Why I Stopped Sleeping with my Husband

I am a bad sleeper. 

Some months and years are better than others, but since childhood I’ve often been restless or awake while the rest of the household sleeps. I’m one who takes it upon herself to solve the world’s problems in the wee morning hours, and is embarrassingly familiar with late-night infomercials. With all of the research about getting less than 6 hours shortening one’s life, it’s enough to make a bad sleeper lose even more sleep. 

A few years ago, realizing how important sleep is to overall health, I decided that instead of just trying to power through on grit and caffeine, I’d make an effort to get a few more hours each night.

First, my husband and I switched to a king-sized bed, hoping the extra space would help. We plotted out our territories, leaving a hefty margin in the middle that no one dared cross. It worked for a while, but then I found myself pregnant at age 46 (I guess there had been some crossing). Pregnancy, nursing, pumping, and all of the nighttime waking disrupted whatever tenuous grasp I had on precious sleep. Our baby was an amazing gift, but I was fried, again.

And just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, menopause set in. Enter night sweats and frequent trips to the bathroom to squeeze out a whopping 3 drops of pee. My eye shades, noise machine, and essential oils were no match for this new stage of life. I tossed, turned, growled, and occasionally reached out to kick my snoring husband, but I did not sleep.

When our toddler started waking in the night after a family trip, I’d had it. We would bring him into our bed, and while he and my husband fell right back to sleep, I’d stare at the ceiling fretting that if I Iet my guard down, our son would roll off the bed or get tangled in the covers. And what about world hunger and nuclear proliferation? Everyone knows that worrying is worse at night. 

Soon I took to slipping out as soon as our little one joined us. I’d find refuge on the living room couch or the floor of the basement. I knew it made no sense that I could fall asleep more quickly in these less than comfy places than in my own bed, but the change of location seemed to break the “It’s 3 am and I know I will never sleep again” worry cycle. 

Recently, we dragged a mattress to the floor of the basement, and I now have a more comfortable refuge. Sometimes I go there in the middle of the night; other times I scoot down as soon as everyone else goes to sleep. Even when our toddler sleeps through the night, there is something about being completely “off duty” that helps me sleep more soundly. I can pop a melatonin if I want. The cool, dark basement means less sweating, and when I wake at night I’m able to convince my bladder that the long trip upstairs to the bathroom just isn’t worth it.

Would I rather be snuggling with my husband in our own bed? Sure. But in nearly 26 years together, we’ve learned that there are stages to a marriage. I’m sure Tim would rather sleep alone than have a sweaty, seething menopausal woman next to him concocting ways to murder him in his (blissful) sleep. I’m not kidding, that man smiles as he dreams. It’s infuriating.

As for the impact fleeing the marital bed has on our sex life? Well, with a teen who stays up late, and a toddler who wakes up early, I’d say our opportunities are already rather limited. However, aiming for 6 hours of sleep a night can’t help but improve my mood, if you know what I mean.

The Winter of my Discontent?

Today is my 23 week prenatal appointment!

I'll let you know how it goes. As of now I'm still in my robe, trying to stay quiet in case Margaret is asleep, when in reality she is probably hunkered down in her room with her computer. She is the early bird, I'm the night owl, and the teenaged sleeping all day thing hasn't hit her yet.

Sleep continues to elude me.

My routine is to try to go to bed around midnight, but I'm restless and awake until at least 2, usually 4. During the time between 12 and 2 I get up about three to four times to go to the bathroom. I know I should be "storing up sleep" during this trimester, as if that even works, but instead I feel sleep deprived, draggy, and uncomfortable.  Two years of poor sleep before pregnancy haven't helped either. I'll ask the doc today if she has any advice, but really I just wanted to share some of what has been running through my head during those waking hours when all is not calm, all is not bright.

Of course I'm worried about whether I'll be able to mother a baby again. I saw a newborn baby last week. The tiny-ness! The vunerability! The gaping portal of need! In my head I know I can do it, and I'm trusting the process, but lack of sleep whispers doubt and doom into my head in the night.

Oh, and did I tell you we are going ahead with our kitchen renovation? The one that predates this pregnancy? When we found a great kitchen remodeler last spring, he said he couldn't start the project until January. "That sounds PERFECT!" I replied. "We have nothing going on early next year!"

It doesn't seem so perfect right now, because I am thinking that the third trimester, a house in chaos, and you, know, a possible blizzard or two might push me over the proverbial edge. I don't know. I figured if we waited until after the baby came, we would likely never get around to it, but I'm still apprehensive about the dust, the noise, the lack of a working kitchen for 8 weeks, and how to keep the dogs from being traumatized. I want the kitchen, I just don't want to have to GET THERE, you know, and I feel greedy and "things-y" for bringing this problem on myself in the first place.

Our family likes structure and order, and I think this will be a challenge for all of us, pets included, barreling right up against the biggest game changer of all-- the new baby! Is it too much? I think of all of the Christmas decorations to put away,  a kitchen to pack, furniture to store, and a baby room to figure out, and I wonder why I wanted to redo the kitchen in the first place, when right now I kind of want to torch it all. Then there's the expense. We chose to remodel the kitchen before I found out how much having a baby would cost under our insurance plan. The numbers are staggering. So the thoughts churn as I toss and turn, eventually waddling from bed to bed, couch to chair, hoping to find a comfortable place to sleep. I think the lack of sleep is what caused my shingles to flare up again last week.

Although I am not a morning person, and never have been, I do understand that things always seem brighter in the morning, or at least by mid-morning. Because now it is 10 am, and my be-robed self has a much better attitude than I did in the night. The dogs are snuggled together on a dog bed at my feet, Margaret gets to go to a cookie baking party later, and the temp is in the 50's in December!

And we are NOT going to think these crazy-warm temperatures portend a blizzard on kitchen cabinet delivery day in February, right?

Weepy, No Sleepy

Where to begin? I could tell you my computer is dying, which it is, and that is why I haven't been blogging or reading or commenting.

But that would be only part of the truth.

You see, while I would like to write about my piece of crap computer, tell you my feet are so rough they could cut glass, or maybe just slap up a picture of how stinkin' cute my kids looked on the first day of school, that would be a cop out.

Because that's not all that's been going on.

Here's the thing. I've been crying. A lot. Ugly, snot-squirting, heaving crying. In public it's more of a "Please don't ask me how I'm doing or I'll start crying," kind of sniffle accompanied by bloodshot eyes.

I have cried at home, in front of customers, in the seltzer aisle at Giant Foods, at my kids' school open house, in the car, and today, during a all-staff meeting at work. Yep.

Lest you think someone has passed away, I need to admit I've been crying over where to send my daughter to school this year. Yes, I'm sure it seems like we solved that issue a couple of weeks ago, right? Wrong.

Is today September EIGHTH? Oh yes it is. Has school already started? Oh yes it has.

I know this sounds a bit crazy, because, well, it is. I am a 40 year old woman who has experienced traumatic life events and as far as I can tell, this should NOT count as one of them.

So why have I been thrown so off-kilter? Why can't I sleep at night? I don't know. If you were acting the way I'm acting I'd want to give you a hug then a bitch-slap across the face, "Get a hold of yourself, Woman!" I know. I know.

I think my weeping, like a lot of things in my life, is rooted in fear:

Fear of making the wrong choice.
Fear of failing as a mother.
Fear of not challenging my daughter enough.
Fear of challenging my daughter too much.
Fear of too little structure.
Fear of legalism.
Fear of not having the faith to send my daughter to a Christian school.
Fear of not having the faith to send my daughter to a public school.
Fear of my daughter joining an oral sex ring in middle school because her mother chose public school.
Fear of my daughter joining an oral sex ring in middle school because her mother chose private school.
Fear that my daughter will find my blog and ask me what an oral sex ring is.
Fear of MY not belonging in either school community.
Fear of being a crazy flip-flopping mother who moves her kids around every year, or perhaps every day.
Fear of doing lasting damage.

Do you get the picture?

Mental health has always been my strong suit. I am practical. I am great in a crisis. I am steady.

So now picture me, snuffling in the bathroom, summoning the courage to tell my daughter I've changed my mind yet again and she's going back to public school this very morning when a little hand knocks at the door. There she is, in her stinkin' cute prepped-out uniform ready to go to private school, lunch bag in hand. What could I do? I put on my sunglasses, snapped some pics, and took her to school.

I think the root issue here is responsibility.

Throughout my temporary (I hope!) insanity, my deepest despair, and my deepest cry has been, "This is just too much for me!"

The responsibility of being a mother just seems like too, too much sometimes.

As a Christian, I am supposed to realize I am not in control. When I "get" this, I am free. But I so seldom get it. And lately I've been too tired and too weepy to even believe it.

I have so much that I want. I want a husband who will make the decision, so I don't feel like it's all on my head-- but only if it's a decision I agree with. I want a mom who will hold me close and tell me I'm doing a good job. I want a God to whisper in my ear that what is too much for me is not too much for Him.

Is this too much to ask?

And a good night's sleep, too.