m34/f35, married 5 years, together 10 years.
My wife and I have struggled with infertility for years. We are currently trying IVF, and the medication has given her extreme mood swings. Also, her parents are currently trying to sell her childhood home. Her family has a history of mental illness and hoarding, and she says that it’s a traumatic experience for her to deal with it.
Anyway, she falls asleep on the couch after dinner. Whenever I wake her up to come to bed, she gets angry and yells at me to go away. She always apologizes the next day and says she doesn’t remember it or wasn’t acting herself. She refuses to go to bed earlier.
In the past this would happen once in awhile. The last few months, it’s every single night. She gets 8-10 hours of sleep every night (I’m lucky to get 6) so I don’t think she’s sleep deprived.
I know she’s going through a lot. But it’s come down to either me sleeping alone every night, or me having to calm my wife down for 30 minutes after waking her up to come to bed.
4 comments
Please. Get. Therapy!!! For reals, get her into therapy. When we went down the infertility rabbit hole not a single medical professional told us to shore ourselves up mentally. We walked into offices plastered with pics of babies and poured all our hopes and dreams into the next steps. Like, if I could see two pink lines, it would be ok. The pain would stop. It’s not that simple or painless. Every period was a painful bloody reminder that I was a useless failure. It was pure hell.
I agree that she needs therapy. Also, let her sleep on the sofa.
Being woken up in the middle of a sleep cycle can be very alarming and cause a big reaction like you explained.
1) have an alarm set to go off after about 40 minutes of napping. That should be about one REM and you can adjust by 5 minutes at a time until you find the sweet spot.
2) let her sleep on the couch and then come to bed when/if she wakes up. I know this isn’t what you want, but I don’t think you can change a behaviour she doesn’t want to change.
I vote let her sleep on the couch – thats not very nice or healthy to be woken up. If she wants to come to bed later she will.