Hello. I am new and i’m not sure where to post this, so feel free to move it to the appropriate forum.

My problem is that I am a very light sleeper, and I can’t sleep in a bed with another person. I am a happily married woman. My husband and I have a great sex life, but when it comes to actually sleeping, I can’t sleep in the bed with him. Just the noise of him breathing makes it difficult for me to relax and fall asleep, and if I do fall asleep, if he starts to breathe loudly or snore (he doesn’t snore unusually loudly and he doesn’t snore the whole night), I wake up and feel very agitated and can’t get back to sleep. I sleep with earplugs on, and they help a bit, but they haven’t solved the problem.

I find that to fall asleep at all, I have to turn around so that my head is at the foot of the bed, where his feet are, because my husband breathing near my head will keep me up. Also, if I wake up in the middle of the night I have to go and sleep in the living room because i’ll never get back to sleep in the bed with him. This happens every night, and I find that I am getting tired from moving my pillows and blankets back and forth from the bed to the couch.

The odd thing is, during the day I fall asleep in my husband’s presence without wanting to. For example, if we’re watching a movie, i’ll fall asleep on his shoulder and sleep through the whole movie. Or if he’s driving the car, i’ll fall asleep in the passenger seat. I just seem to have this problem when i’m in bed and know that I have to be up for work in a certain number of hours.

I have had this problem with previous relationships as well.

I have always been a very light sleeper and awaken at the slightest noise. Once, when I was living with my parents, I awoke to what I thought was a mouse scurrying around. It turned out that my mother was washing the outside of my bedroom door, and the noise was the washcloth rubbing against the outside of the door. My bed was all the way at the opposite end of the bedroom. My mother was amazed that I could hear it.

I think the problem might stem from the fact that when I was little, my brother, who is 12 years older than me, used to stand over me at night very quietly and watch me. It was very creepy. I would wake up suddenly and he would be standing over me. I was told that he was checking to see if I was breathing. So I think I have developed some kind of paranoid hypersensitivity where, when i’m trying to sleep, I can’t ignore the sounds and people around me and relax.

I rarely have trouble falling asleep when I am alone, by the way. However, whether I am alone or with someone, I have to sleep with a pillow over my head.

If anyone can provide me with any advice on how to relax and just fall asleep next to my husband, I would appreciate it. It makes me feel very bad to have to leave him every night and sleep in another room.