Sleep Issues (part II)

After two sleepless nights at the cabin, the decision was made (by me) to sleep in the van in the driveway. The alternative is a pullout couch which I KNOW to be terrible on my back. If you’re familiar with Seinfeld, and specifically the episode where Elaine sleeps on a pullout couch in Florida and completely destroys her back, this is somewhat similar. Except worse.

The past several years, I’ve chosen to sleep on the couch all folded up as a couch, but that is only marginally better.

M and I had a long talk about things this afternoon, which ended in me crying for about two hours inconsolably. We have had two pretty good days at the cabin, but she has not slept a single wink all night, either night. But the nights have been terrible. She did invite me into the bed, but it has been the stuff of relationship nightmares. At one point last night, she was violently crying, sobbing that she just wished that she could sleep.

During our conversation today, I expressed many, most of the sentiments that I talked about in my previous post. It all just came spilling out. The dam had broken, and the floodgates overflowed with their salty contents. I told her about how I wasn’t sure that I’d ever be happy with this “sleep divorce” we are in. I told her about how I really feel that this is my fault; she doesn’t sleep perfectly every night on her sleep meds, but she sleeps awfully every night that we are together. I told her how I’m concerned that she’s hiding something about why my own sleeping behaviors are such an impediment to hers, but I cannot work on a problem when I don’t know what it is.

She attempted to comfort me. She told me how things could change after the stressors of the big move are all done. We can get a bigger bed; she will see a new sleep doctors, and maybe get a different diagnosis or medication; we can go see a sleep/marriage therapist after we’re established in the new city; we can do all of these things in the future.

But for right now, it has to remain the status quo.

I don’t think that I can survive a whole week on that awful couch, though. So, for tonight, at least, I’ll try the van. Not sure; it might be worse than the pullout sofa, but I feel like my physical wellbeing needs to at least try it for a night