being married to me is so fun

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Weigh-In Wednesday: Sleeping + Waking Incompatibility

Why are the “-able” and “-ible” words so difficult to remember how to spell?

My husband and I have a significant Bedtime Incompatibility. Periodically, it drives me nuts as it is today. It takes the obvious form: each of us has a Preferred Bedtime, and they are different from one another.

I guess you would style me as a Morning Person. I like to wake up early-ish and start my day. To make rising early enjoyable, I like to go to bed at a reasonable time around ten o’clock. Probably, if I didn’t have a child or husband, I would go to bed around nine or nine-thirty. But I DO have a child, whose bedtime (around seven-thirty) combined with my husband’s arrival home from work (around seven) means that I often don’t eat dinner until eight-thirty or nine let alone get into bed at that time. But if left to my own devices, I would go to sleep around ten. And often – yawning and feeling all twitchy in the leg region, which happens when I’m tired – I do part from my husband around ten or ten-thirty, even though he would rather watch another episode of whatever show we’re watching.

My husband is a Night Owl, and would stay up until two or three in the morning if he didn’t have to get up for work. On the weekends, he sometimes DOES stay up that late. Part of it is that he is at work from sixish to sevenish most days, and so he feels that going to bed early means he gets no time to do the things he enjoys (make music, play video games, exercise, watch TV, do puzzles, read). So he has to carve that him-time out of the dark of night. Part of it is that he seems naturally inclined toward night-owlishness. I do think that most people are one or the other, and cannot change without great effort and even discomfort. 

For a long time, I hated this difference in our go-to-sleep habits. I felt like it was important for our marriage to be able to fall asleep together. I missed having his warm body in bed with me. I missed the quiet chats that occur when two people are in the dark, trying to fall asleep. 

But over the years, I’ve come to accept it, if not outright enjoy it. I often have trouble falling asleep, and even more trouble getting back to sleep if I wake up in the night. And on the nights when we do go to bed together, I find that I am more irritated by him than anything. He keeps MOVING the SHEETS and TICKLING my LEGS. Or he will keep his light on even if he is just looking at his phone (which itself is LIT) and the light bothers me. Or he will turn off his light, out of (grudging) deference to me, but then his phone light will bother me. Or he will fall asleep first and then he will BREATHE and it will keep me awake. Do you see how it is better for me to be deeply asleep before he enters the bedroom?

It is a delight to be my spouse. 

All this is to say that I have come around to the fact that we have separate bedtimes. It’s fine.

My husband and I have lived together for nearly twenty years at this point, and we have always had this significant incompatibility. But it’s become more pronounced now that we have child.  

What’s bugging me currently is the mornings. My natural wake-up time – if it’s not 4:00 am – tends to be 7:00 am. That’s when I wake up without an alarm. On the weekends, I usually lie in bed until a) I’m hungry or b) I can hear Carla downstairs, and realize I need to go feed her (i.e. prevent her from eating junk instead of a Healthful Breakfast; I fail most days as she is quite stealthy). My husband has more teenagery sleep habits, and would probably languish in bed until noon if he could. 

But it makes me so irritated!!! See those three exclamation points? I wanted to add ten or twenty, just to illustrate my level of irritation. 

Part of it is that my husband unloads the dishwasher on the weekends; even though it takes literally five minutes out of my day, I do it Every. Other. Day. plus on weekends when he is on call, and having to unload the dishwasher on the weekends as well makes me want to scream. He unloads the dishwasher, and, unsurprisingly, he does so when he feels like doing it, which is NOT on my schedule. I want the dishwasher unloaded FIRST THING so that I can fill it with breakfast dishes and glasses from the night before etc. I try to recognize that this is a Me Thing, and I have never gone so far as to demand that he do this task on my schedule… but it still bugs me. 

Part of it is that I get a break from unloading the dishwasher on weekends, but I don’t get a break from feeding Carla. It would be so nice to just NOT have to make her breakfast. (I suppose I could extend a little autonomy in her direction, but so far it hasn’t worked out that way. I think she just wouldn’t eat, if it were her responsibility.) And “making breakfast” is not as simple as it sounds. It requires in-depth questioning and listing of options and cajoling and reminding about things like “eating meals is important” and “it’s good to eat things that have nutritional value in addition to things that have none.” It is A Process, is what I’m saying.

Part of it is that I feel like my husband gets this long, luxurious rest – and all its associated freedom from breakfast-making and tidying and chiding the child about picking up toys/turning off the TV/cleaning up her dishes. Not that I would choose to sleep longer, if I could! I guess I’m just envious. It does, in some ways, feel like he gets the weekends off from his job while I do not. But… my housewife “job” is so minimal! And fairly easy! While his work is neither of those things! So why do I begrudge him a little extra break?

The other part of it, though, is that we can never DO anything as a family until late. This past Sunday, we planned on a family bike ride. I wanted to leave early, before the heat descended. But we settled on 9:30. And then… my husband slept in until nearly 9:00 and it was ELEVEN O’CLOCK before we got out the door, and I hadn’t eaten any breakfast (because I am a Late Breakfaster, and I figured we would be home from our 9:30 bike ride before I got hungry) and it was hot and I was cranky. Why should I have to wait around doing NOTHING just because I have the audacity to wake up early?! And now half the day has been eaten up by Nothing. Not just Nothing, but resentful, pouty Nothing.

Oh! Here’s a point on my husband’s side of things: We will watch a TV show or two after dinner (or, more likely, while he and I scarf down dinner after we put Carla to bed). I am usually struggling to keep my eyes open by the end of the show, and I feel like I express Very Clearly that I am ready for bed. When the show is over, I will say something along the lines of, “Okay, I’m ready for bed! I’m going to head up now!” and then I go into the kitchen and wash the dishes and clean the counters while my husband flips around the channels, checking on sports scores and catching up on news and weather. 

Then he will finally come into the kitchen – usually right as I am finished – and express surprise that I have done all the dishwashing/cleaning up. He still needs to prep his coffee and get his lunch together for the next day, and sometimes if I am feeling charitable, I will stay in the kitchen with him and chat. But often I am Done with a capital D and I say, “Good night!” At which point he is miffed! Why am I in such a hurry to go to bed? What did he say to me last night – something like, “Well, you didn’t waste any time.” Excuse me? I just did all the dishes! 

Hmm. I am clearly casting this in a Me light rather than a Him light. Try to see it his way. 

I am very curious as to YOUR bedtime/wake-up habits. And if you live with someone, what THEIR habits are, and whether they are compatible with yours (and whether it matters).

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Date Night

I am dreaming of date night right now. When we have houseguests, I feel like I never see my husband. I am always in the kitchen cooking or tidying up. And when I am ready to head to bed (not early, etiher! ten or eleven!) he is still chatting with his family and spending time with them, often into the wee hours of the morning. It truly feels like we don’t get more than five minutes alone together when we have visitors. Alas, once our houseguests are gone, my husband is on call for a week. Which means I may not see him aside from a few grumpy minutes here and there for a week! Womp womp. 

On top of these things, my volunteer project is ramping up – to the point that I now lie awake looonnnng into the night fretting about décor and staffing and what happens if everyone else gets violently ill the night before the event. You know. Healthy stuff. I’m busy and my mind is on other things, so my mind is not really focused on Quality Spouse Time lately. 

All this means that my husband and I are getting kind of desperate for some alone time. So I am going to text the babysitter and see if she is free AS SOON as my event and call week and houseguests are in the rearview! 

Shay and Erika are doing a little link up today about date night ideas. My husband and I don’t have particularly exciting dates, but we have had exactly TWO date nights since 2020 – both with other couples – so I am kind of feeling like any time we get alone together counts as a date. 

Dinner – We both love food, and so our typical date night usually involves going out to eat. One of our favorite local restaurants just reopened (after closing during the early days of the pandemic), so I’m hoping we might go there. Dining in restaurants still feels… fraught. I am looking forward to warmer weather and the opening of restaurant patios!

Dessert – My husband LOVES sweets, which means that dessert is a non-negotiable part of our date nights. (Like I would negotiate against dessert!) Most often, we grab ice cream after dinner. Near us is a small town with a cute main street we like to visit. There’s a delicious ice cream shop right in the middle, and the weather is getting to the point where we might be able to stroll with our cones even in the evening. 

Bookstore – My husband and I both love to read, so our date nights often wind up in a bookstore, where we browse for books together (when we go with our daughter, one of us browses and the other goes with her to the kids’ section) and hand each other books to consider. I usually don’t enjoy going to bookstores. For one thing, I am not a huge fan of standing around while my daughter asks for every toy in the toy section. For another, there are too many books I want to buy, and I get cranky about not being able to take all of them home at once. (Do I have a million unread books in my home already? Yes. Does this alleviate the grouchiness or desire to buy more? Absolutely not.) But when we go to a bookstore on a date, it feels different. It feels like quality time, where he hands me books he might like or books he thinks I might like, and I do the same for him. Plus, there’s the novelty of being in a bookstore in heels and date night clothes that really changes the experience.

TV – My husband and I love to watch TV together. We just started watching Inventing Anna and we’re both hooked. I’ve heard mixed reviews of the series, but the whole story fascinates me so I’m predisposed to liking it. Plus, I think the acting is really top notch. We pause frequently and marvel at Anna’s accent, or ask each other who so-and-so actor is and where we remember him from, or discuss how WILD a certain plot point is. This is not solely a Date Night activity, but it’s still fun. 

Games – We also love to play computer games together. There’s a very specific type of game we like, and it’s hard to find games that fit our specifications. We loved the Cube Escape and Rusty Lake games, for instance. I’d describe our preference as “combination of horror/mystery story and escape-room style puzzle solving.” We just started a new one called Reach. (If you have any recommendations, I’m interested!) 

Here’s hoping our sitter is available, because I’m getting antsy to spend some time with my husband! 

What does your ideal date night look like? 

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I’m Not a Nice Person

My mom was visiting over Christmas and I was getting the table ready for dinner, filling water glasses, swooping bread into the bread basket, moving salt and pepper shakers from the counter to the table. You know. 

As I was filling up my mother’s glass with water from the fridge, she said, “I’m not a nice person.”

I was SHOCKED. Shocked. That she would say such a thing, of course. But that she would announce it like this, while we were all milling about in the kitchen before sitting down to eat. 

“What?!” I said. “That’s not true!”

She looked at me with confusion. Then realization dawned.

“I just meant I don’t want ice in my water,” she clarified. “I’m not an ICE person.”

Oh. 

This has since become family code for little misunderstandings. My husband out of nowhere says Carla is not allowed in the basement… but really he said she’s being loud in the basement. Once we clear up that confusion, one of us will say, “I’m not a nice person.” 

Or maybe my husband offers to bring me a snack, but I tell him I’m not in the mood for popcorn… when he brings me popcorn anyway, I will say, “I’m not a nice person.”

That kind of thing.

We have several little code words and phrases,  none of which would make sense to anyone beyond the two of us. Even Carla, I think, is a little perplexed by some of the little inside jokes. 

We were reading a book to her the other night, for instance, and my husband mispronounced the word “candelabra.” 

This is something he and I do automatically, any time it comes up, after watching an episode of The Amazing Race many many years ago in which a contestant mispronounced the word. (Can-DELL-uh-brah.) I don’t know why it struck us as so notable then (it’s not an intuitive word!), or why it’s something that’s had such staying power. 

The other thing we say all the time is, “Just switching things up.” This is something we say in response to someone – including one of us – doing something baffling. Like, why did you Venmo the old babysitter instead of the swim instructor? Just switching things up. Why did that person choose to turn left at a red light? They’re obviously just switching things up. That kind of thing. 

This derives from a road trip we went on with friends a million years ago. Our friend was driving the other car in our group, and he kept passing us on the freeway… and then slowing down so drastically that we had to pass him. When we reached our destination, my husband asked him why he didn’t maintain a constant speed and he shrugged and said, “I just like to switch things up.” It has stuck with us ever since.