[joywithhim]

Hello, my name is Grace, and I live in South Korea. (I'm not a native English speaker, so please bear with me :))

I've been suffering from insomnia for about 1 and half years.

(My story is a bit complicated so it could take a while.)

I used to be a good sleeper, I always went to bed and got off the bed at the same time every day.

About a year and a half, this sleeping issue arose. At that time, I quit my former job and I spent a lot of time at home, so I assumed that this sleeping problem was because of lack of outdoor activity. Because I had never experienced any of this before, I guess that was the moment that I became too sensitive to the sleeping environment. But that insomnia didn't last too long or wasn't that serious, it came on and off sometimes but it was bearable.

Lately, I've faced the bigger problem regarding insomnia. The thing is, I've been happily married for 2 years now and we've known each other for more than 3 years. My husband enjoys drinking, and he drinks once a week. Well, it may be hard for you to imagine Korean drinking culture. Usually, men drink after work with colleagues or male friends very often, when they do, it's heavy. Basically, the Korean culture is not family friendly. So “once a week” is not bad, rather, it's moderate. And we had a mutual agreement before marriage that he would have one day freedom during weekdays for drinking. Even though I don't drink at all, his drinking habit is not bad at all and I was familiar with social drinking and culture, I thought I was open to it. So I agreed.

But somehow, I became too sensitive about his drinking from around the beginning of this year, and when he drinks, I can't sleep. It affects the rest of the other days. Because it happens once a week, my sleeping routine (normal schedule) can find no time to recover. My husband is such a nice guy; he's committed, always respectful of me, doing house chores more than I do, even when he's drinking he texts me all the time about every detail (a where he's at, who he's with, what he's eating and drinking, and so on). But after one year of marriage, I've realised that I'm the person who hates drinking as itself. I've talked about this with my husband, he feels frustrated. I don't want to force him to quit drinking because I know that's his joy of life and the way to release the stress from work. Though every night I can't sleep, I tend to blame him. And this tense and fear that I might not be able to sleep tonight overwhelm the fatigue.

Another reason for my insomnia, I think, is my excessive health anxiety. When I can't sleep, I'm not worried about like, how well I could function the next day, but such as cellular restructuring, hormonal balance, senescence, anti aging effects and so on, LOL. haha I know, I'm funny. Can you believe that I never experienced nightlife because of these issues even when I was in 20's? I agree I'm such a boring girl, LOL. (My husband sometimes complains about this when he wants to go out with me at night for some special occasions) Since I'm this kind of person, sleeping problems comes as a disaster to me, and I know this worries and sensitivity deteriorate my insomnia, but I can't help it.

This is my (quite long) story.

I hope to get some help from this forum. Just being aware of the fact that I'm not the only one gives me relief.

Thank you for reading.

Oh, and nice to meet you 🙂

[Martin Reed]

A belated welcome to the forum. What is it about your husband's drinking that you feel disturbs your sleep? Do you feel anxiety/fear/concern/anger about his drinking, or is it more to do with him tossing and turning in bed, perhaps snoring, and making it harder for you to sleep? It may be helfpul to sleep in a separate room during these nights. As for health-related worries and anxiety about sleep – have you looked into CBT for insomnia? This treatment is particularly effective at dealing with such thoughts.

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