The decision to move in with a partner is a big one, and there are all kinds of reasons to be hesitant — cold feet, the loss of privacy, the change in routine. But for one guy on Reddit, his misgivings were of an altogether different kind....CONTINUE READING
Sleeping habits can really make or break a relationship, and a recent study found that more than a third of American couples have opted for a so-called “sleep divorce” — separate bedrooms — due to their partner’s weird, annoying sleeping habits.
But most “sleep divorces” are due to precisely what you’d assume: snoring. Not awakening to find your partner staring at you like a creature recently escaped through a demonic wormhole, as this gentleman seems to be dealing with.
He awakens several nights a week to find his partner standing at the foot of the bed, blankly staring at him.
Okay, jump scare! But it’s true, it seems. In his post, he wrote that he and his girlfriend “are currently arguing because she wants to move in with me,” but he is “getting cold feet about finding a place and it’s really upsetting her.”
It’s not that they have relationship problems — he loves her deeply — nor do they have any financial issues. “She has a good job and I know will pay her half of rent and utilities,” he wrote.
However — and it’s the most howeveriest however ever — “she has this weird habit of staring at me while I sleep whenever she stays over at my place. It would be, for example, 3 in the morning and when I would have to use the restroom, she just stares blankly at me from the foot of my bed.”
(With all due respect, if someone did that to me it would come to blows because I’ve seen the horror movies and I’ve watched the true crime documentaries.
You can’t just be standing at the foot of someone’s bed staring at them without a motive! You are either in league with Satan or a psychopath and I’m not rolling with whatever succubus/serial killer games you’re playing. I’m calling the police!)
This gent has more patience than I, apparently. “I’ll ask her to come back to bed and she will,” he shared, “but it’s really unnerving.” Oh, you don’t say? I can’t imagine why.
He went on to say that he tries to avoid having her sleepover, as one would when their partner is behaving like, as one Twitter user described it, an incarnate sleep paralysis demon.
Making matters worse is the fact that his girlfriend isn’t willing to discuss the problem. “She won’t acknowledge the situation whenever I bring it up and gets really, really defensive.”
Most likely, his girlfriend has a sleepwalking disorder, and shame is a frequent part of the condition.
Of course, it’s also entirely possible that his girlfriend is a profoundly malevolent goblin whose thirst for evil can only be sated by the blood of a lover. But sleepwalking, or somnambulism, is probably more likely.
The condition is pretty common in kids — one study found that roughly 29% of kids sleepwalk at least once between the ages of 2 and 13, and many experts say most kids do it at least once. But in adults, it’s far more rare — only 4% of grown-ups at the most are thought to deal with the condition.
It can be caused by all sorts of factors, genetics most commonly, as well as stress, certain medications, and certain medical conditions. And while fatigue due to a lack of restful sleep is the most common side effect, shame and embarrassment are incredibly common.
There are ways to manage the condition, chief among them a practice called “anticipated awakening.” Scientists have found that sleepwalking most often occurs during a specific sleep stage, so briefly waking a sleepwalker before this stage sets in can often prevent a sleepwalking episode.
But his girlfriend would have to be willing to have a conversation about it first. One Redditor suggested the man film one of his girlfriend’s attempts to steal his soul with her eyes — err, sleepwalking so that he can show her and have a conversation about it.
Hopefully, that works, because it sounds like these two are deeply in love, and nothing — not even the creepiest sleeping habit imaginable — should come between two people this devoted to each other…CONTINUE READING>>
