My (30 F) fiancee (35 NB) has been giving me grief for taking a 45min-1hr naps before I go to work each day. I work 2p-11p, they work 7a-3:30p and has a 4 y/o daughter who I watch while they work until I need to work myself.
They expect me to wake up at 6-ish to make her breakfast and be ready for the day. I normally don’t mind, but some days, if not every day I work, I need an hour nap. I get home around 11:30, stay awake for an hour, maybe an hour and a half because my body is wired from working. I have two days off and we nap together even sometimes (as does the little).
They’re starting to feel lonely, citing that I sleep EVERY day when I do not.
I currently am in therapy and see a psychiatrist to help with my alcohol addiction (I’m 2 months clean!!) and my ADHD symptoms with impulse control and other issues.
I’m a sleepy girl. I don’t do it on purpose, and I’m not checking out because I feel they would be fine if I did. I literally will fall asleep sitting up if I am that tired.
They’re acting like I’m never awake/around….which work pulls me away a lot, but I barely hit 40 hours each week. Same as them. My schedule is set, and Friday/Saturday are my off days, while theirs are sat/sun.
I feel like shit for sleeping already, and that I have to sleep at all but I wake up so early. I get maybe 6 hours each day pre-nap, if I’m lucky.
I spoke to my psychiatrist in case this is a side effect of my meds and she literally told me "get more sleep."
Am I the asshole for napping because my body is literally forcing me to??
Quick edit; partner works from home at a very relaxed job while I have to travel 30 mins both way to go to mine and its very pressure centered.
NTA but I think your partner is, they are not allowing you to have a full nights sleep and why are you making the breakfast, haven’t they got arms and legs?
NTA- tell them to get up instead or you’ll dump them. No relationship is worth the braindamage long term sleep deprivation gets you
NTA, youre sleep deprived. People dont understand second and third shift workers. They still need to sleep. Why cant she make the breakfast since she can go to bed at a normal
hour?
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!!! After working until 11:00 you’re supposed to wake up early to make breakfast for your partner’s daughter before your partner goes to a WFM job? That’s a hella nope. My psychiatrist wouldn’t prescribe psych meds until my sleep was regulated.
NTA. I’m not sure what arrangements you have but it sounds like you are treated like a glorified live-in nanny.
Congratulations on 2 months of sobriety 🙂
Wait. If your partner is working a relaxed schedule from home WHY are YOU getting up at 6am with THEIR child?????
NTA you need to take care of yourself and your health before you can take care of someone else. If they don’t want you taking naps they can wake up earlier, make breakfast, and bring her to day care.
Why are you waking up to make their daughter breakfast?! That’s their responsibility.
What the actual F is this? I mean seriously? This isn’t even your child and you are watching them all day AND your partner wants you to be sleep deprived while doing so? None of this is healthy. You are unpaid labor not a partner. You deserve better- especially newly into sobriety. There’s a reason AA recommends not dating in the first year
NTA.
Your partner isn’t pulling their weight. They work from *home*. There’s no commute, no need for them to rush and absolutely 0 reason for *you* to wake up at 6am because they’re a lazy parent. If they’ve got time to game (which they do), they’ve got time to be a parent.
You need sleep. They do *not* need to make themselves a separate breakfast to then muck around doing nothing while they ‘get ready’ for their job that requires 0 travel and minimal effort.
ETA: And before you say ‘there is effort’, there’s a lot less effort for THEM than there is for YOU. I also WFH and, quelle surprise, manage to make breakfast for my children without burdening someone else with it because, again quelle surprise, I don’t have to leave the house. There’s no ‘getting to work’. They work where they live.
NTA. So let me get this straight. I’m gathering from the comments that your fiancé works from home. But needs you to make the kid’s breakfast a FULL HOUR before they have to what? Walk 15 steps to their desk? It takes them a whole hour to make their own breakfast, which is so complex and labor intensive that they can’t also make their child breakfast before they “head to work” in the next room? But they’re mad that 6 hours or less of sleep a night is not enough for you? Am I getting that right?
You are not the asshole but your partner certainly is. You’re being taken advantage of.
Edit: posted before I saw your edit and I am genuinely angry for you. Even more than I was before the edit.
You wouldnt need to nap if you slept a full nights sleep. There is no way in hell you should be getting up to make them breakfast. Wtaf. Partner get breakfast THEIR child, get her settled and you come watch her when you wake up at a reasonable time, like 8 or 9. You are being very taken advantage of here.
Wtf are you doing getting up at 6am to make THEIR daughter breakfast when you work a 2nd shift job out of the house and they work a 1st shift job in the house??? There is more wrong in this scenario than you taking a damn nap.
But also, as someone with multiple chronic illnesses – NTA in general for ANY adult taking a mid-day nap. That can be super helpful to get through the rest of the day.
ETA: also, forgot to say – congrats on the sobriety! Keep it up!
NTA in any way shape or form.
“Please get up after five hours of sleep to prepare my daughter for her day and watch her while I work in the next room before you go work a closing shift.”
No.
ESPECIALLY no in the early days of sobriety. Your body and brain are already in the middle of a pretty goddamn big adjustment, and if you want to be successful you need both of them to have time to recharge. (Also, congrats and keep it up!)
You are being taken advantage of in a massive way – yeah, if you’re going to be kiddo’s stepmom there is a buttload of work involved in parenting, but their “feeling lonely” does not justify your sleep deprivation, and they can get up at six and make their and kiddo’s breakfast at the same time. Like, even WITH an hour nap you’re still digging a sleep debt hole, and if you’re passing out sitting down Your Body Is Telling You Something.