My boyfriend and I have been together going on 3 years now and have lived together for a little over a year. At the start of living together there were a few habits of his I did not like, particularly his sleep schedule. I made it clear to him from the onset of living together that it concerned me and when we had discussions about proceeding to the next level in our relationship I told him that his sleep schedule would need to change in order for us to proceed. Mind you I don’t want to control or dictate his life but in order for us to have a future together this is something for me that needs to be addressed. In the past when we had these conversations he seemed to agree with me that this is something he wanted too and would work to change. It’s now been over a year of living together and there’s be no significant changes.

This has been something that has always upset me and I have been trying to remain patient but after a year of no changes I’m starting to wonder if it will ever change and if he even wants it to change. And then when I get upset about it he tells me I’m nagging him and he’s an adult and can do what he wants with his body. And I tell him I don’t want to be a nag to him and if he wants to live that way that is his choice but something I cannot live with so he needs to be honest with me if he truly doesn’t plan to change it, but then he always changes up and says it’s something he’s working on and wants to change. For context he’s 30 and I’m 27 and he works a physical job 6 days a week and has been getting about 4 hours of sleep 6 nights a week for about a year now. He wakes up for work at 4am and comes into sleep normally around 12am, which also does affect me when I’m trying to sleep. The only night he gets about 7-8 hours is the night before his day off, which is on Saturday night. He’ll also get about a 15 min nap when he gets home from work which sometimes extends to longer and he’ll also sometimes nod off in the bathroom (which I believe is because he’s exhausted). But he always contests me and says that’s all he needs and he also says he can sleep at work if needed. Which I personally think is a bad habit to rely on getting sleep at work to make up for inadequate nightly sleeps.

I completely understand that getting 8 hours of sleep is not feasible for a lot of adults and especially when there are young children in the picture (which we don’t have), but I think getting only 4 hours each day is also unhealthy and will have long term consequences on his health down the line. I’ve made suggestions as well on things he can do in his schedule to give himself more time but he doesn’t want to change any of his routines and doesn’t give much consideration to my suggestions.

I’m also concerned about how this will affect our relationship down the line and if his odd ours and sleep deprivation will result in more of a burden falling on me if we have children etc.

Sorry for such a long narrative. How many hours on average do you or your partner sleep a night?

And do you think my concern is legitimate?