Sleeping alone
I don’t even know how to unpack this.
When I was a little girl I would go to bed and lay awake for hours and hours - or it felt like that. I hated going to sleep. My brother would routinely wake me up in the middle of the night to “play around” aka sx abuse. (He had been abused. It’s not uncommon.)
When I was in high school - I felt (and was) totally alone in the world. I hated going to sleep. Although the abuse had stopped year prior, the damage was done.
I got married right out of high school and he was a horrible husband and I went to bed every night alone and he stayed up all night watching porn and jacking off and cheating. That went on for 15 yrs. Then I finally had an affair of my own and left him for the lover. We’ve been together 15 yrs.
For the entire 15 years of our marriage I have gone to bed alone. Except for the few nights he has taken me seriously (usually after a huge fight where he threatens divorce because he is abusive like that) I go to bed alone. And I lay awake and struggle with feelings of total isolation, loneliness, and abandonment.
Half the time he is sitting on the front porch. On his phone. In adhd land, disassociating. Other half of the time he’s down the street at his storage unit playing with his toys. And I’m literally alone in the house until 2 or 3 am when he comes in and finally goes to bed.
He comes to bed stinky. He takes a bath in hot water without soap. He smells like a mildewed ashtray. He has body odor. His breath stinks. He’s a mouth breather. All theses things gross me out because at this point he wakes me up - almost every single night, and then I’m awake with middle of the night insomnia for 2-3 more hours.
Then the alarms go off and he initiates morning sex often. Which I dutifully oblige. Even though I don’t really like morning sex because of body odors, bad breath, etc. I like bedtime sex. But whatever. I fuck him and then get up and shower off the stink and go to work. Usually exhausted - physically, emotionally, mentally, etc.
I’ll save you the math, I’m 50yo this year. I am perimenopausal. I have T2D. I am obese. The single most important thing for my health is …sleep.
I’ve tried to explain how this routine of his - that meets all his needs - doesn’t meet mine. He acts like I’m am trying to control him and he just digs his heels in harder.
I really hate being home alone allll the time . I want someone to be in bed with me. For me. I want him to make the same level sacrifice I’ve made for him all these years supporting his prior career as a Fire Chief and his current career as a state emergency response coordinator… I want him to say “she is more important than my current hobby - she needs me in bed - I can make this happen for her. I know she’s sensitive to smells. I can come to bed clean.
The couple of times he’s done this for me I sleep so good. My whole body relaxes and I go straight to sleep. I can count on my one hand how many times this has happened in the last 15 years….
I want to go to law school. Ive waited 30yrs toldo this. I am currently waitlisted at a good T25 school. But I have no idea how I’m going to do this without sleep.
I don’t know what to do. He isn’t here for me. He isn’t aboutME. My whole past 15yrs has been about HIM. Everything revolves around him. He’s a low effort husband when it comes to our intimate relationship & I don’t mean sex. I mean the intimacy that makes a marriage work.
I’m so tired of this. I just don’t and can’t understand how he can let our marriage fall apart over bedtime routines.
It feels like he does it on purpose to like force me to leave or something. I don’t know how to explain that. But it’s what it feels like.
I don’t want a divorce.
I want sleep.
I want to go to bed with my husband next to me.
I spent my life alone in bed.
My first husband did this.
Now him.
I’m so ….bereft … with angst.