Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello all
For the last year and a half I’ve been dating a wonderful person, and after my however many terrible short-lived prior relationships I feel extremely lucky. At the start of our relationship we saw each other a few times a week, and every two months I got so ill I had to take several days off work and just sleep. It was like clockwork. We agreed to reduce our contact time to once a week, usually an overnight on a weekend, which has helped a lot. But I’m still exhausted. My partner has a very different sleeping schedule to me. When we’re together it inevitably ends up on me missing out on sleep, spending the week recovering, and then missing out on sleep again. We’ve spoken about it and when we’re together we try to make sure we go bed ‘early’, but it’s normally around midnight/11pm. (Which I appreciate is most people’s acceptable bedtime, but my ideal bedtime is around 8:30/9pm then sleep for ten hours.)
They were away for a month and I felt so well-rested and energised and wonderful, and while I missed them, ’missing them’ was manageable. The exhaustion came back almost immediately after we first saw each other again. I love them but I don’t know what to do, or how much I can reasonably expect from them. I don’t want them to feel isolated or unappreciated, and they’ve already modified so much of their habits/behaviour to accommodate me. (Including agreeing that if/when we live together having separate bedrooms is very much the best idea).
Does anyone have any advice? I don’t know at what point asking them to accommodate will become unreasonable, and after decades of crappy relationships I don’t want to give this up.
NAS88997 said:My partner has a very different sleeping schedule to me. When we’re together it inevitably ends up on me missing out on sleep, spending the week recovering, and then missing out on sleep again.
This is likely to be an ongoing issue for you as a 10 hour sleep starting at 9pm is not common - most people have between 6 and 8 hours of sleep a night starting at around 11 typically.
It is good that your partner is agreeing to the earlier bedtime but you need to tbe the one instigating it I suspect as you will feel tired when your partner is still wide awake.
Does bedtime normally coincide with any shennanigans? No need to answer but if yes then this often 1 - takes time and 2 - can leave you both on a high after which will impact sleep. Maybe consider making the shennanigans a morning thing instead so you don't have the later bedtime because of it.
Do you find it harder to sleep with them in the bed? Maybe they are touchy-feely, maybe they fidget or maybe they just breath too loudly (I've been accused of the last one by an insomniac ex). Maybe consider some sleeping aid like earplugs, get a memory foam matress so the movements are felt less or get an eye mask if they insist on sitting up doom scrolling on their phone.
If they wake you up wanting to spoon, hoping for more shennanigans or similar then have that conversation with them - "I need my sleep of it affects me, please save it for when I'm awake enough to enjoy it and you will appreciate it".
If the issue is down to anxiety because someone is there, they are seeing you naked or whatever then that is something to talk over with a therapist.
If they fart in bed / don't wash enough or some othe personal habit then have that difficuly conversation but be nice about it - say that you would like them to change that detail and it would make them more attractive to you - work on the positives.
That's all I can think of for now. Good luck
I’m bipolar and I sleep for 4 hours if I’m high and 12 hours if I’m low.