Sometimes, relationships are a bit of a struggle. There are a multitude of reasons why this could be the case, and for one woman, the reason is her husband's job. She recently told Reddit that her husband was promoted, which is awesome, but his promotion comes with a schedule change that is seriously impacting their days and their nights, and now she's in the guest bedroom.
She writes: "My husband just got promoted to shift manager 3 weeks ago. This meant that his 10am-6pm shift has now been switched 4am to noon. He isn't a morning person AT ALL so most mornings he will start huffing and puffing as soon as his alarm goes off and he will instantly turn on our light and very loudly start looking for his work clothes."
That's already a pretty rough transition — many of us are creatures of habit, especially when it comes to when and for how long we sleep.
She says she's tried to be patient, and even came up with ideas for small, easy things her husband could do so that she can continue to sleep after he wakes up.
"I have asked him several times to put clothes out the night before and he has yet to do so. I have also asked him to not turn the light on or be super loud. After all, when I worked at 5am I made sure to be respectful of him sleeping."
Recently, the situation came to a boiling point.
"So yesterday morning when he got up at 3am and flipped on the light, I grabbed my stuff and went to the guest room. He came in and asked what I was doing. I told him that since he didn't respect me sleeping, at all, that I would be staying in the guest room from now on. He made a comment about 'The light will only be on for 5 freaking minutes.' Which is not true. He turns the light on, finds himself clothes and then goes to take a shower without turning the light off."
She also says her husband really hasn't been considerate of her needs at all.
"If I turn the light off, he will come back into the room after the shower and turn it on again to grab his socks and put on his shoes. (Which also [expletive] me off because shoes stay in the kitchen by the door and there's no reason he can't put them on at the table)."
She moved back into their bedroom … but only temporarily.
"Anyways, instead of understanding, he just got angry. Mainly because he is not a morning person and he doesn't like dealing with anything in the AM. So, while he was at work yesterday, I moved all my stuff into the guest room. Last night he practically begged me to sleep in the bedroom and promised to let me sleep."
"Well, this morning he flips on the [expletive] light again so I sit up and I'm like 'Are you kidding me right now?' And he says 'I'm being quiet!' As if that was the only issue. So I went into the guest room and locked the door. I told him I was staying in here from now on despite his efforts to sway me. He thinks I'm overreacting."
The woman also points out that she works, too, and she's even the breadwinner. If anything, it's probably more important that her husband acknowledges her own sleep schedule … right?
The people of Reddit definitely had a lot of thoughts about how her husband is behaving.
For starters: this is a total lack of respect.
"He is being completely disrespectful," wrote one commenter. "Honestly, if he can't get up in the middle of the night without waking his partner, he should be the one sleeping in the guest room. But since he seems to be completely inconsiderate I recommend you stay there. You are not overreacting, not even a little."
Another person suggested they might be able to find an alternative light that is bright enough to help her husband find his clothes, but not intrusive so she can keep sleeping.
"Yeah I completely agree!" wrote another commenter. "My husband and I have somewhat different schedules and we have a salt lamp that we use if we need the light late at night. OP, maybe this could be a compromise? That way he can still have light that's just bright enough to see but not so bright that it wakes you up. Plus the light is soft and relaxing so even if it does wake you up, it's not as abrasive."
Another person pointed out that maybe one solution here is normalizing the idea of couples sleeping in separate bedrooms to begin with.
"Let's normalize couples sleeping in separate beds/rooms. Different people have different sleep requirements."
There are several strong arguments in favor of couples sleeping separately if it works for them. Sleep scientist Wendy Troxel has written extensively on the topic.
"There's a lot of pressure around the meaning of the shared bed, but this is largely a socially constructed belief system, not science-based," Troxel writes. "Most of the groundbreaking work in sleep science over the past 60 years has come from studies of people sleeping alone in a laboratory, under tightly controlled conditions."
Plenty of people on Reddit echo the idea that separate bedrooms aren't that bad, citing a multitude of reasons.
"People get weird when they hear my husband and I sleep separately but I am breastfeeding our baby that wakes at night and he is dealing with our toddler's night waking and up at 5am for work," one commenter noted. "We sleep wherever we need to maximize our sleep and survive!!"
Another person commented their grandparents slept separately for years: "My grandparents slept in different bedrooms their whole marriage because according to my Nana 'Papa snores really loud and I don't want to end up killing him in the middle of the night for waking me up for the 100th time.'"
The woman hasn't updated her post with the solution that ended up working for her and her husband, but there are definitely a lot of options the two can consider. Quality of sleep is just as important as quantity, and it's certainly a bit rude to intentionally wake up your partner just because you aren't a morning person.
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