BPDFamily.com

Couples often have conflict over sleeping conditions.

Environment: room temperature, noise, light
Habits: reading in bed, watching TV, video games, alarms
Styles: talking, snoring, tossing and turning, waking up early, going to be late
Respect: not respecting bedtimes, fighting, texting, turning on lights, jockeying for space

I think this is common.

Do you have sleep conflicts?
How often?
How have you tried to solve them?
What has worked?

Broken sleep patterns can be very hard on relationships.

We have sleep issues in our relationship.  He works nights.  I work morning 3 days a week.  I am also up by at least 7:30 on my days off or day I work the late shift.  The reason is because of our toddler.  He also doesn't sleep through the night.  On good nights he'll wake up around 5:30am, but most of the time will go back to sleep.  He gets home usually around 1am.  By this time, I am exhausted from a full day of work and taking care of the kids.  I try to stay up because he's constantly complaining about how he never sees me and I'm always sleeping.

So when he gets home, he wants to spend time with me.  Then he wants me to make him something to snack on after he showers.   And rub his back.  By the time this routine is done, I'm about to fall asleep and majority of the time the baby wakes up so I have to deal with him.  And this is around 3am or so most nights.

If I don't rub his back well enough or fall asleep, he gripes that I "never" rub his back good enough or I "always" fall asleep.  It pisses me off because he's so inconsiderate about my schedule.  I actually feel bad if I'm asleep when he gets home.  I know he has nightmares and trouble falling asleep, but he makes me feel guilty for sleeping when he wants something.  He got upset because he said there's no food because I suggested peanut and jelly or bologna sandwich for a snack.  I was tired and didn't want to make anything.  So I ended up making some freaking nachos...

So this middle of the night Bull nonsense I have to wake up by 7 if I want any possibility of getting ready for work without having to watch our toddler.  Anyone who has little ones know that trying to put on makeup and keep an eye on a little one is a great challenge.

I wish I could say it gets better, but I don't see it happening anytime soon.

My W has always had sleep problems from insomia to restless leg dymdrome to lots of tossing/turning/sleeping diagnally/crowding.  Very difficult to sleep with, but I dont need alot of sleep.  Eventually, I just started sleeping on the couch and have done so for years.  Love it.  Sleep great.  W hasn't liked it, but eventually gave up because I wouldn't relent.  Also, Dr put my W on a bunch of Trazodone which knocks her out pretty good, so she doesnt bother me at night.  I call it her coma pill.

My dBPDw's other ailments cause totally disrupted, almost random sleep patterns.

We just accept that any alignment between our sleeping will be random, more or less. Transition times can be tricky sometimes; it takes her a long time to wake up, unwind, etc. But overall it works. It's weird, but it works.

My H used to get mad about me wanting to go to bed without him.

One thing that is odd is that my H hates to sleep because he feels like he is running out of time. If he gets home from work later than usual or if we have had a busy day and haven't had "time together" then he feels like I'm rejecting him. One thing I"ve started doing is that I chose a set bedtime: 9:30pm.

When I began to enact this bedtime, I just started talking about it ahead of time so that he can prepare himself. I would let him know after dinner that my expectation was to be in bed by 9:30 (in a nice way of course). Then around 8pm I would mention that it's about 1 1/2 hours until bed time and ask what he would like to do until that time. Now he is adjusted to 9:30pm. Occasionally he will ask me to stay up past bedtime. I will sometimes but I try not to make it a habit so he does not begin to expect me to give up that time.

The other issue we have is that my H may want to go to bed earlier than me, especially on the weekends. If he falls asleep on the couch I let him stay there. Other times I want to read a little before bed. Even though he is tired, he sees this as me wanting to reject him by not going to bed at the same time. He would go to bed but every 10-15 minutes he would get up to "see what I was doing". I think he was trying to "catch me" doing something wrong.

So the one thing I've started doing in the last couple of months is I will tell him I want to stay up reading for a little bit and then offer read in bed while he falls asleep. He loves this and it's been working really well.

When he is in a white phase he is actually a real sweetheart, doesn't complain much, and would probably put up with almost anything to have me near him. None of the stuff on the list makes any trouble, thank goodness, except his early alarm.

I am the one who doesn't want to hear his 4:40 am alarm, or the sounds of him puffing off his e-cigarette right next to me anymore... .He also screams at night (he has severe nightmares at times and moans loudly like a scared ghost poor guy!) , ... .but I do my best. When he is dysregulating I put his calmness first, make sure he is near me and feels comforted. I can write off the other stuff as a temporary inconvenience and let it go.  

I am glad I've gently gotten him to shift back to his own bed on the nights he must be up early so I can have some down time at night to relax and not feel like I am always in care taking mode. Him getting up early messes up my sleep more than it already is so he is actually pretty respectful about trying to find a nice way and letting me have a bed to myself. It wasn't always this way, but I am glad he's being so cooperative. I praise him whenever he is able to be unselfish so he is encouraged to do more of that.

We used to have some pretty bad ones, they seem to have improved over the last 5 years.  Mostly it's similar to Tattered, I sometimes feel if there's a "version" of BOD, our H's have a similar flavor.  Me sleeping at all while he is awake is "abandoning" him.  He has actually stated it. Naps, being in bed from being sick, or having a sleepless night, all of these were just being "lazy", not a result of exhaustion from being sleep deprived.   Add in the fact that we both are inclined to stay up later than most people, we reinforce lates nights in each other.  Much like Tattered stated, going to sleep feels like "running out of time".  H feels that time does not move forward unless you go to bed, and he panics about time moving on.  He is also prone, still, to dysregulating before bed.  If unchecked, he will find a topic, new or old, and want to hash it out for hours if I let him.  I could be 1AM and he will want a deep discussion, or to just talk AT me, about something.  Anything.  I think it's akin to a toddler fighting sleep with a sudden burst of energy and difficult behavior. 

It used to be nightly.  For a long time, he would not sleep without a TV on all night in the bedroom. I could fall asleep, but I am a very light sleeper.  I think the insecurity of the childhood homes made me ready to wake at any movement or noise, so I wake a lot at night, and if lucky, fall back asleep. The sound and lights from the TV would make falling back asleep quickly impossible.  I tried sleep masks, headphones, earplgs,  and turning it off when I thought he was sleep, but the removal of the sound and light woke him, and would cause fights.  Now, we mostly have issues when he's in bad mood and I start getting ready for bed but he's dragging his feet. 

One big thing that happened was we moved, and no longer had a TV to keep in the bedroom.  I worked REALLY hard to explain that TVs at night were bad for both of us as far as sleep went.  I tend to doubt my own impressions, knowing I am from a weird background that had lots of gaslighting.  I was worried I was really WAS just lazy, I bought a used Fitbit off eBay.  I wanted something to track my sleep and give me quantitative data.  And it PROVED I was essentially waking up all damn night.  For every hour in bed, I got about 30-45 minutes effective sleep.  I rarely hit deep sleep or REM. 

After about a year of that data and openly talking about it with other people as I spoke to them about THEIR sleep issues ( I was trying to not harp on it, but people would see the Fitbit and ask why I wore it), H started doing things like using a white noise machine.  He stopping getting mad if I moved to the couch if he was snoring.  I'd gotten him an iPad, he won't use it now without headphone if it's bedtime.  We have a good "sleep maintenance" routine most nights now.  He feels alone in the shower some nights, so I just hop in with him.  He can dysregulate if left alone in there, and I am compulsive about showering before bed anyway, so it helps save time, water, and moodiness.  I have gone from about 3-4 hours of sleep out of 7 in bed, to about 5-6. 

He still gets fussy if I need a nap, and accuses me of "always" sleeping after dinner (like 10 years ago I had a hard time NOT falling sleep, but now I make sure to be doing something with my hands to stay awake - I try NOT to nap so as not to feed my sleep maintenance insomnia).  Overall, the Fitbit and the lack of a TV seemed to be the biggest help.  We even got a "night light" of sorts recently, one of those swirly yard lights for holidays - and he gave ME the remote to shut it off if it bothered me.  So that is super-big progress.  He is not blaming my insomnia on being awake on purpose anymore, like he used to, and is trying to help. 

 
 well this is a good conversation we use to sleep together when we were first 20 years ago married , but that didn't last long. now due to his having to sleep with the tv on me wanting silence his snoring my snoring we have for 20 years slept separate he on couch in living room, me in the be and it works so we never changed it.   he has bad sleeping habits and gets little sleep due to that.
and no complaints after all these years of sleeping separate  so it just works