Redditor Fed Up With Husband Setting 12 Different Alarms To Wake Himself Up Each Morning
I never thought something as simple as waking up in the morning could become one of the biggest sources of frustration in my marriage, but my husband’s alarm habits have reached a point where I honestly don’t know how much longer I can tolerate them. My husband has always been a heavy sleeper, so I knew from the beginning of our relationship that mornings could be difficult for him. I never expected him to wake up immediately when his alarm went off, and for years I tried to be understanding about it. The problem is that he doesn’t set one or two alarms and get up. He sets around twelve different alarms every single morning, sometimes spaced only a few minutes apart. They start going off while it is still dark outside, and they continue for what feels like forever. Each alarm has a different sound, and even though he is the person who needs to wake up, I am often the one lying awake listening to every single alarm while he sleeps through them.
At first, I tried to treat it as a harmless habit. I would laugh about how ridiculous it was that he needed so many alarms just to get out of bed. He would tell me that the alarms helped him gradually wake up and that eventually one of them would get him moving. I accepted that explanation because I didn’t want to turn every little household habit into an argument. However, over time, the alarms started affecting my sleep more and more. I have my own responsibilities during the day, and I need enough uninterrupted sleep to function properly. When the first alarm goes off, I immediately wake up, even if my husband doesn’t. Then another one goes off a few minutes later, followed by another and another. Sometimes he reaches over and turns them off without even opening his eyes. Other times he hits snooze repeatedly. Meanwhile, I’m lying beside him becoming increasingly awake and irritated.
The worst part is that my husband seems completely unaware of how disruptive the alarms are for me. Once he finally gets out of bed, he acts as though nothing unusual happened. If I mention that I barely slept because of his alarms, he tells me that he needs them because otherwise he might oversleep. I’ve suggested several alternatives, including putting his phone farther away from the bed so he has to physically get up to turn it off, using a smartwatch that vibrates on his wrist, or setting fewer alarms but making them louder. I’ve even suggested that he could use an alarm clock specifically designed for heavy sleepers. Every suggestion seems to get dismissed because he insists that the current system works for him. From his perspective, the system works because he eventually wakes up and gets where he needs to be. From my perspective, it works at the expense of my sleep every morning.
What makes the situation even more frustrating is that there have been mornings when I have important things to do and desperately need the extra sleep. Despite knowing this, my husband still sets the same ridiculous number of alarms. I have tried asking him the night before to reduce the number when I have an early appointment or an especially busy day. Sometimes he agrees, but the next morning there are still alarms going off every few minutes. When I ask him about it later, he genuinely seems surprised that there were so many. He says he must have changed the alarm settings accidentally or forgotten about our conversation. That answer has become increasingly difficult for me to accept because this happens over and over again. It makes me feel like my sleep simply isn’t being treated as equally important as his ability to wake up.
I don’t expect my husband to change his entire personality or suddenly become someone who wakes up naturally at sunrise. I understand that some people genuinely struggle with waking up, and I don’t blame him for being a heavy sleeper. What bothers me is that he seems unwilling to find a solution that allows both of us to sleep. Marriage means sharing a bedroom, and that means our habits affect each other. If his solution to his sleeping problem is creating a situation where I am woken up twelve times every morning, then I don’t think it is reasonable to say that the problem is solved. I have started wondering whether sleeping in separate rooms might be the only practical solution, but the idea makes me sad because I don’t want something this basic to create that much distance between us.
I’ve also started questioning whether I’m becoming unreasonable because of how strongly I react to the alarms. Some people might say that twelve alarms are annoying but not worth getting upset over, especially if my husband has a legitimate problem waking up. But chronic sleep disruption changes how you feel throughout the entire day. When I wake up repeatedly before I actually need to get out of bed, I don’t feel rested. I’m tired, impatient, and sometimes angry before the day has even started. Then my husband wakes up after sleeping through most of the alarms and seems perfectly fine. It feels unfair that he gets the benefit of all twelve alarms while I experience the consequences of every single one. I don’t want to resent him over something as stupid as a phone alarm, but I can feel my frustration building every morning.
Recently, I finally told him that I couldn’t keep living like this and that he needed to take my sleep seriously. I told him I wasn’t asking him to stop using alarms altogether. I simply wanted him to find a method that didn’t require waking me up repeatedly. He became defensive and said that I was acting as though his needs didn’t matter. That wasn’t what I meant at all. His need to wake up is completely valid, but so is my need to sleep. I told him that I was willing to help him find another solution, but I couldn’t continue being the unwilling participant in his twelve-alarm routine. Now we’re both frustrated, and I’m left wondering whether I’m being too sensitive or whether my husband should take responsibility for fixing his morning routine. I love him, but I don’t think I should have to sacrifice my sleep every day simply because he hasn’t found a better way to wake himself up.
Read Story…
“AITA for telling my husband to stop setting alarms?”
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“Hi guys, I feel like I’m insane.”
“My husband and I have been married for four months.”
“We get along great, and this is the only problem in our marriage so far.”
“He works a shift from 7:30 to 3:30, and I work a 9 to 5.”
“We did spend about 3 to 5 nights a week together before this, and he only started doing this within the last few months (after we got married and moved in together), which makes me feel even more insane.”
“He sets alarms in 5-minute intervals from 6 AM to 7 AM.”
‘So that’s 12 alarms.”
“But instead of turning them off when they go off, he hits the snooze button.”
“Again and again and again.”
“So there are 12 alarms snoozed maybe 3 times, meaning the phone is going off CONSTANTLY.”
“Different alarm sounds, too!!”
“One sounds like the foghorn from SpongeBob, one sounds like a party anthem, one is just really high-pitched blaring like a traditional alarm clock, etc.”
“He gets upset with me because apparently I often yell at him to ‘turn it the f**k off’ without remembering later.”
“Right now we’re fighting because — and I DO 100% remember this — I told him, ‘You can set one alarm and snooze it twice, and if you can’t do that, I want a f**king divorce.'”
“Well, he did do that, and supposedly he ‘accidentally’ slept through all three alarms and was late for work and his boss is mad at him.”
“And he’s mad at me for not waking him up.”
“I was just trying to sleep before my own job.”
“I told him it’s not my job to keep track of time, and he’d better suck it up and learn to wake up because I’m not going to listen to 30 alarms in the morning.”
“I’m at my wits’ end and don’t understand what’s going on.”
“As far as I know, he doesn’t have any medical conditions related to sleep.”
“I told him maybe he needs to see a doctor, and he says he doesn’t.”
The OP was left to wonder:
“So… AITA?”
Redditors shared their thoughts on this matter and weighed in on some options to the question, AITA:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors declared that OP was NOT the A**hole.
“It’s not actually required that married people sleep in the same room.” ~ flickanelde
“It’s not even required that married people sleep in the same house.”
“Separate domiciles for otherwise compatible couples is rare, but it definitely happens.” ~ carbonel17
“My husband and I don’t always sleep together, and we’ve never been closer.”
“We understand that sleep is a basic human need, and if one of us needs to wake up extra early, or is sick, or is feeling restless, we go to a different room and allow the other space to sleep.”
“Having conversations when we’re tired, hungry, or emotional will always result in heightened reactions.”
“I think you both need sleep to have a rational conversation.”
“Also, ‘sunrise clocks’ are pretty good and might be more helpful than phone alarms.” ~ Aggravating-Bad-7218
“NTA, I can’t imagine doing that in a shared bed at all, quite rude.”
“The obvious answer is to set 36 alarms on your phone to go off between 4 and 5 am.” ~ Konfituren
“Sleep disturbance is a torture tactic for a reason.” ~ Pristine_Direction79
“Like, how the hell did he get out of bed before they got married?”
“They spent 3 to 5 nights a week together, and this didn’t come up until the last few months?”
“l If I were his wife, I’d roll him right out of the bed as soon as the first alarm goes off.”
“NTA – this guy has a medical problem if he needs that many alarms to get out of bed, and he has a huge attitude problem if he thinks subjecting his wife to this bulls**t is at all okay.” ~ 10S_NE1
“It’s really easy to get into this situation.”
“When you set alarms and then don’t get up, you’re constantly sleep deprived… and so you sleep through alarms, so you set more alarms, and it makes the situation worse.”
“The solution is to just make sure there’s an alarm that cannot be turned off.”
“If I were the wife, though, I would kick him out of bed as soon as the alarm goes off the first time.”
“Eventually, his body will go back to normal.” ~ xicor
“My partner used to do that.”
‘After exhaustion and many arguments, I finally threw a cup of cold water on him.”
“Huge argument, but he has a 2 snooze limit and sticks to it.”
“If this didn’t happen on sleepovers when you were dating, he’s just immature and trying to do 2 things.”
“Force you to wake up on his schedule, and second, wants you to mommy him, and wake him up.”
“Neither is acceptable.”
“Your sleep needs didn’t change just because you got married.”
“He’s trying a passive-aggressive way to control you and your sleep.”
“Stupid but true.”
“Don’t threaten divorce.”
“Just put your foot down and let him know you’re not waking up with him, so he can cut the immature antics, and that if he wants you to keep your job, you need sleep too.”
“Adults get themselves up and go to work.”
“If they’re late, it’s nobody’s fault but theirs.”
“If he starts blaming you for his actions this early in your marriage, you have a very rough road ahead.”
“Maybe time to get some couples counseling.”
“Nip behavior in the bud early.” ~ Professional_Ear6020
“I am a heavy sleeper like your husband.”
“I can absolutely turn my alarm off in my sleep and not remember a thing.”
“NTA and he needs to take responsibility for himself, although threatening divorce was over the top.”
“Have him download a phone alarm that requires him to do tasks before you can snooze it.”
“This helps wake up your brain.”
“Alarm Clock Xtreme is a good one for this – you have to solve math problems before you can fully turn it off.”
“Difficulty can be adjusted as needed.”
“Another option is for him to put his phone somewhere where he has to get up to turn it off.”
“My son has inherited my heavy sleeping and puts his phone under his bed.” ~ thechaoticstorm
“The thing when someone ‘trains’ themselves using multiple alarms hitting snooze, they learn to sleep through them.”
“It literally isn’t waking him up.”
“And it’s entirely his problem.”
“He needs to learn to set the one alarm, put the alarm across the room so that he needs to get up out of bed to turn it off, so hitting snooze isn’t tempting anymore.”
“And if he can’t see that and insists on continuing to do so, there is really no option other than to keep suffering or kick ’em to the curb.” ~ Cory_flavell
“Put a large bucket of water filled with ice cubes beside the bed.”
“Say, ‘You either get up to your alarm, or you get the bucket.'”
“Deadpan seriously.”
“And follow it up.”
“It will happen once. NTA.” ~ EmploymentLanky9544
“When we were first married, before cell phones had alarms, my husband would set his alarm for 4:00 a.m. on Saturday to get up to go hunting.”
“I was fine with it going off once, but not the subsequent snoozing.”
“It was my day off too, and I wanted to sleep in.”
“I let him know that the snoozing had to stop.”
“It didn’t.”
“So one morning when it was going off, I got up and shut it off and threw it out the window.”
“Never happened again.”
“It’s not fair to you. NTA.” ~ kdali99
“NTA. I see absolutely NO PROBLEM telling some a**hat that possessed my previously nice and sweet husband’s body that now needs thirty-eleven different alarms over a one-hour period to get his happy a** out of bed that I will be getting a DIVORCE if that is that s**t isn’t knocked off PRONTO!”
“A more reasonable reason for demanding a divorce cannot be found in my book.”
“Sleep is f**king sacred.” ~ SpicyPorkWontonnnn
“Before learning, I actually had a disorder that was causing my difficulty with waking.”
“The solution I came up with as a kid was to have three clocks set to go off at the same time.”
“They were in different locations in my room, one being in the drawer of the dresser holding the clothes I’d already picked out for that next day.”
“The process of stumbling around bleary-eyed to find and deactivate the alarms always invigorated me enough to wake fully.”
“He really does need to see a doctor, especially if this difficulty waking is new.”
“Let him know it’s not just a matter of simple annoyance, but mainly the fact that this could be something serious.” ~ Current_Call_9334
“NTA. That’s ridiculous.”
“Under no circumstances should you have listened to 30 alarms hours before you need to get up.”
“Look into vibrating alarm bracelets, or he can sleep with an earbud alarm.”
“He can sleep in another room if he refuses.” ~ JohnRedcornMassage
“NTA. And if he wasn’t doing this before you got married, what changed?”
“I’d want a divorce, too, from what sounds like a selfish individual.”
“He managed to get up before, but now suddenly he can’t.”
‘It’s BS.”
“He’s doing this on purpose to piss you off.” ~ Icy-Mix-6550
“Get him a smart watch.”
“He can set the alarm in vibrating mode so he will feel the vibration on his wrist only.”
“This way it will not bother you.” ~ Ok_Top_7535
That kind of alarm situation could drive anyone crazy.
Reddit is with you, OP.
Perhaps it is a medical problem he is neglecting.
Hopefully, he’ll take some of yours or Reddit’s suggestions.
Good Luck, and maybe set him up on the couch for a bit.
Twelve Alarms Every Morning
I never thought something as ordinary as waking up in the morning could become such a major source of tension in my marriage. My husband has always been a heavy sleeper, and I knew that before we got married. For years, I tried to be understanding about it because I knew that some people simply struggle more than others when it comes to getting out of bed. The problem isn’t that he uses an alarm. The problem is that he sets an absurd number of them every single morning. He currently has around twelve different alarms scheduled, usually only a few minutes apart, and somehow he still manages to sleep through most of them.
When we first started living together, I actually thought his alarm routine was funny. I remember being surprised the first time his phone started ringing early in the morning, only for him to turn it off and immediately fall back asleep. Then another alarm went off, followed by another one. I laughed and asked him why he needed so many. He explained that he was a very heavy sleeper and that having multiple alarms gave him several opportunities to wake up. At the time, I didn’t think much of it. I assumed it was just one of those little habits couples learn to live with.
Over time, however, the joke stopped being funny. The alarms began affecting my sleep on a regular basis. My husband might need to get up at seven in the morning, but his first alarm can start going off around six. Then another one goes off at 6:05, another at 6:10, and so on. By the time he finally gets out of bed, I have often been awake for almost an hour. The frustrating thing is that he doesn’t seem to experience the same disruption because he can apparently sleep through several alarms without fully waking up.
I am the exact opposite. Whenever I hear an alarm, I wake up almost immediately. Even if I am exhausted, once the sound starts, my brain seems to switch on. I can’t simply ignore it and go back to sleep. So while my husband is peacefully sleeping through his alarm number six, I am lying next to him wide awake, waiting for the next one. Sometimes I manage to fall asleep again, only for another alarm to go off a few minutes later.
The sounds themselves have also become increasingly annoying. He doesn’t use the same alarm every time. He has different sounds programmed into his phone, and some of them are particularly loud or unpleasant. I have been startled awake by alarms that sound like emergency sirens, beeping noises, and repetitive music. He seems to believe that using different sounds will eventually force him to wake up, but all it really does is make me more irritated before I’ve even started my day.
I’ve tried talking to him about it calmly. I didn’t want to approach the situation as though he was doing something deliberately inconsiderate. I explained that I understand he needs something reliable to wake him up, but his current system is affecting my sleep. I asked whether he could reduce the number of alarms or find another method. He listened, but his response was basically that he needs all of them because otherwise he might oversleep.
I suggested putting the phone across the room. That way, he would have to physically get out of bed to turn the alarm off. I thought it was a pretty simple solution. If the phone isn’t within arm’s reach, he can’t just hit snooze while barely conscious and go back to sleep. He rejected the idea because he said he might simply walk over, turn it off, and climb back into bed.
I then suggested using a smartwatch or another device that could vibrate against his wrist. That seemed like an even better option because the alarm would be directed toward him rather than filling the entire bedroom with noise. Again, he wasn’t interested. He said he had tried something similar in the past and didn’t trust it enough to replace his phone alarms.
I’ve also suggested getting a traditional alarm clock designed for heavy sleepers. Some clocks have extremely loud sounds or vibration devices that can be placed under a pillow or mattress. I told him that if his problem is genuinely that severe, maybe investing in something designed for heavy sleepers would make more sense than having twelve alarms on his phone. He said those products were unnecessary and that his current method was free.
The irony is that his current method isn’t really free because I am paying for it with my sleep. I know that sounds dramatic, but that’s genuinely how it feels. Every morning, his strategy for solving his problem creates a problem for me. He gets to wake up eventually, while I lose sleep repeatedly. If we both shared the same sleep schedule, maybe it wouldn’t bother me as much, but there are many mornings when I don’t need to wake up as early as he does.
There have been days when I have specifically asked him to be considerate because I had something important the following morning. Maybe I had a later work schedule, an appointment, or simply needed extra rest after a difficult week. I would tell him the night before that I really needed uninterrupted sleep. He would usually say he understood and promise to be careful. Then morning would come, and there would be the same series of alarms.
What makes it more frustrating is that he doesn’t always remember how many alarms went off. When I tell him that I was awake for almost an hour because of his phone, he sometimes looks genuinely surprised. He says he doesn’t remember turning them off. I believe him because he seems to be doing it almost unconsciously. But even if he isn’t doing it intentionally, the effect on me is still the same.
I’ve started becoming anxious when bedtime approaches because I know what’s coming in the morning. Instead of going to sleep peacefully, part of me is already thinking about the first alarm. I find myself checking the clock and wondering how many hours of uninterrupted sleep I will actually get. That isn’t a feeling I want to have in my own bedroom.
I don’t think my husband is trying to annoy me. That’s important to say because I don’t want this to sound like I believe he is deliberately disrespecting me. I know he struggles to wake up, and I know he has responsibilities that require him to be awake at a certain time. I don’t want him to lose his job or miss something important because he didn’t set enough alarms. My issue is that there should be a way for him to manage his problem without making it my problem too.
We’ve talked about sleeping schedules before, but this particular issue keeps coming back. My husband believes that because he is the one who has to get up early, he should be allowed to use whatever alarm system works for him. I understand that argument to a point. But we’re married and share a bedroom, so his choices affect me. If he needed a medical device or something essential during the night, I wouldn’t complain just because it disturbed me. But twelve alarms seem like something that could potentially be solved with a little experimentation.
The biggest disagreement between us is about responsibility. I believe he is responsible for waking himself up. He believes he is doing exactly that by setting multiple alarms. I don’t think setting twelve alarms is the same as having an effective waking system if another person is being repeatedly disturbed and he still sleeps through them. At some point, he needs to find a method that actually works for him.
I have even offered to help him test different methods on weekends. We could try one loud alarm, two alarms, a vibrating alarm, putting his phone across the room, or using another device. I don’t mind helping him find something that works. What I don’t want is to continue doing the same thing every morning simply because it is familiar.
Recently, I finally became more direct with him. I told him that I was exhausted and that this wasn’t just a minor annoyance anymore. I said that my sleep was being affected almost every day, and I needed him to take that seriously. He became defensive and said that I was acting like his needs didn’t matter. That wasn’t what I was trying to say at all. His need to wake up matters. But my need to sleep matters too.
He then asked what I expected him to do if he couldn’t wake up without multiple alarms. I told him that I expected him to take responsibility for finding a better solution. I wasn’t asking him to wake up naturally. I wasn’t asking him to stop using alarms. I was asking him to recognize that twelve alarms in a shared bedroom are disruptive and that there are other options available.
The conversation became emotional because he said he felt criticized for something he couldn’t control. I told him that being a heavy sleeper may not be something he can control, but how he manages it is something he can control. There is a difference between having difficulty waking up and refusing to adjust a system that is repeatedly disturbing your partner.
Now I’m seriously considering whether we should sleep in separate rooms. I hate that idea because one of the things I value about being married is going to bed and waking up next to my husband. Sleeping separately feels like a huge step over something that sounds so ridiculous when I say it out loud. But at the same time, getting enough sleep is important, and I can’t keep starting every morning exhausted and irritated.
I know some people might say that separate bedrooms are an overreaction. Maybe they are. But I also think people underestimate how much repeated sleep disruption can affect a relationship. When you’re tired every day, small things become bigger things. You become less patient, less affectionate, and more easily annoyed. I don’t want my resentment toward the alarms to eventually become resentment toward my husband.
I’ve started wondering if I am being too sensitive. Maybe other people could sleep through twelve alarms. Maybe I should simply use earplugs or wear headphones. But I don’t think it should automatically be my responsibility to block out the noise created by someone else’s morning routine. Especially when I’ve already explained how much it affects me and suggested several alternatives.
At the same time, I don’t want to turn this into a situation where my husband feels like he can’t control his own morning routine. I understand that waking up can be genuinely difficult for some people. I don’t want to shame him for being a heavy sleeper. I just want him to acknowledge that his solution has consequences for another person.
The part that bothers me most is feeling like my sleep is being treated as less important than his convenience. He doesn’t have to wake up every time the alarm rings because the alarms are for him. I, however, have no choice but to hear them. If one goes off at 6:00, I wake up. If another goes off at 6:05, I wake up again. By the time he finally gets out of bed, I’ve had my sleep interrupted repeatedly.
I have reached the point where I need him to make a real change rather than simply promising to try. I’m not asking for perfection. If he occasionally needs two or three alarms, I can live with that. What I can’t continue doing is waking up to an entire concert of alarms every morning while my husband sleeps through most of them.
I love my husband, and I don’t want this one issue to define our relationship. But I also believe that being considerate of each other’s basic needs is part of being married. If one person’s solution consistently creates a problem for the other person, both people should be willing to work toward a compromise. Right now, I feel like I’ve been the only one trying to find alternatives.
So now I’m wondering whether I’m actually being unreasonable for being this frustrated. Is twelve alarms every morning simply an annoying habit that I should learn to tolerate, especially because my husband is a heavy sleeper? Or is it reasonable for me to expect him to find another way to wake himself up when his current routine repeatedly destroys my sleep? I don’t want to make a huge issue out of something as simple as an alarm, but after dealing with it for so long, I honestly don’t know where the line is anymore.
