Internet Tells Married Couple to ‘Sleep in Separate Rooms’ Due to Frustrating Alarm Clock Dispute
One man's inability to wake up to his incessant alarm clock has left his wife exhausted and furious. But the internet has a solution: Sleep in separate rooms!
Sharing her story on parenting forum Mumsnet, the anonymous woman explained that her partner sets his alarm clock to go off every few minutes between the hours of 4AM and 6AM.
While she understands he has to wake up early and is trying to be responsible, even when his alarm is set to the highest volume, he rarely wakes up. The alarm will often go off for up to an entire hour, with him none the wiser as his wife loses sleep.
"Every time it goes off, it doesn't wake him, so I have to shake him to switch it off," she explained in her post.
"During this hour, I cannot fall back to sleep. I am a very light sleeper, and it takes me a while to fall asleep. To make things worse, we have a newborn with us, so I am getting even less sleep now," she continued.
The exhausted mom has discussed the issue with him on several occasions, begging her husband to adjust the volume or set the alarm for a later, more reasonable time.
However, he has refused, claiming he needs the alarm to go off every five minutes, at max volume.
"He refuses point blank to change this. I do feel upset as I feel that he is being slightly selfish. But he doesn't wake up whatever the situation. So I have to wake him every time and ask him to switch it off. It sounds silly, but it's got to the point where it's driving me crazy," she wrote, adding she's angry about "his lack of empathy" and that she "can't go back to sleep as I'm so wound up by it all."
"All I want is a bit of uninterrupted sleep and for him to compromise. I appreciate he has an early start. But at the moment, I'm up at all hours with the baby and could just do with a bit of understanding and sympathy to keep me sane," she concluded her post.
In the comments section, Mumsnet readers backed the woman up, with many sharing they face similar issues in their own relationships.
"Separate rooms are the only way," one person commented.
"Yes, separate rooms. What good is lowering the alarm going to do if he doesn't wake up on the loud setting? It's either going to still wake you up which is more of the same thing, or it wakes neither of you up and he is constantly late for work and gets fired and then you'll be at risk of losing your home," another user weighed in.
"I would be turning the alarm off after the second time it went off. He's a selfish person to let it continue for ages. Fair enough if he needs an alarm, but that's ridiculous," someone else wrote.
"I just had exactly the same argument. I honestly wake up with such a start as it's SO loud. I'm currently seething upstairs but will tell him later he can sleep in the spare room if he wants to carry on having it top volume," another commented.