Husband has mood swings when he does not sleep

[rsusselj18]

I am a 56 year old woman. Widowed by previous husband.  Married second time.  He is 66. I am American. He is French. We live overseas (not in the US of France). We met less than a year ago, dated for a number of months, got married two months ago.  We began living together four months ago.

Husband has some insomnia.  The pattern I have observed is this:  We usually are intimate every other night.  This pattern practically guarantees success -- he sleeps well, I sleep well.   But if two nights go by without intimacy - it is during the second night that he is completely unable to sleep, and by morning he has turned from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde.

He blames me for his inability to sleep.  He accuses me of not caring about him or not loving him. He finds fault with everything I do or do not do and interprets everything as evidence of my lack of love or caring for him.

Truthfully, I do not think he is classic "BPD" - since the cause of his change of personality appears to me to be organic - the result of lack of sleep (and/or lack of sex). 

I have no idea how to deal with this.  If any of you experience anything similar to this and have found successful coping strategies, I would be most grateful if you would share them with me.

Thank you!

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[jynx]

I'm from the leaving board, or left board, so take what you can and leave the rest.

My ex was like this for at least 2 years, possibly more, I just didn't journal it anymore. 

He would get upset the day after having sex with me, thinking that "according to him", I did not enjoy it.  It would work on him all day long.  It was the second day after sex that he would not come home, and I was blamed because I didn't enjoy the sex.

Now I never said I didn't enjoy it,  I would sleep in his arms afterwards, would get up early to make him breakfast.  So, never knew why he would blame me.

I do understand what you are going through, and I am so sorry because this reaction from me, got me hating sex. 

[Notwendy]

It's nice that the two of you have a healthy sex life, but the truth it, we are humans, and humans are not always available for sex. I assumed that two people with a healthy sex life would be able to comprehend temporary lapses for "human" reasons- someone doesn't feel well, getting up at night with small children, an out of town business trip. I agree that if these lapses are frequent and long term, that is not good, but --- if my H was not feeling up to it, or came home from a long trip exhausted, I'd understand that not being interested in sex was not a long term issue or a rejection.

I had absolutely no idea on my H's side that he didn't understand this. I didn't have easy pregnancies and so, for the first time, I probably said no to him. I had no idea that he'd feel so rejected it would send him into despair, and that resulted in him "punishing" me for that by rejecting me physically, raging at me and  damaging the marriage- as this all seemed to come out of the blue to me. I had no idea what he was thinking or feeling.

We could have sex several days in a row, and if I said no on one day, to him it would be as if we never had sex and I just told him we'd never have sex again. I know this because he'd say it to me " It's been weeks" when it was a couple of days before. You NEVER have sex.

I didn't know what was going on at the time. The kids were little. I was terrified. So, I will tell you what I did which didn't work in the long run was to keep a calendar and put him on a schedule. It also helped me to know I wasn't going crazy when he would accuse me of "never". Now at the time, I was a mother of infant/child and up a lot with the kids. I felt I was going crazy and I was exhausted. I just wanted this to stop.

Fast forward- we have had counseling, things are better, but I don't think I will be able to feel the same way about sex as I did before this happened. I only wish I knew then what I know now, so I didn't take his behavior personally.

Sex is helpful to sleep, but I would not enjoy being required as a sleeping aid. Perhaps your H is feeling rejected and is upset, which is why he can't sleep. I don't know what he is thinking, but with us, my H didn't speak of his feelings- so I had no clue, and so he would give other reasons- that would involve blaming me. Does your H tell you how he feels? 

[waverider]

 

This is a tricky one as you need to find the underlying causes of his insecurity which are most likely to be triggering this.

I can see how this is messing with you emotionally as it is a personal area.

It is not about you, rather it is a dysfunctional way of communicating his fears.

Do you think he is worrying about aging and potentially loosing the ability, this can put too much pressure on the now. It is hard to allow things to come as they may if you have diminishing confidence in the future.

Waverider

[Notwendy]

WW, you have touched on an issue that affected us.

Each time there was no sex, it became catastrophic- as" there are only so many chances left- this could be the last chance ever"

Being female, the possible inability to perform was not a fear of mine. Women face their own issues with aging but not that one. My H not expressing his fears, worries, concerns, resulted in me being clueless. In addition, the issue over sex that I described was going on in our 30's, many years before aging would affect it.

Now, that we are middle aged, we do have this issue, and it is amplified by communication problems.

As to insomnia, we both have experienced this with regards to hormonal changes. It's a known possible occurrence in menopause, but I'd be willing to bet that men have some symptoms with decreasing hormones as well. However, I also know that being upset makes it hard to sleep. I admit to thinking " well, we can be up all night upset, or I can just get this over with and get to sleep". I think everyone has "taken one for the team" at times, but doing this on a regular basis was not good for me emotionally or the relationship.

I also think sex is a good remedy for anxiety, and for your H,  rsusselj18, this may be a way to manage any fears or anxiety at night. But it still isn't pleasant to feel obliged to be the remedy.