[essiej]

Hello.
So seeking some advice. I have had insomnia off and on to varying degrees over the last 11 years. In recent years it’s gotten to the point that I often find it difficult to fall asleep with my husband in the bed. He usually goes to bed before me and then when I come to bed sometimes I will fall asleep but more often than not recently I have difficulty. If he leaves to go to the spare bed I can fall asleep (sometimes it takes longer than at other times). But it’s like my brain can’t let go and fall asleep if he is in the bed.
I know that I can fall asleep with him but if I start to have a bit of difficulty all I can think of is maybe I should ask him to leave so that I will eventually fall asleep.
Any ideas. I know it is my mind just finding it hard to get over this hurdle. TIA

[DreamChaser]

Hey

You would not believe it, but I have actually been contemplating for the past week about writing a forum post on a similar problem. I got discouraged because I felt that this is such a weird problem, but here we are.

My journey with insomnia started roughly 1.5 years ago. On that night, it was my wife who was louder than usual in bed which made it very difficult for me to fall asleep. I think she was probably sick, and she was snoring, which she only rarely does otherwise. From this day on something clicked in my brain, and I started having regular sleep issues. It has gotten to very bad at some point, so bad that I actually started seeing a therapist.

Through the therapy and with the help of the insomnia coach podcasts, I actually managed to mostly get rid of my sleep problems, except for one thing. I frequently get anxious when I sleep next to my wife, even though she is a quiet sleeper almost always. Back in March and April, I was actually sleeping fine next to her, but then I had a trip to the US (from Europe), and, on the way back, the jet lag threw me off again. Right now, I am in a situation where I can sleep quite well in the guest room (where I am alone), but I am having difficulty falling asleep when I am next to her.

I know about all the things that it is not necessarily an issue if a couple sleeps in separate beds especially if space allows it, but I still feel like that this is something that I want to/need to fix. We do not actually have relationship issues. I also realize that the more I want to control this, the harder this whole thing becomes. I try to go back to the state of mind I had in March/April where I just did not care about sleep, but nowadays the sleep-related thoughts are much stronger again in my mind. I feel like that while I _can_ sleep in the separate room, that is not a lasting solution because really in fact I am just prolonging the “task” of figuring out how to sleep next to my wife again.

I know that I did not offer any solution to you with this message, but I felt that I must respond to your message given the similar situation I am in.

[Author]

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