'AITA if I started locking our bedroom door in the mornings?'
"AITA if I started locking our bedroom door in the mornings?"
My husband and I are on different sleep schedules. He tends to go to bed around midnight or 1AM, and wake up around 7AM. I don’t get to bed until 4, 5, sometimes 6AM, and tend to sleep until around noon. (I’m aware my sleep schedule is horrible, but until I can get it fixed this is what I’m living with.)
The issue is my husband will routinely come into the bedroom and talk to me while I’m still trying to sleep. It’s never anything important, and definitely nothing time sensitive that couldn’t wait until I was awake.
He comes back into the room every 20-30 minutes, sometimes to make some random comment, sometimes to ask me a random question. Sometimes he’ll walk in and just stand in the doorway staring at me.
I’ve told him before that this feels like a passive-aggressive attempt to annoy me into getting up, and that it results in me already being irritated before I even get up for the day. His response was that that’s not how he means it, so ‘it’s fine.’
This morning he sent our roomba into the bedroom when I was still sleeping, and the thing roared and banged around in there for an hour. Would I be the AH if I started locking the bedroom door after my husband gets up, so I can finish sleeping? There’s a second bathroom he can use (it’s the one he primarily uses anyway) so I wouldn’t be cutting him off from the only bathroom or anything.
This way I can finish sleeping without becoming irritated at him first thing in the morning, and he can stop wandering in for no reason (I don’t know if it’s just an ingrained habit at this point or if he really is trying to annoy me into getting up, but he hasn’t stopped despite me asking him to).
Edit: since so many people keep asking why my sleep schedule is so messed up, I’ll put it here: I’m disabled and have chronic pain. If I go and lie down before I’m actually tired, I just end up lying there in pain. It’s resulted in my sleep schedule getting pushed back later and later. Not ideal, but also not something I can just ‘fix.’
I do not work. My husband is technically still employed, but is transitioning out and burning through his time off before he gets out, so he only goes into the office once every other week.
Edit 2: Many people are pointing out that maybe my husband is lonely, that’s a lot of hours that we could be spending together, etc. We’re together literally all day. Nearly every day.
He only goes into work once every two weeks, and even that is only for 3-4 hours at a time. We spend the rest of the time less than ten feet away from each other. We have plenty of time together. The few hours in the morning when I’m still asleep is the most time we spend “apart.”
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
You could lock the door, but it's not going to help because he will just knock on the door to get you to answer him. The problem is the lack of respect he has for you.
This exactly. Not everyone is on the same sleep schedule and OP’s husband knows she is struggling with chronic pain and is pestering her when she’s trying to sleep which is already difficult for someone in pain as it is.
NTA, OP. You deserve to be able to rest without having him come in to ask random questions to try to wake you up. He sounds immature and I fully agree that he is being disrespectful.
As someone with a partner who had chronic pain before I can tell you it takes a lot of effort for them to fall asleep especially when the pain is bad. For her partner to deliberately talk to her when she's falling asleep is just abuse. Sleep deprivation is literally a torture method that has been used historically in jails. It's not a way to treat someone you love.
Jesus Christ y'all. A sleep schedule that isn’t the standard 10pm-6am is not a moral failure. OP is NTA for feeling she deserves sleep when she is able to.
Does your husband resent your sleep schedule? It sounds to me like he's passive-aggressively telling you that he wants you to be getting up earlier than you are. No judgement here, I'm a night owl too.
Swirlyflurry (OP)
He say’s he’s not doing it to be passive aggressive and he doesn’t mean to wake me up… but he also hasn’t stopped. And if he doesn’t ‘mean to wake me up,’ I’m not sure what he thinks he’s doing when he walks in and starts talking to me while I’m asleep.
NTA, especially if you've asked him to stop and he won't. The people asking why OP sleeps like this need to chill. There is nothing inherently good about going to bed early or getting up early, nor is there anything inherently bad about being a night owl.
Left to my own devices, that's the sleep schedule that feels natural to me. As long as OP isn't neglecting work/household duties, there is no reason to say the sleep schedule warrants the husband being an AH. Would you all say the same if OP walked in 10 minutes after he went to bed and started chatting at him over nothing?
NTA. I don’t understand all the comments about your sleep schedule. It literally does not matter what time you go to sleep or what time you wake up (unless it’s impacting your work or mental health).
Your partner is doing something that stops you from getting restful sleep. Period. You know what’s important when you have chronic pain? Sleep! If you told this exact same story but you were going to bed at 10 pm and waking up at 6am everyone would be angry at him.
Sleep deprivation is abuse. Why is your sleep pattern so wonky? Is he trying to help you reset due to depression or just bad habits? Do you work during the night and NEED the rest during the day?
Your husband is TA, for saying his interruptions are "fine" because he "doesn't mean it." Tell him that he may not mean it, but you definitely mean it when you lock the door because he's disregarding your feelings.