DEAR RABBI GRUEN,
My wife and I have a solid relationship which has become even stronger thanks to your weekly lectures. Following your guidance helps me be a better spouse, particularly when it comes to being more flexible. This has resulted in my wife becoming more loving and flexible as well.
Perhaps you can provide advice on an issue that has been a thorn in our relationship for several years. I am a natural early riser. Most days I awake at 5:00 a.m. It’s difficult for me to sleep past 6:00, even on Shabbos. As such, I usually go to sleep around 9:00 p.m. My wife has a more typical sleep routine: she goes to bed around 11:00 p.m., and wakes up at 7:00 a.m. We both sleep well at night and require about eight hours to feel well-rested.
My wife is upset that I go to sleep early because it doesn’t allow us to spend much quality time together. Child care and daily tasks usually end around 8:15 every evening. She does a great job taking care of the house and children. I start preparing for bed by 8:45. I’m fortunate to have a flexible schedule by day, and I try to schedule time for us to spend together then. However, her schedule is less flexible. Still, I feel she could rearrange some of her daytime activities to allow us to have time together every day. I resent that she doesn’t make daytime togetherness a top priority, (while continuing to complain that I’m not available past 9:00 p.m. when SHE is ready for quality time). Please provide any advice towards rectifying this situation and overcoming this challenge in our marriage.
Thank you.
RABBI SHIMON GRUEN RESPONDS
ANSWER
There are times when people ask questions about certain situations in their marriage and the best advice they can be given is to accept the situation and learn to live with it. Sometimes, rocking the boat will do more harm than good. But there are times when acceptance is the wrong route. If a couple can’t agree on when to spend time together, and therefore they’re not spending time together, that’s not a situation that should be accepted. It’s not good. They have to spend time together. It’s wrong to make peace with something that’s not good. If something is wrong, you have to do something about it.
The fact that a husband and wife have different sleep-wake styles and preferences is very normal (although it wouldn’t be normal if it were to an extreme, and one of them was up all night and slept all day). Some people get stuck on proving to their spouse why their method is more normal. Sure, in the olden days people woke up earlier. True, the Torah praises those who rise for vasikin. It’s also reasonable to argue that at night, when the day’s over and all the necessary chores are accomplished, it’s more natural to settle down and relax together. But arguing makes the situation personal and emotionally charged. If one likes to get up early and one likes to sleep a little later, there’s nothing wrong with that as long as it’s within normal bounds.
I will mention that some people get up very late and that causes a lot of resentment. This is true for both men and women. Some women get up early to go to work while their husbands, who are officially in kollel, get up at midday. Then they’re upset that their wives look down on them. It’s true the other way too. If a husband gets up early to go to work and the children get themselves off to school on their own while the wife stays in bed until the afternoon, the husband is very likely to be upset. Getting up late won’t earn you respect.
In this case, one spouse is getting up at five and the other at seven. Neither is getting up late. It’s okay for them to have different ways of doing things. At the same time, spending time together is essential. It’s fundamental. It has to happen. (In fact, the Torah refers to the couple’s marriage relationship as onah, which means “time.” It’s important for a couple to spend time together regularly.)
When something is very important to you, and you can’t make peace with not having it, you make it work. When something has to happen, it usually does, eventually. The question is how. Don’t wait for a crisis to make time to spend together.
But even the “problem” alone can and should actually be appreciated. The fact that not spending enough time together is a thorn in your marriage is a good sign. It shows that you both want to spend time with each other. Be grateful for that. Unfortunately, there are couples who try to avoid spending time with each other because of other thorns.
Other couples don’t have a choice. One of them might have a very challenging work schedule which doesn’t allow them to spend much time together. But they can still find ways to make it work. In this case, it’s more a matter of style and preference, both of which can be set aside for something so important.
Communication and Compromise
Perhaps more than the solution to the problem is the importance of communicating about it in the right way. Start by emphasizing how important this is to you. Don’t allow your need for sleep to seem more of a priority than spending time with your spouse. Saying, “I’d love to spend time with you but I need my sleep,” is not only wrong; it doesn’t feel good to hear it. Instead, you can say, “I want to spend time with you. It’s so important to me. I feel like I’m missing something when we don’t get to spend a few minutes together. I need a lot of sleep and it’s not so easy for me.” That’s going to sound a lot better. It’s no longer a debate on how important this is.
This also applies if there’s a temporary reason why you can’t spend time with your spouse. It’s important to stress that it’s something you feel is important and really want to do, and that you’re looking out for the next available time when it could work. At least that will give a good feeling. (Make sure that you’re sincere about it and not just using it as a tactic.) Mrs. Ruchoma Shain wrote in her book, All For the Boss, that during one of her first dates with her husband, he dozed off in the middle. When he caught himself, he explained that since his father was a shochet, their entire family went to sleep early and he wasn’t usually up so late at night. Hearing the explanation, she wasn’t offended. Today, not everyone would accept such an excuse, but we can still respect her acceptance.
Finding a Solution
Just as a suggestion, it’s possible that both of you can compromise on when to call it a night. Perhaps both of you can meet between nine and eleven and go to sleep at ten. (Of course, don’t force your idea of a compromise onto your wife.) Such a setup would depend on how it’s communicated. You can explain to your wife how much it means to you to spend time together, but by 11, you’re too tired. Offer that you’ll stay up an extra hour because it’s so important to you. Now it becomes a win-win. Both of you can feel good about it.
Again, even when working it out, and actually compromising, don’t make the mistake of explaining why your way is better or why she has to do it your way. Instead, justify her way. Tell her you know it’s normal to be up until 11. Let her know you understand how much she does until then. Tell her how amazing she is with the children and housework, (like you wrote in the question). “I know I can’t really ask you to be ready earlier, but if you could, it would mean so much to me.”
If you can’t get your wife to be ready earlier, see how much more flexible you can be yourself. You may not have to wait for 11, but before she commits to a compromise, offer one of your own. “It’s hard for me past nine, but it’s so important to me, I’ll stay up until 10.” If necessary, maybe you could offer to stay up until 11. Maybe, with time she’ll realize how important it is to you and she’ll come forth.
What do you do when you have an event late at night and you have to stay up late? Do you take a coffee? A nap? There are ways to make it work when you need to; and yes, I think you need to. Not every night, but once in a while.
Mindset and Flexibility
A lot of this may depend on mindset. Perhaps you feel you must go to sleep at nine because you were up at five. But maybe you’re waking up at five because you were in bed at nine? Maybe you can go to sleep a little later and wake up a little later so you can move your biological clock slowly. You don’t have to do this every night or throw your entire schedule off course. You also don't have to schedule together-time every night. Maybe you can push your flexibility one bit more and go to sleep later once a week. Maybe after showing flexibility for a while, you can ask your wife if it would be okay with her to spend quality time together a little earlier to make it easier for you.
Even if you were the one to be flexible and come forth, thank her for the time you spent together. Make her feel good about it. It makes it easier for her to do it for you next time.
Marriage and Adaptation
Marriage is so important that many great people have been willing to do things differently because of their spouse, even for years on end. Sometimes, this only became apparent after the spouse passed away and they started doing things differently. There are many examples, but I’ll quote one nice story we can learn from.
Right before the first Pesach after Harav Steinman’s wife passed away, he instructed his grandson to prepare water for the entire Yom Tov ahead of time as a chumra. The grandson was puzzled. “I didn’t think we were makpid on that. I don’t remember ever doing so before.” Rav Steinman explained that in the early years of his marriage, his wife once made a mistake with the water. Because he didn’t want her to feel bad, he told her that they didn’t really have to keep that chumra, and for the rest of her life, he wasn’t makpid on this. Now that it would no longer hurt her, however, he wanted to start being makpid again.
We shouldn’t self-obliterate for our marriages. Still, because you’re married – and as long as you’re married – you may choose to do something different than you would have if you were on your own. If you were on your own, you’d always go to sleep at nine. Because you’re married, you may choose to do differently.
Of course, this is true not only about bedtime and scheduling. I hope my readers will all be able to apply these ideas and adapt them to wherever a difference of style or opinion crop up and threaten the happiness and stability at home. Again, flexibility is essential.
Rabbi Shimon Gruen
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