I consider my relationship to be a healthy one. It’s usually the least stressful part of my life. The only problems we seem to have are in bed, and I’m not talking about sex. I guess it would be more accurate to say that are problem is in beds, he in his, me in mine. I’ve always had sleep problems, which was why I thought that a third shift job would do me more justice. I came to find out that sleeping during the day was a far larger battleground then sleeping at night. Either way I’m often lucky to average at six hours a night. His isn’t a problem of falling asleep or staying asleep, he just can’t wake the hell up. He’ll get off work at 1 A.M. when I’m working until 6 A.M., and if we have plans at 6 P.M. it will be him not me that’s late because they over slept. Him complaining to me that he didn’t get enough sleep is like any one from a developed country complaining to some one from Somalia that they missed lunch.

As I’m writing this he is twenty minutes late to come over my house. He got off work last night at 9 P.M. I got out at my usual 6 A.M. I got off the phone with him at 3 A.M., when he said he was going to bed. I fell asleep around 7 A.M., maybe a little later. I woke up at 11 A.M., and couldn’t fall back asleep. At 3:30 P.M. I called him to ask him to come early (we had plans for 5 P.M.) since I’d been up for hours, he was still asleep. He told me that he would call me when he was on his way. At 4:45 P.M. I called him to see what was going on. He had fallen back asleep.

We both work nights, but since he sleeps all day I only get to see him two times a week so when this happens it’s really upsetting. And it happens far to often for my liking. I’m most awake when I first get out of work at 6 A.M., but since he doesn’t wake up until the early evening I never get to see him at this time. We normally have a date at 5 or 6 P.M., and he is late one third of the time. I don’t really get tired until twelve so the only person who loses sleep is the person who can’t sleep. Asking him to see me at my most convenient time would, in his eyes, be as inconvenient a request as asking him to cut off an appendage.

I am forced to choice between sleeping and seeing my boyfriend, and that’s not even the most upsetting part. What is is that for me it’s no contest, time with him always wins. However, for him it’s not even a matter between seeing me and getting a good night’s (day’s) sleep. He would rather oversleep than spend more time with me, and doesn’t even understand why I’m hurt unless we had plans that required him to be more prompt. In the beginning of this relationship when I worked a normal 9-5 job, I was still the one losing sleep to hang with him all night, but at least I got to see him more often as a result of it. Having different sleep habits is just about as bad as being in a long term relationship.