Separate rooms at times

LegacyUser

Im looking to see if im the only person in this situation, and if you are in the same situation how do you resolve it......

Its actually about sleep. I cant get much due to my o/h.
I am in work at 8am. My o/h isn't in til 9.30/10 am.

I generally try to get to bed early enough, but it usually winds up being 11.30 or 12 most night as my o/h usually breaks into chat or whatever quite late in the evening. Thats ok.

So i go to sleep, usually o/h joins me after a bit.
My o/h snores, usually quite loudly - and the nights it wakes me i cant get back to sleep, so being i'm up so early i just go to the spare room. Thats usually between 3-5 am.
Or my o/h gets these 'anxiety attacks' in his sleep which freaks me out no end and as it happens a few time once it starts, i again slide out into the spare room. Or its o/h just plain tossing & turning that keeps me wide awake.
this week in particular has been quite bad. Every night this week, Sunday night to today its been quite bad - i think 1 night this week the o/h slept out in other room, and 2/3 nights this week i've had to get up at 4/5 am to go to spare room so i can sleep.

This morning i was up getting ready for work and o/h starts complaining that 'this sleeping in separate beds is b*llocks and needs to stop'. now, what am i to do here? I'm a bit of a fried egg in work as i'm so tired. If i can get back to sleep i stay put in the bed, but if i know i wont get back to sleep i go to spare room.
I feel a bit like, i can do nothing. If i stay in the bed - i cant sleep.
If i go to spare room, i have to listen to my well rested o/h moan about me sleeping in next room. We tried the 'snoring spray' stuff - makes no difference...

Anyone else have this? What do you think/suggest?

Ickle Magoo

I think if your partners loud snoring, anxiety attacks and general restlessness are causing you to have disturbed sleep to the point it's impinging on your quality of life then they have no right to complain that you don't want to share a bed with them...

In fact, insisting that you share a bed with him despite knowing he is the one that has multiple sleep issues that result in disturbing your sleep is really pretty selfish. I'd be tempted to make the separate beds permanent and ask that your partner seek professional or medical help for HIS sleep issues.

Wisco

Perhaps your OH could get the snoring checked out at a doctor to make sure there's nothing that can be done? Nothing worse than getting no sleep, having to work, and then having to fight with the OH about it while tired and cranky.

bubbaloo

Hi there,
I know the Breathe Right strips are really helpful for reducing snoring, but if you don't mind me saying, it's the anxiety attacks and tossing and turning that would bother me. Could it be possible that your OH is suffering from stress? I would suggest a visit to the GP to talk about that because it shouldn't continue - for both your sakes.

In the meantime, you could both have a chat and resign yourselves to the fact that sleeping in separate rooms could work in the short term.
Due to a variety of different reasons (baby waking, OH illness etc) my OH and I went through a similar situation with neither of us getting much sleep.
Once we began the night in separate rooms it became a bit more relaxed.
One of us would go to the spare room and one to our own room - therefore if one was "tossing and turning/snoring" etc they wouldn't wake the other and at least one of you would get a full night's sleep.
It doesn't have to be a big deal if you discuss it.
Good luck...:)

LegacyUser

My o/h has been to the doctor who said the panic attacks/anxiety attacks were nothing.
nothing to be done but use a brown paper bag..

Personally i laughed this morning as o/h announced 'this sleeping in separate beds is b*llocks and needs to stop' coz i'm thinking, yeah - easy for you to say as you go back to sleep for another 2 hours undisturbed.
I dont like getting out of my nice warm bed - and going out to another cold, cold bed at 3am... and i actually feel complaining about me sneaking out - not waking the snoring person - is quite selfish. I could shove them and wake them up and all that,but instead i quietly sneak out to a quiter place. Surely broken sleep patterns night after night isn't good...

Ickle Magoo

Go to a different doctor - ask to be referred to an ENT or sleep disorder specialist, if it's affecting your lives and causing issues then it clearly is not nothing...

Again, if you aren't getting quality sleep then you need to look at permanently being in separate beds, from the start of the night not having to move to a cold bed in the middle of the night - being a martyr to your partners wishes that you're in the bed next to him regardless of how horrendous the set-up for you is not a realistic expectation.

Taltos

I think I read something on the web a few weeks ago that there was research on couples who sleep in separate rooms as having a lower divorce rate...

Next time he comes out with his "B*ll*xs" statement calmly reply "You keeping me awake every night until I am so exhausted I want to kill you is B*ll*XS"

really he should go get a sleep analysis performed.
In terms of the snoring - there is loads he can try - exercise, nasal strips, that spray (working for me with the exercise).

Don't feel guilty about going to the other room - none of this is your fault - and he needs to take responsibility for what he is doing.
Look - worst case you could just end up being one of those couples that sleep separately during the week...

But - he really should seek a 2nd or 3rd opinion - and I think you need to go with him - the doctor may not realise how serious this is for you!!!

seamus

I can empathise with him to a certain degree. If you ever hear of a couple who habitually sleep in separate rooms, you immediately jump to the obvious conclusion. He's obviously concerned that if this becomes the norm, then that means there's less opportunity for intimacy and if anyone outside heard about it, they'd immediately assume the relationship is in trouble.

However if he thinks it's such a big deal, then it's up to him to try and fix it because he's the cause of the problem in the first place.

When I initially read your post I thought it was just about snoring - to which I would say "get earplugs" - but if he's moving around and waking you up, then that's something which he needs to fix.

LegacyUser

The ear plugs wouldn't work - i'd never hear my alarm to get up for work.
Its actually not very loud so i dont wake my o/h... wow im just too considerate
Which might i add, i'm now late every morning as i cant get up .... which isn't something o/h will consider as he is late every day & nothing gets said.

fungun

Interestingly if you read up on this, it was not the norm for couples to share beds all the time until Victorian times, when people tended to have a lack of space that started the trend. Now people think there is something wrong if you dont.

Rubbish. Its what you make of it.

I snore if Im stressed in work or a bit sick....and I go to the spare room then, or else my missus thumps me during the night! Everyone needs sleep. Why is he so against it? Is it affecting the amount of sex you have?

If so Id say to him his choice is that he has a woman who gets enough sleep and feels happy or a tired, cranky woman who shares his bed but is not in the mood for sex cos she is so tired

John Mason

me and OH have seperate bedrooms and i am telling you it is the way to go.

we both get a good nights sleep, no kicking and punching to shut him up snoring (imagine a tractor); no fighting over the duvet; no-one sleeping starfish and pushing you out of the bed.

the fact that both of us get a good nights sleep mean, we are both happier people. especially me, i cant cope with life if i dont get my 8 hours.

we also work at different times and i like listening to radio for 30 mins before i get up; drives him mental.

shebango

I had this problem with an o/h. Exactly how you describe. He got the 'jumps' in his sleep and snoring etc.

I think the 'offender' should leave the bed, not the other person trying to get sleep. So he did - if he got the jumps, id wake him and he'd go into spare room.

I felt guilty about that after a while cos it wasn't his fault so we alternated nights between the spare room and our bed.

But there was no way that we could share a bed. Often times I thought I was having a bloody heart attack when he'd start jumping out of nowhere.

Some things are just not feasible. It's not the end of the world.;)

LegacyUser

wow,
im a bit surprised about quite a few having this and yes 'shebango' its them jumps.. frightens the life out of me.

So, its not so unusual... and im not being a mean person.. hmmm..
and 'irishbird' i dont actually know the last time i got 8 hours sleep.
Perhaps earlier this year when i was out of work sick. Wrecked tired every day, narky, i go home from work some days and pull the duvet over my head for like an hour... sometimes i nod off - others i just Ly there hoping to nod off. After work maybe 2 days a week im just unable to do anything.... and too tired to cook etc.

Taltos

OP - look long term this will cause you huge health problems. They have tied lack of sleep to illness and early death.

I am not trying to scare you - I too am someone sleeping maybe 4 to 6 hrs a night now, normally exhausted - but mainly due to stress. Unfort for me now have an injury so no longer running - the one outlet that worked consistently.

Ask him - would he prefer that you are both sniping at each other and too tired for fun at the weekend - or would he prefer the opposite. When phrased like that I think I know which way he will turn...

At the same time go down the route of seeking professional help.
if all the other aids for snoring fail there is always laser treatment...

seamus

At more simplistic level, I would suggest trying to get him into a routine. Explain to him the problem that you have and how he can help you with that.

I don't really feel the affects of short sleep within a single day. I can sleep 5 hours tonight, and while I'll be a little groggier than usual, after 30 minutes I wouldn't know that I only slept for 5 hours. Or I could sleep for 8 hours and I'll be more awake at the time that I wake up, but overall my day isn't affected by the amount of sleep I had last night. Sleep deficits only catch up on me after a week or so.
My wife on the other hand needs to sleep for 7-8 hours every night or she spends most of the next day in a daze.

Before we moved in together, my sleep patterns were erratic. I could be in bed at 3am one night, 11pm the next, 1am the next, while up at 8am every morning. The amount of sleep I got was largely irrelevant. But obviously my wife can't operate like that and at the same time she can't go to bed before me and have me come in and disturb her 1/2/3 hours later. She may as well have not gone to bed.

So now we generally go to bed together. If she's up at 6am tomorrow, we go to bed at 10pm (or at least try to) and I get 2 hours more sleep. If she doesn't have to get out of bed till 9am, we still go to bed before midnight so that I can get enough sleep. Either way, we go to bed at the same time so that both of us can get a good sleep.
It doesn't bother me - all I'm going to with the time in the evening is watch TV or surf the web. If I'm not working the next day (she works Saturdays), then I'm up relatively early and can make the most of the day.

Do I sometimes resent not being able* to just stay up and watch South Park till 3am? A little. But it's not like I'm being denied quality time.

*Just to qualify - I choose to not stay up, she doesn't demand that I come to bed

astra2000

Hi op
My husbands friend has a condition where when he falls asleep starts snoring stops breathing and then the "jumps" kicks in to "wake" him up he would basically turn over and fall back to sleep again, and the cycle would start all over again. His partner used to speak about his snoring all the time but we had no idea how bad it was until we all took off on a 1hr journey in the same car to a wedding. He fell asleep and this snoring like I have never heard started then a few minutes later no noise he would have stopped breathing the "jump" would come seconds later. Frightening to see his partner hadnt realised how bad it was as she would usually be asleep and never realised he wasnt actually breathing. Anyway due to her insistence he asked to be sent for a checkup. He was admitted into hospital for an overnight stay and diagnoised by consultant with the worse case of sleep apnoia he had seen. He now wears a special mask at night and no more problems. He has way more energy and does not fall asleep during the day like before as his sleep at night is non disturbed as opposed to the sleeping/waking pattern he had been experienced. I think your husband needs to tell his gp he wants to be referred to specialist to see if there is something causing all the problems.
I know other people have mentioned that they do not share rooms with their partners and it is working well for them. But it does not sound like something your oh is happy with and I think this needs to be something you are both comfortable with or you problems may start.Believe me I sympathetic to your problem maybe you could tape your partner to get him to realise how bad it is use your mobile phone to do this if you dont have a recorder.
Best of luck op wishing you a good nights sleep

LegacyUser

Random idea that i'm just gona throw out there, could you perhaps, record/tape him him snoring and play it back to him in the morning?, maybe he just doesn't realise how bad he actually is?

Boskowski

I don't think not sleeping together is all that bad. My oh has an awful sleeping disorder as she claims she cannot fall asleep without telly going and then she wakes up very early and first thing the telly goes back on. Needless to say this drives me completely insane especially since I'm not much of a telly person anyways. Also I need a breath of fresh air in the room as in the window a little open otherwise I'd wake up with a headache most mornings which drives her nuts since she is - like most women it seems - in need of overly warm rooms. So we're completely incompatible with regards to sleeping requirements and we have our own bedrooms and only share to snuggle up. We're still fine after over eight years.

HavingCrack

fungun wrote: »

Interestingly if you read up on this, it was not the norm for couples to share beds all the time until Victorian times, when people tended to have a lack of space that started the trend. Now people think there is something wrong if you dont.

Rubbish. Its what you make of it.

I snore if Im stressed in work or a bit sick....and I go to the spare room then, or else my missus thumps me during the night! Everyone needs sleep. Why is he so against it? Is it affecting the amount of sex you have?

If so Id say to him his choice is that he has a woman who gets enough sleep and feels happy or a tired, cranky woman who shares his bed but is not in the mood for sex cos she is so tired

I was just going to say that couples sleeping in the same bed wasn't common at all until Victorian times as well but I was beaten to it!

As long as all the rest of your relationship including the sex is grand I don't see what the big issue is really?? Is he afraid of a lack of intimacy?

I am a friend

too tired wrote: »

The ear plugs wouldn't work - i'd never hear my alarm to get up for work.

You would. They drown out background noise but I can hear my alarm when i use them.

Ok so - he wants you to sleep in the same bed as him even though he keeps you awake with his snoring and you dont want to use ear plugs to block out the snoring cos you would have to set your alarm a bit louder and wake him??? You cant both have your way and the easiest is for you to use ear plugs and set the alarm loud... He will probably drop back to sleep anyway if it wakes him

LegacyUser

op, how about putting another bed in the room? that way you still in the same room, also to drown out the snoring etc (which must be pretty annoying) maybe get ear plugs... You are damaging your mental and physical health with this situation and you are NOT overreacting!

mr_edge_to_you

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