Is wife being unreasonable?

Some people are just not morning people.

But examine the previous nights. Does she stay up until 2? Drink regular coffee at night? Exercise less than an hour before bedtime? Drink alcohol at night (more than a glass of wine or a beer or so)? Watch exciting or scary movies or TV? All of those things can make it harder to get decent sleep, and that makes it harder to get up in the morning.

Two alarms. One on her side of the bed, one on yours. Set yours for whenever you, personally, need to get up and get your son ready for school (say, 6 AM). Set hers for two hours earlier (yes, really). Make it only loud enough for her to hear it and not you (or it's background noise for you but not really coherent).

And then just let her deal with her own alarm while you (hopefully) just sleep through it until your own, much louder, alarm goes off. Then just go about your day and help your son as he is a child and needs you. Catch your train.

She is a grown up and needs to deal with her own alarm and her own schedule. I am suggesting her own alarm not only to get her up earlier but also to give her subconscious a nagging feeling that she needs to get up. It'll start to bring her out of deep(er) sleep. And then either your alarm will work and she will just get up, or she might even start to get up with her own alarm (and if it's a clock radio, make sure it's tuned to a station she does not like. Some people will wake up and hit the snooze button because they hate a song on the radio. While they are hitting snooze, they are at least awake enough to do that, and are pulling out of deep sleep).

If that is not enough, and she's not drinking coffee, etc. (see my second paragraph, above), then the next stop is her doctor's. There are certain chronic diseases which can make you tired, or she might be on medications which are doing it. But the most common fatigue-inducing condition is depression. It makes sense to rule that out if all else fails.

And for God's sake, you are not being selfish making her sort herself out. She is a grown woman and you have a job that you want to keep, and a child who needs to get to his school on time. She needs to get off her duff and get moving in the morning. Everybody does, unless they work the night shift. She should not be expecting special princess treatment for this nonsense.

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

Her waking up isn't an issue. She asked me to set the alarm 30mins earlier. So that she can get up so my alarm wakes us both up. I get up to get myself and son ready. But my wife chooses not to get up. So I have to keep asking her to get up and she says yeah I am. But she doesn't get up unless I keep goin back to tell her to get up (which isnt easy whilst trying to get a 4yr old ready).

I know she can get up if needed as she always does when she has an appointment for herself.

I could make her get up by literally dragging her out of bed but I really don't want to do this.

I want her to be considerate and think " I will get up to make sure my husband and son are on time"

. It's the least she can do given that I am getting our son ready alone. All I ask is she gets up with me... I really think she's being unreasonable.

At times iv told her I'm going to have to just go to work now, I can't miss my train as they only.come once an hour.. Iv driven straight to the station so she has then had to get to work slightly later than usual (she is on flexible hours though so not strictly 'late'). She days I am being selfish in those instances even though it's her not being ready that has caused the lateness in the first place!!

I really don't think I'm doing anything wrong..

Did you actually really read Jespah's advice?

Sounds as if you are merely, still venting instead of reading and ascertaining whether any of that actually is the cause for her not wanting to get up in the morning, that and she knows that you will.

Ugh, Do you have to physically drag your your year old out of bed? But that's what your wife expects? She's being the selfish one.

I'm wondering, maybe she's depressed or might have an issue that needs to be addressed. It shouldn't be this difficult for an adult to get up and take care of life's responsibilities of the family. She's lucky you are there to pick up her slack.

However what's the evening like? Are you doing the same amount you do in the mornings? Who cooks? Who does the cleaning? Who takes care of the your year olds needs? Are you doing more of this in the evenings or is she?

These questions are important to know if her tiredness is due to not being able to get into a relaxed state for proper sleep.

That's exactly what I thought too, re still just venting and not listening.

Here's advice from me, a bona fide night owl.

Some background. All the years I worked I loathed and detested that alarm clock, the having to move my body, the falling back to sleep if I didn't drag myself upright immediately. Then there was the getting up to pee, and looking longingly at the bed and wanting so badly to lie down for "just a minute"
All that time, I made myself go to bed between 9pm and 10pm every night. I didn't like going to bed that early, believe me. I had to get up at 5am to get to work by 8am. The first hour involved sitting and staring, on coffee auto-pilot.

Assuming there is nothing physically wrong with her, she just doesn't deal with the natural sleep and getting up rhythms of most people. Sorry, that's just the way it is.

You say you are now responsible for getting your son ready alone. But, are there things in your marriage or with your child that she's totally responsible for? I'll bet there is.

My advice from my own experience is to let her be responsible for getting herself up, ready and out the door. Let her be late for work if that's what it means. Let her be the one to explain to her employer she was late because "My husband won't get me up." and see how that goes over with them.

I'll let you in on a secret. She hates having someone coming into the room every 5 or 10 minutes to tell her to get up. So don't do it. You're off the hook.

If she says "you're selfish" just ignore the comment. Sooner or later she'll stop it when she knows she won't get a reaction. Just as important, don't tell her or indicate in any way that she's selfish over this, even if you think it.

What's then going to happen in your marriage is that you'll be the one to get the kid up and out the door for school. He'll be relieved he no longer has to listen to you 2 arguing every day. Hopefully he won't take that into his future relationships.
She'll figure out a way to manage to get herself out the door, or work something out at work, and your lives together will be better.

If she's so bad at getting up that she looses her job (I highly doubt it, she'll get with the program) she can find another one where the hours are later.

These are her circadian rhythms, and she has to work with them, no one else. She's never going to like getting up in the morning, because that's not how her brain and body are programed. She can get into a habit with it, but it'll never be her nature.

Well yes, she could be a selfish person, but I for one am not going to assume that.

If it is the fact her circadian rhythms are set some hours back, it is literally physical and mental anguish having to get up when you aren't ready. When are you in your deepest, most unconscious sleep? Imagine night after night being rudely awoken whatever time you are in that state by alarms, getting shaken, or worst of all, some bright eyed busy tailed lark saying in a sing song voice "wakey wakey sleepy head!" I remember being as young as 1st grade and wanting to stab my 21 year old sister as she got ready for work, playing the radio loudly with the Top 40. I remember thinking she literally hated me, and that's why she tortured me every day. It was the only reasonable thing I could think of.


To the OP, does this sound like your wife? Was she always a slow riser? Or is this recent?

BTW, left to our own devices, night owls are not always the grumps we are made out to be.

I was fortunate in being able to stop working at around 55 years old. Within TWO Weeks of not having to get up in the morning, I had naturally shifted to going to bed at 2am. For the month after that, I felt like all I did was sleep. Sleeping late, afternoon naps, it was glorious.

Then, I woke up one day and said "I'm done. I'm all rested"

Now, I go to bet any time between 1am and 3am and wake up at 9am. Within 10 minutes of getting up I'm functioning, able to have conversations, just like "normal" people. So I'm getting less sleep and am so much more functional.

I'll usually have a little 1/2 hour lie down any time around 4pm, and at 5pm I am hitting my stride "for the day"
I also wake up at dawn for a little while, just enjoying breathing, and drift back off after a bit.

Here's a link to an interesting read and TED talk about segmented sleep.

https://www.polyphasicsociety.com/polyphasic-sleep/overviews/segmented-sleep/

Here is a very sweet cut and paste from another site that describes how sleep used to be for everyone....

Back when segmented sleep was common, this period between “first” and “second” sleep inspired reverence. The French called it dorveille, or wakesleep, a hypnotic state. English speakers called it “the watch.” I had usually approached the post-­midnight hours full-sail, by staying up. Waking into them is different, childlike. The time feels freer. The urge to be busy abates. Conversation has a conspiratorial intimacy, as if you’ve sneaked behind the tent to find the only other smoker at the wedding. Though I preferred the name dorveille, because it sounded glamorous, “the watch” was technically more accurate during those early weeks, when I mainly got up and watched Netflix.

In the preindustrial West, most people slept in two discrete blocks and used dorveille for all kinds of purposes. Having sex was popular. Benjamin Franklin liked to “take cold-air baths,” a fancy way of saying “open his windows naked.” Many people wrote in journals or interpreted dreams, which feel more proximate at 3 a.m. than in daylight. You could drink a cup of tea and take a satisfied leak on the embers of your fire. But everyone did something, because dorveille was ubiquitous.

Waking up has allways been an issue for me. My mind cant clear itself fast enough and my body refuses to come to life as it hadnt have any rest at all during the night. I dont hear the alarm ring even when i have my phone by my head in bed. Its frustating and somehow traumatic. My couples through the years have complaint about this but i shut them down listing all the defects and bad habits they had but i accepted as part of their personality. She does for sure several things you dont get to achieve or be able to everyday. You have defects she has to deal with on daily basis that interferes with her life. Just accept her problem and find a way to deal with it

There is such a thing as justifiable homicide, and that just might qualify.

I have took advice on board thanks, it's just I have tried lots of things already. I guess what I can do is try to understand it as her struggling. I think my problem with this is that I also struggle to get up. I have bipolar and someday find it really difficult to wake but I always do when I know it will affect my son or my job... So I find it frustrating that she can't do the same...

In the evenings we both take equal responsibility for household chores. We go to sleep at a reasonable time, and if our son wakes in the night I go see to him as I know she finds it harder to get up.

I think I would have less of an issue with having to deal with this if there were other things she did for me. But it seems I have to be bending over backwards all the time to make sure she gets what she needs. Then she is very reluctant to help me.l with my needs. So this morning issue has become bigger than perhaps it should be

So you keep a scorecard of who does what?

Is someone bending your arm behind your back to do whatever it is you do that you believe gets her needs met?

Seems like you're having a hard time grasping she is not you.
If you have a hard time getting up as well, that's your issue to deal with, and apparantly you have.

If she has a hard time getting up, that's her issue to deal with, and her choice.

You're still not acknowledging that if you knock of off the keeping tally of who does what, take your part by not calling her selfish, and let her enjoy the consequences of her actions, you're doing her the favor of letting her find a solution to her personal problem.

I don't often say I feel sorry for someone, really never when it's an adult going on about a situation they have freely put themselves in.
However, I do truly feel sorry for your child. He can't walk away from this situation, and day after day is forced to listening to the circus you two create. God only knows what he hears the rest of the day/evening between the 2 of you.

I'm fairly sure you knew this characteristic of your wife when you married her. What made you think she would change simply because you want her to be more like you?

In any event, the answer to your original question, "Is wife being unreasonable" is...

It doesn't matter.
It's what she does and how she is.

Deal with it by letting her deal with it. Or don't.

You deal with your stuff.

The only person who needs help (and who should be the priority) is the son.

Yes. Because if you walk around with resentment of your wife, for not giving you the attention you give her and you "use" your son as a reason of attention, that being resentment of what you do for him ( aiming that at her), do you not realise that he will "feel that resentment, towards him?" ..

I can see you mumbling things as you are doing things for "him".

The issue you have with your wife, or the "not enough love" feeling you have from your wife, has nothing to do with your son.

Remember that as you get upset over the "non equality of love" not all people show things the same way.

Ianm,

It sounds like you are being more rational justifying your responsibility to get up even when you don't want to. This is so common that many would say it's part of being a mature adult. I think your wife is being childish not wanting to accept this and wants to hide behind you being the selfish one. If she were to admit she's the one being selfish it would mean she's the one who needs to change and that means doing what she doesn't want to do. It's immature.

You only have one option left. You install a device that launched her out of bed in the morning and retracts into the wall so she can't lay back down.

That or get some smelling salts they use on boxers to wake them up from knockouts.

Or you can just put up with it. Say it's unfair but do it anyway.

Absolutely.

Krumble.

It's not a matter of who is being immature or responsible. It is what it is.

Your suggestions, to which I'm hoping you were joking about, would do nothing thing but cause more animosity than there already is. The wife isn't here to speak for herself, but I'm thinking she feels it too.

What you suggest, if you were serious, is nothing but an "I'll show you" punishment that would accomplish nothing.

Right now we have 3 stars stressed out people in the home, and one of them is absolutely helpless, and is learning that daily fruitless bickering and who knows what else is the way relationships have to be.

People have a right to do the activities they have to do on their own terms. Regardless if it's the way someone else wants them to do it. Dragging/ejecting someone having a hard time getting up, putting bad smelling things in their face, etc comes from the belief that "might makes right".

We have 3 people that all start off their day in an extremely crappy way. I think this start sets the tone for the rest of the day for all of them. There's a few steps that can be taken that will lessen the stress. The first one, quite bluntly, is for this man to leave his wife the f#ck alone in the morning.

I don't know for sure, but I bet before they lived together the wife had someone, parent, sibling, roommate, other who got to play the self appointed role of martyr in getting this woman up. Maybe no one has ever given her the opportunity or time to figure out how to handle this herself. All she may know is that getting up evolves all sorts of unpleasantness, and has not given any thought of her role because of "I can't be responsible for this and if you won't do it for me you're selfish"

Maybe there have been a few half assed efforts over the years of letting her miss or be late for something. Probably too brief to amount to anything.

IMNSHO this husband needs to get his mind straight with that pleasant mornings are preferable for him and his son. Two out of.three will immediately benefit. Let the wife know that he'll no longer attempt to get her up,that he won't engage her when she calls him selfish, and that he and his son will have a pleasant breakfast and leave for the day. Then do that, each and every day for ok now on.

It'll be no more work as far as his son, since he's doing that anyway. Yet he won't have to spend time dealing with her. Kid will be much more happy. If he asks why mom isn't being pestered, just say she's going to be getting up herself from now on.

For some indeterminate amount of time the wife will be mightily upset. As she realizes her employee doesn't accept excuses like "my husband is selfish and won't make me get up" and that in fact, it's ever so much more pleasant getting up without someone annoying the hell out of you, she'll calm down.

It won't happen overnight, but hey, it sound like this has been going on a long time anyway.

Everyone will be happier (eventually) if each is allowing to be the master of their destiny.

sorry, done on iphone, re mistakes