sleeping with the enemy

No, this blog isn't about advice on your sex life.  Nor is it information about mine.  It's about sleeping with the enemy (my husband).  Almost from our first night of sleeping in the same bed, we have had an ongoing battle.

Many years ago when I was young and stupid, I looked forward to sharing a bed with Steve.  It started out pretty good, and a double bed was even acceptable at that time.  (I wouldn't go near a double bed with him in it now, for reasons you will see shortly.)

The first inkling I had that sharing a bed with Steve wasn't going to be easy was on our second night together.  We had driven to Reno, married and stayed overnight (that was all we could afford) and so our second night as husband and wife was in our apartment...which is when I learned what short-sheeting a bed meant (it was a wedding gift from my mom).  After five minutes of trying to stretch out under the sheets, I asked Steve what was going on.  He was laughing too hard to explain to me what short-sheeting a bed was for several minutes.

That was the high point of our married life in bed.  It was downhill after that.  I found out that Steve was a blanket hog,  a habit which has grown worse over the last 40 years, to the point that he now wraps himself up like a mummy in the sheet and blanket, and if I wake him up trying to reclaim part of it to cover my cold butt, I get dog-cussed.  So I solved that problem.  I take a separate blanket to bed with me.

Steve snored for years.  To the point that he became apneic when he hit middle age.  I knew he was apneic because 1) I was a nurse by then and knew the pattern of breathing/not breathing and 2) I would lay awake at night counting the seconds of apnea, and then bitch at him the next morning to go to a doctor.  (It was easy for me to stay awake because I was menopausal by then and would wake up white-eyed many nights, and pass the time counting Steve's non breaths.)  That was when the CPAP machine entered our lives to help him breathe at night, and my affair with Darth Vader began....

There is the fact that you do NOT touch Steve when he is asleep.  His startle reflex is so violent that he looks like Rocky going in for the kill on Apollo Creed when you touch him.  So I make sure there are pillows between us.  That is my safety net...or zone, or whatever you want to call it.  I just know it saves me a black eye...

I jumped and quietly hollered the other night, but he still woke up.  I had stepped on Beary...Duncan's teddy bear that had rolled just under our bed, and thought I had stepped on a mouse.  Let me tell you, in the dark when you step on a Beary limb and it rolls under your foot, the resemblance to a live mouse is sickeningly real...so I had no choice but to holler.  I'm made that way.

He'll tell you I snore (a defense mechanism...after all, I sleep with Darth Vader). and that I woke him up and almost caused him a heart attack a few nights ago because I was screaming.  What he won't volunteer is the fact that I had a charlie horse from hell in my left calf, and came awake screaming out of a sound sleep.  It went something like this:

me: ARGGGHHHHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHH OWWWWWWWW
him: what the hell is going on?
me: (gasping) A CHARLIE HORSE!  I'M DYING!!!!!!!!
him: you WOKE ME UP and nearly SCARED me TO DEATH SCREAMING!!!! (said in a nasty accusing tone loud enough to wake the dead)
me: I didn't *&%$(*% plan it that way....it &%^$#%$% woke me up too *&*%@#!!!!
him: well....YOU WOKE ME UP!!!

There were many more choice words said by me that aren't printable....insert your favorite invectives and I probably said them all...  Did he ask me if I was ok?  NOOOOO...  He just rolled over and went back to sleep while I crawled back into bed and collapsed.

We sleep in a king size bed and I was wondering if they make a bed bigger than that...this one was beginning to feel crowded.  Or I could just fart on the intake of his CPAP machine...that would shut him up for a few minutes while he gasped for air...

...and the war goes on...