• How old are you and how familiar are you with RPW? 27, very familiar.
  • What is your relationship status? Married
  • What is the problem? My husband works a difficult schedule including 2 weeks on a day shift, two weeks on a night shift. His transition from night shift to day shift being significantly more difficult since he looses so much sleep. He’s asked me repeatedly on occasion to make sure he wakes up in time so that his schedule becomes “normal” for whichever shift (ex: making sure he gets to sleep in during the day to night transition, and making sure he wakes up early for his night to day shift transitions) this comes into play later.

5 years ago I had a pregnancy that ended in miscarriage and it has always been a sore subject for me. Well Sunday I went to church (my husband doesn’t go with me), and three families brought in their brand new babies and I just could not hold it together. I sat very quietly trying not to cause a scene but several people noticed. My husband doesn’t like talking about the baby I lost because he’s mentioned it reminds him of the fact that I was with another man, I have several support groups and friends to talk to about this when I need to so for the most part we don’t talk about it. After church I went home to wake my husband, and ask if he wanted to go get breakfast since he suggested it the night before, he was difficult to rouse so I waited another hour and told him he needed to get up, not just because I wanted to spend time with him but because he had asked me to make sure he didn’t sleep too late the night before (we had gone to bed at 11:30, he’s transitioning to day shift this week). He still didn’t wake, and at this time I was getting hungry (I could have made food at the house but he mentioned Saturday about wanting to go to a specific restaurant, And often he’ll feel bad about missing events due to his crazy schedule) and honestly I was frustrated and had been frustrated with his wanting me to wake him up and then not waking up, so I sternly said I was going to go get food and I’d bring it back. I had my shoes on and he got up and said he was ready to go. I asked him if he was “ready ready, or going to take a shower and get dressed ready” which OBVIOUSLY set a negative tone. We didn’t really speak driving to the restaurant, once we got there he started playing on his phone which was a relief to me because I didn’t want to argue. He asked me if I was going to talk to him at all, and I said I didn’t know what to say, so he asked me why we were there at all and I said I didn’t know, I wanted to say because he said he wanted to go the day before, but at the time I felt it would have made things worse. He said that he felt like I don’t respect his need for sleep and that I’ve been dragging him around all weekend and the weekend before to do things I wanted to do, and not caring about what he wanted to do which was to catch up on some sleep (despite him asking me to make sure he got up at a decent hour) and that instead of taking me to a restaurant where I wasn’t going to talk to him he could be catching up on his sleep.

  • How have you contributed to the problem? Not communicating that I had already had a rough morning, not saying anything at breakfast, being rude when I couldn’t get him to wake up.
  • How long has this been an issue? 2 days
  • What have you done to resolve this problem? We spoke a little bit the other day, and he kissed me good bye this AM but we haven’t really seen each other due to our work schedules. If married or in a committed, monogamous relationship:
  • How long have you been together? Together 4 married 1 year
  • Is your relationship long-distance? No
  • Do you have an active bedroom life? Yes.

My husbands night shift schedule has increasingly become a sore spot in our marriage. For two weeks were only seeing each other in passing and the trigger for most of our arguments, we’ve known for a while it’s because he’s extremely exhausted and frankly, we miss each other. My rocky morning start had me wanting to feel closeness with him, and waking him up back fired and turned the situation for the worse.

Probably some grammar mistakes, sorry, I’m on mobile.