But come on, this woman wants to sleep with her husband.

A sense of proportion is needed here for a basically happily married woman.

Sounds like REM sleep behaviour disorder - has that been considered? Although unless other drug treatment is miraculously effective you still need separate beds.

Okay, so why don’t you make some suggestions then? What would be your solution?