Here’s some background on our relationship: we’ve been together for more than seven years, with about three of those spent in a long-distance relationship. After that, I moved states to be with him, and for the past three years, we’ve been living in a one-bedroom apartment.
Now, for the context of the title: a little over two years ago, my boyfriend and I looked after his little sister for a week. During that week, she slept in the bed with me, and he opted to sleep on the couch in the living room. After his sister went home, he continued to sleep on the couch. I immediately brought this up, explaining that it made me feel uncomfortable, and I asked him to stop. He assured me it was accidental. However, he kept doing it, saying the couch was super comfy and that’s why he would fall asleep by accident. He also started blaming our poor-quality bed frame as another reason. This made me feel like he didn’t care about my feelings on the matter.
I tried to bring up the issue as respectfully as I could, having several civil conversations about it. I wanted him to understand my perspective and tried to convey that not sleeping together was hurting our relationship. We continued to have sex as normal, but it made me feel even worse.
Overall, my relationship isn’t perfect, but this situation is so unusual and bizarre. He never gave me any indication that he might be cheating, and he was cheated on in the past, which made him anxious about infidelity. However, his habit of sleeping on the couch led me to question if he was cheating on me.
Over the past 10 months, I’ve realized that I don’t even want to share a bed with him anymore. I don’t feel that same connection, and I’ve lost the desire for physical affection. We’ve discussed this matter extensively. I offered to buy a new bed frame, and we even talked about having the mattress on the floor. His mom offered to buy him a new mattress and bed frame, but no solutions have been put in place.
When I express how it makes me feel, he claims I’m misinterpreting the situation and makes me feel like I’m being unreasonable for feeling this way. When I’ve shared this with my friends, they’ve told me he’s the one acting irrationally. This external validation made me realize that this situation isn’t normal. I’m not sure how to navigate this issue within our relationship, which otherwise has its own set of problems. I want a connection, but I don’t know how to regain it in this situation. Am I crazy for feeling this way? Can someone shed some light on what might be going on? I just don’t understand it.
4 comments
it sounds like you need to cut your losses and move on
>Am I crazy for feeling this way?
Not at all.
Married couples whose marriage is in shambles sleep separately.
Couples who have a sound relationship sleep together.
Unless he has some kind of sleeping disorder, sleeping separately can kill relationships.
It’s been 10 months… Doesn’t seem like there is going to be any improvement. You were pushed to a point where you no longer feel the same way towards him.
You two have discussed this many times, you seem pretty vocal about things.
At a point you have to assume this is what your relationship is going to be like permanently… If that is the case, is this the kind of marriage you hope to have? Probably not. Sounds awfully lonely if you ask me.
Maybe its time to start reconsidering things…
Reading between the lines here, it sounds as if he just prefers to sleep alone…for some reason.. but doesn’t want to say so? Because if the mattress was the thing and he preferred to sleep with you, he’d have jumped on this offers, right? I’m saying this as a person who prefers to sleep on my own for various reasons — I just sleep better without a person, even my loved LT partner, beside me. Luckily, he’s fine with that for his own reasons. I was very clear with him about needing my own bed for x, y & z reasons that weren’t going to be easily solved with, say, a new mattress, and we have good workarounds for feeling intimate and connected at bedtime.
You two have a fundamental mismatch in how you want this part of your lives to look. I wouldn’t agree with your friends that this is an abnormal situation; you’d be surprised at how many couples sleep apart for their sleep quality. It isn’t making you happy, though, and it seems as if he is avoiding discussing some truth with you about his sleep needs? Good luck.
I’d push to find out the real reason why. It’s actually far more common than people realize for couples to sleep separately- be it because of separate schedules, or one person snores/kicks in their sleep, whatever. Both people sleeping well and having a healthy relationship is great! BUT !!! They have to be honest about why they don’t share a bed and address those feelings.
If he can’t be honest about why his feelings on cohabitation has changed and instead is making excuses/invalidating your feelings and concerns, that’s the bigger issue imo, not the sleeping separately in and of itself.