Am I out of line for refusing to go on a vacation with my wife?

[Anonymous]

Is your wife willing to work with you on this at all? If separate rooms or an AirBnB are too expensive, what about if she wears earplugs and an eye mask or uses a white noise machine to allow you at least to escape in the mornings on your own? My DH likes to sleep late and I don't, but he is a heavy sleeper and I like my alone time, so it works out fine (or, at least, it did until we had kids. At any rate, I think the reasonable thing here is to try to find some sort of compromise that does not leave you captive in a hotel room for 6 hours every morning. That sounds miserable.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand the people who don't want to do anything by themselves. Don't you want a break from your spouse? My DH and I get up at the same time but I think solo time is critical. I don't know that we've done this when traveling abroad, but we definitely go off and do different things when vacationing domestically. I mean, what if one of you plays golf and the other doesnt? One wants to take a windsurfing lesson? Etc etc.

[Anonymous]

OP, you and your wife need to figure out a solution that works for both of you, acknowledging that you have different ideas about vacation. I do recommend an apartment/suite so that she can catch up on sleep undisturbed. And you and she then make a daily plan where she sleeps/rests/lounges all morning and you have an agreed-upon time to start sightseeing/whatever together. If you want to do a day trip that requires an early start, then you need to decide if you will go together or not.

I usually travel solo but traveled once with some slow risers (separate rooms, fortunately). I was much happier once I realized that the right plan was to just meet up at 1pm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any trip at all, she watches TV in the hotel room until midnight, then doesn't wake up the next morning until 11:30 AM. The slightest noise, like me using the bathroom at 9AM wakes her up and then she sleeps longer.

So then we have the maid trying to get in and I wind up bringing breakfast back to the room and we eat out of styrofoam with plastic utensils. The vacation day then usually starts at 12:30 or 1:00. I hate it. Everybody else is sightseeing or at the beach early in the morning and I feel like I just wasted a lot of money flying to a place, renting a car, then spending a lot of time in a room. To me, that's not a vacation and it has been like this forever.

That sounds like hell. Who sleeps for 11-12 hours? What a waste of time.

Guess what? I go to bed early and get up early for kids/work 355 days of the year. For 10 freaking days or so each year, I want to stay up late and sleep late. It's called a "vacation." That IS the time to be lazy and relaxed.

[Anonymous]

Does your wife has some kind of medical issue? Why is she sleeping for 11-12 hours? Something sounds off.
Even if she wants to sleep in- it’s not fair for her to expect you to sit in the room and not make a sound waiting until she wakes up- that’s absurd.
Get up- and don’t worry about making noise- she is being ridiculous. Tell her to wear earplugs, use a noise machine or get a separate room. This would drive me insane. And yes not getting up until 12 IS wasting a lot of your day- bc by the time she is ready to do anything- it’s 1 or 2. Hell no.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think you’re out of line but I do think it would be easy to find some kind of compromise. It is also difficult for me to understand why you couldn’t enjoy at least a little bit of time to yourself.

I agree that 11 to 12 hours seems like a lot of leaving, so I suspect this is either a one off thing on a trip to Europe, depression, or you’re exaggerating a bit.

[Anonymous]

If does seem like a bit of a waste to spend so much time on a traveling vacation sleeping in a room. You can just stay home and do this. Or is it about getting away from the kids and obligations?

Maybe some middle ground - you get up and do you own thing for the first two or three days and let her sleep in, then when she is rested, she gets up earlier (even if you go to bed at midnight, getting up at 8 AM is 8 hours of sleep) and you do stuff together for the whole day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Lots of people need more than 8 hours of shut eye; some need less than 8. It isn't a waste of time to give your body what it needs. Are you pretending to be unaware that every body has its own clock and not every human is a clone of every other human?

Please. Twelve hours is ridiculous. At least turn in between 9:00 and 10:00 if you keep a sloth's sleep schedule.

Not on vacation though, especially if you are a workaholic. You need some recovery time. Not every day though.

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand how you married someone with such different concept of vacation or travel.

Did something change? Job demands, house demands, Heath?

[Anonymous]

Nah OP, I’ll wake up early with you if your lazy wife won’t.

[Anonymous]

Get a suite or 2 rooms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does your wife has some kind of medical issue? Why is she sleeping for 11-12 hours? Something sounds off.
Even if she wants to sleep in- it’s not fair for her to expect you to sit in the room and not make a sound waiting until she wakes up- that’s absurd.
Get up- and don’t worry about making noise- she is being ridiculous. Tell her to wear earplugs, use a noise machine or get a separate room. This would drive me insane. And yes not getting up until 12 IS wasting a lot of your day- bc by the time she is ready to do anything- it’s 1 or 2. Hell no.

It’s not, I used to work 9-11pm 6 days a week for a whole year, whenever I can schedule a vacation I sleep 14hr+/day so I won’t get sick when returning to work.

[Anonymous]

That sounds so relaxing. Go out in the morning and come get her at noon

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, is your wife like this at home? If you don't have kids yet, don't have them with her until you resolve this issue.

My sister is like this, which is why none of us will visit her at her home anymore. She goes to bed at 1 AM to 2 AM every night and chronically doesn't get enough sleep during the week because she has to wake up for work. Then she sleeps in until noon to 2 PM on weekends to make up for it. Back when I was single, I felt like a hostage in her home because I had to tiptoe around and wait 6-8 hours for her to wake up because she's also a very light sleeper. Then she'd laze around with coffee and read the paper and chat with her husband and son. She never made it out of the house before 3 PM. Our siblings and mom got really mad at her when they visited and won't stay with her either. No one wants to wait to start their day in the afternoon. I visited her a lot when I was single, but can't do it now with kids. I learned to bring a book and would go for a run then read when it was just me, but I can't keep my kids quiet for 6-8 hours.

OP, I share this story to encourage you to resolve this with your wife. My sister doesn't see a problem and her husband ended up doing the childcare every weekend and vacation day morning. From age 2, their kid would wake up and be on his own from around 8 AM until her husband woke up around 10 AM. Then her husband would do the childcare until she woke up. She's never even tried going to bed earlier, and believes that she just needs lots of sleep. In reality, she's getting 4-6 hours sleep on weeknights then makes up for it on weekends.

Now she's miffed because we won't stay with her when we visit, but my husband and I are up by 5:30 - 6:30 AM and our kids wake up by 8 AM even on vacation with later bedtimes. Your wife's vacation schedule doesn't mesh with yours and it's a recipe for disaster if you start a family together. You'll be trying to occupy little kids and keep them quiet while she sleeps in late because she prioritizes tv. Your resentment will only grow.

This post made me much more sympathetic to OP’s position. You really captured how annoying and selfish your sister’s behavior is. I would imagine her husband is extremely resentful?

PP you're responding to here, thanks for your post. I hope I didn't sound too harsh. I love my sister and she has many great qualities, but this is one area where she is really self-centered and also has some issues that she doesn't see. Both my sister and her husband are the least efficient people I know, and I think this plays a part in it too. They spend hours shopping and agonizing over everything they buy. Her husband loves to cook and he spends hours cooking dinner every single night. They don't eat dinner until 8:30-9 PM. He cooks breakfast every day because they would never just pour cereal and grab a piece of fruit. Then after breakfast he starts cooking something for lunch because again, he would never just slap together a quick sandwich with a side of baby carrots. My sister pulls all nighters for several days straight when deadlines that were established months in advance are due. Then she sleeps all day on weekends after to make up for it. They just don't plan well and move really slowly, and I suspect my sister has a slow processing speed issue that she seems to have no desire to resolve and probably doesn't see. I'd much rather go have fun during the day then order a pizza for dinner than be chained to their house while he cooks all day, but they seem to like it this way.

Oddly enough I think her husband seemed ok with doing the morning childcare, but now that their kid is grown he has some resentment that he can't cook until she's awake because she's a very light sleeper. I don't know why she doesn't use one of the multiple spare bedrooms on the second floor instead of the main level master near the kitchen or why she can't try going to bed at 10 or 11 PM every night. It's this type of inflexibility that both my sister and OP's wife demonstrate that seems to contribute to the issue too.

IMO, it's not so much whether OP or his wife is right or wrong, but more issues around compatibility and what life with (or without) any children would look like. I love my sister and her husband, but I could never marry someone like either one of them. If OP and his wife don't want children and this is strictly a vacation issue (not an every weekend issue), then they may be able to reach a compromise. But please no kids until this is resolved because kids will amplify this issue exponentially.

[Anonymous]

I’m an early bird, but vacation is not the time to insist on going to by 10pm.
Find somewhere to go with a nightlife that you might enjoy, drink some coffee, and take your wife out at the time she likes to be up.