'AITA for wanting to divorce my wife because of her sleepwalking and night terrors?'

"I want to divorce my wife over her sleep problems. AITAH?"

This might sound ridiculous, but please hear me out. I’m 42M, my wife is 38F. When we first started dating, she told me she had a history of sleepwalking and that she’d been diagnosed with a sleep disorder as a kid.

She said it used to be bad, but that it had mostly gone away. I believed her and I honestly don’t think she was intentionally lying, just that she’d been living alone for so long that she genuinely didn’t realize how severe it still is.

So, she sleepwalks/talks almost every night. Lately, it’s been every night. Sometimes it’s harmless, like seep talking, mumbling nonsense, laughing quietly. I honestly found it funny. The very first time it happened, she rolled over, looked straight at me, and said with complete confidence that “a weatherman is a person who makes jam,” then immediately went back to sleep.

But it stopped being funny pretty fast. I started waking up in the middle of the night to find her lying next to me with her eyes wide open, not blinking and just staring at the ceiling. Another time, I woke up and I found her sitting at the vanity mirror, brushing her hair over and over. I said her name, and she dramatically turned her head toward me, while still brushing her hair.

She was staring at me with like, no expression, no emotion, just effing terrifying. That was the first time I felt genuinely afraid. She walks around the house with purpose. She opens doors, unlocks things, moves objects. I’ve woken up to het standing in doorways just staring at noting.When I try to guide her back to bed, she gets stiff or pulls away, like she doesn’t want to be redirected.

The biggest issue is my kids. I have two kids from my previous marriage who stay over and now they don't want to stay overnight for that reason. Well, at least my daughter who is 12.

One night she was staying over and woke up because she heard a noise. She opened her bedroom door and found my wife standing in the hallway, repeatedly hitting her head against the mirror. My daughter screamed terrified and she still thinks that my wife is actually faking it and actually plotting something evil.

On the other hand, my younger daughter who is 4 is absolutely mesmerised and amazed by this whole situation. She thinks this is like the coolest thing ever. One morning I woke up and my wife wasn't in bed.

I went looking all around the house to find her and so that the kids wouldn't be scared if they find her somewhere, but I found her sleeping in sitting position inside a bathtub downstairs and my younger daughter sleeping on her.

My wife doesn't remember anything that happened but my daughter said she woke up because she saw her walking in hallway and went with her, followed her around the house, then when she went to bathtub she climbed inside and fell asleep.

I told her to immediately wake me up if she ever sees her walking around again but, something similar happened again and her reason for not waking me up was that she was talking this time so she thought she was awake. After that, I started panicking about having my kids over at all. I don’t sleep when they’re here. I just lie awake listening for movement.

She does try. I want to be clear about that. She feels horrible about it. She’s even tried tying her wrist to the bed so she wouldn’t be able to leave the room and it worked sometimes but sometimes she somehow frees herself. We locked the door and I hide the key so she wouldn’t find it and she literally finds it. It's mind boggling.

Besides these sleep problems, we are really good for each other. I really love my wife and I wish I could help her somehow but I feel like I literally can't do anything. As much as everything else is great I can’t lie and say that this isn't affecting the way I feel about her, I still love her but I don't know anymore.

When she started telling me things she did when she was younger, I honestly didn’t know how to process it. She told me that once picked up her younger sister from bed and took her outside and left her in grass. She had no idea what she did, where she left her on anything about the whole situation. Knowing that I have a 4yo who is even happy to follow her anywhere gives me chills...

I just can't imagine what would happen if she followed her outside or even worse if she actually took the kid somewhere. I don't know. That’s the part that really messes with me, the total lack of memory. The next morning she’s herself again. It makes me feel like I’m living with two different people, and one of them is completely unpredictable.

I love my wife. She is genuinely a good person. But I’m exhausted and tbh scared. I really wish there was a solution. I wish I could say this is something we can fix. But I’m starting to think this is just… how it is. And I don’t know if I can live like this forever.

Edit: A lot of people are asking questions about if she visited a doctor for all this because I haven't mentioned. She’s been going to doctor for this since it started when she was a kid. She visited all kinds of doctors for sleep related things, neurologists, psychologists even. She goes to the doctor regularly, she had multiple head scans and all type of sh!t that I don't even know.

She does have a head injury that nobody knows what its from, maybe from one of the first times she was sleepwalking or something, but apparently it's like a dent on top of her head. So many doctors and none of them think that is a cause.

She was prescribed multiple medications that some of them worked for some time and some didn't work at all. I don't know what was the medication that worked best for her but it was affecting her kidneys and doctor didnt want to continue her on it.

I don't know if this can be related but she said that before she used to sleepwalk she would have these realistic nightmares about waking up around decaying corpses. Her doctor said that is related to sleep walking and its called night terrors or something like that. Ask for any other information.

Another very interesting point I completely forgot to mention is that she would set alarm on her phone at the time she usually does this and she would turn the alarm off before it rings, like unknowingly. I witnessed this when I was awake and she just took her phone and turned off the alarm and was about to get up. The doctor said this is common as well.

Everyone is acting so smart saying go to different doctor and all kinds of obvious things. She visited multiple, I'm talking hundreds of doctors, when she was younger and now. Its an ongoing thing since she was a kid, its not something new. Basically they even though it may be some form of schizophrenia but it's not. She's been to sleep clinics, mental hospitals etc.

If all these years, all these doctors weren't able to find a cure or even just the sole reason for all this I don't see why would anyone think its an easy fix. I love her but this is terrifying. Its absolutely insane and I haven't even mentioned the things she says during these episodes, some of them are straight up scary.

She once told me to take my eyes out. Like hello? Its terrifying and I don't care how anyone takes this. I said it, I love her but I dont think there is much I can do.

This is what people had to say to OP:

Curly-help-plz said:

Comedian Mike Birbiglia has a severe sleep disorder in which he acts out his dreams. For instance he once jumped out a hotel window because he was dreaming that the building was being bombed.

He started sleeping with mittens on, zipped into a mummy sleeping bag. When his daughter was born, he also created a fitted sheet with a hole in it for his face, and started sleeping in a separate room.

So he puts his mittens on, his wife zips him into his sleeping bag, and then she puts the fitted sheet onto the bed, over top of him, with just his face poking out of that hole. I think maybe she locks him into the room too, or he locks the door or something; I’m not 100% sure on that part. I know it may sound ridiculous but it may be time to consider something like that, before moving to divorce.

Surleighgrl said:

This makes me think of the comedian Mike Birbiglia who has a rare sleep disorder called REM Sleep Behavior disorder. He almost died when he jumped through a window at a hotel where he was staying because he was sleep walking.

He now has to sleep in a sleeping bag that completely encases everything but his face to prevent him from walking around. He talked about it in one of his Netflix specials. You should definitely encourage your wife to go to a sleep clinic.

Kyonarai said:

Honestly, I'd probably have my husband lock me in a room from the outside at night if I had that issue. Yes, it would be dangerous in an emergency, but the chance of an emergency happening seems lower than the chance of getting hurt while wandering around asleep every single night.

And notodumbld said:

Is a bed alarm and option, one that goes off if she gets out of bed? You can sleep in separate rooms to make it work. Or add a deadbolt lock to make it hard for her to leave the room, one with a numerical code.