Why Won’t My Partner Sleep with Me?
Dear GoodTherapy.org,
My husband and I used to have a great relationship, but ever since we had a baby and he started a stressful new job, he won’t sleep with me anymore. I don’t mean just have sex, although that’s a problem too. I mean he literally doesn’t sleep with me. He stays up half the night and falls asleep on the couch more often than not. When I get up in the morning, I often end up waking him up and telling him to go to bed. It’s like we are ships passing in the night.
This has strained our relationship so much! I miss my husband. I want to be intimate with him, but even more than that, I want to feel him next to me. I miss snuggling. I miss his warmth and his gentle presence. I sleep better when he’s with me. I cry myself to sleep a lot now, and any sleep I do get is fitful. Having to always be the one to wake up and attend to our baby (since my husband is downstairs, out of earshot) doesn’t help.
He refuses to change or even compromise. He says the stress of his job—he’s a police officer and works evenings—makes him need to “decompress” after his shifts by “vegging out” in front of the TV. He says he can’t go to bed right after work or he just lays there and tosses and turns. But that’s basically what I do if he’s not next to me.
What am I supposed to do if my husband won’t make an effort to sleep with me? I keep thinking the lack of sex will bring him back eventually, but it’s not happening so far. He’s a pretty sexual guy, so I am starting to wonder if he’s getting sex somewhere else. Ugh. As if I needed another reason to not be able to sleep! —Restless
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Dear Restless,
No doubt you’re not sleeping so well these days. In addition to having a little one wreak havoc on your sleep, you have an absentee bed partner. You describe your situation as causing a great deal of distress. It’s on your mind day and night. I’m glad you reached out for help, and I hope this reply offers some points to consider.
You describe your relationship as like “ships passing in the night,” but previously you felt like you had a strong and connected marriage. It sounds like the biggest source of distress is a lack of connection and intimacy, on multiple levels. From your account, you have expressed your desires and concerns to your husband, yet they have neither been validated nor led to change in where your husband spends his time at night. It’s no surprise you are having trouble sleeping.
Talking about sensitive topics with a partner can be tricky for many reasons—among them the baggage that people bring to the communication. It is possible your husband isn’t hearing you because of things that are affecting him, which then reinforces your feeling that he isn’t present. The explanation he has given is that he feels stressed and needs to unwind. This may be accurate, but as you insinuated, you don’t know whether this is the full story. Might there be other challenges he is not comfortable discussing or isn’t able to identify? Might there indeed be an affair of some sort? It sounds like whatever his struggles are, they are affecting him on many levels, including domestic life and his emotional and physical connection to his wife.
Even though communication is hard, it will be part of the long-term solution if you want to bring about change and break this pattern. Individual therapy can assist you with meeting these goals, as can couples therapy, if your husband is open to this.
Even though communication is hard, it will be part of the long-term solution if you want to bring about change and break this pattern. Individual therapy can assist you with meeting these goals, as can couples therapy, if your husband is open to this. Both approaches can facilitate communication and identify issues that may be contributing to the state of your relationship. Regardless of which approach(es) you try, it is important to try something.
Other considerations are important to acknowledge. For one, transition periods in life are inherently stressful. Transitioning into parenthood and starting a new job can feel overwhelming, certainly. We may not know how to deal with the stress. We may resort to coping styles that are familiar to us because it may feel comfortable or easy to react in a certain way.
How has your husband typically coped with stress in the past? Some people tend to react to stress by withdrawing or disengaging. This can, of course, be hard for others who feel like they are shut out. Ultimately, how we deal with things now, whether it be big changes, new demands, or even disagreement about the importance of sharing a marital bed, affects things in the future.
Another consideration worthy of acknowledging is how you are coping. Your sleep has deteriorated, which presumably leaves you feeling less rested during the day. Many nights of poor sleep, of course, can take their toll physically and emotionally. It can affect your energy and internal resources as a caregiver to your baby.
You are caring for someone else, but what are you doing to care for yourself? When we regularly care for ourselves, we are better prepared to deal with the stresses we face, including the ones that don’t seem to make sense or seem like they are easy to resolve. It is easy to forget to take care of yourself when you are so concerned about the well-being of others. May this be a reminder about the importance of checking in with yourself and engaging in something restorative, energizing, or otherwise positive for yourself.
Kind regards,
Marni Amsellem
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Gail
April 23rd, 2018 at 2:13 PMI thought my situation was bad. My husband has taken to sleeping in another room because he says I snore, even though I don’t (I taped myself several nights and…..NOTHING!) I am so tired of sleeping alone and I don’t know what to do.
Ash
July 10th, 2019 at 8:35 PMYou are not alone. I am sleeping alone for last 20 years. My husband saying same thing I am snoring He gets very miserable when we stay at hotel where only one bed.
I just stay awake
Gabe
December 30th, 2019 at 3:53 PMTo Restless, to Ash:
I am sorry you are having to go through what you go through. Some context: Pops was a Police Chief. I was a Communication Specialist with the PD – a dispatcher for the PD, Sherriffs Dept., EMT’s, Highway Safety [State Troopers} for a short time, which I quit. I had to quit for the following reasons: It brought memories from my childhood with pops’ career [military, military police, and intelligence], and I could not leave details during the dispatches where it was taking 10 to 15 seconds more than the 20 aloted to dispatch to officers. I simply could not leave details off for their safety and the experiences that I witnessed when pops was active with those that had to be handcuffed and why. I am not making excuses for Police Officers; some live off excuses but the great great majority do not. Law Enforcement personnel face the ugliest a community goes through. I have not told my wife many of those, and I was a dispatcher, not face to face with the victims or the perps. Withdrawing is an easy coping mechanism. You see that frequently among law enforcement and the military; I know, I lived through it. I am also a parent; truly, the husband is tossed aside and almost invisible to the mother-wife when a child arrives. That being said, following are some things that helped in my marriage, not solved completely but helped: Get time away from your children to be just with your spouse as the friend and partner your spouse married. Men a simple and do not see as deeply as women can. Sorry, but we do not perceive like women do. Those are just facts. Setting time as a wife-husband-partner-friend on a regular consistent basis [once per every 2 weeks or week or month as examples] do wonders to the husband who is truly stressed from work and from not being the center of attention as the husband once was, and no longer is. And two: Taking care of yourself also does wonders, from sleeping well [yeah, try that as a mother or father right? Right. :-) ] to smelling lovely – just lovely/ not exaggerated like when one has taken a shower just to relax, to clothes that make you, the wife, feel comfortable and attractive. Men never cease to want to play. Men are overgrown kids who want to play and yes, even giggle. I do not know if you are aware of any of this but, I feel for you because there are times I have to sleep apart from my wife. Not frequently. My point: If he wants to correct the relationship, he will be willing if you set a time just for him, you projecting how comfortable and well you feel, and that you still want to play like when you both first met. It may not be a cure but it is a starting point. I have seen too many loose relationships that were valuable and then not … only to discover they are still valuable [a tough sometimes not needed path to take]. I am sharing with you some of the things we, my spouse and I, have had to revisit. Good luck to the both of you. My best wishes.
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