Dad Repeatedly Waking Up New Mom to Ask What Time It Is Enrages Internet

A new mom's account of being repeatedly woken up by her husband has incensed the internet, sparking a discussion about deliberate sleep deprivation as a form of abuse.

In a viral post on Reddit's "Am I The A**hole" forum, user u/assholeamithistime questioned whether she was wrong for reacting against her husband's actions. Her story racked up over 13,500 votes as of Monday morning.

The 29-year-old woman claimed that several times a week, her 37-year-old husband fully woke her up in the middle of the night to ask her the time.

"It's affected my attitude and mental health," the anonymous woman told Newsweek. "I have struggled with maintaining my positive outlook."

"Both of us sleep with our cell phones charging next to our beds," she explained on Reddit. "So, it's just as easy for him to reach out and check the time on his own phone as it is for him to wake me up and ask me."

While her husband said she was "making a big deal out of nothing," the woman felt it was "selfish" and "needlessly insensitive" of him to keep waking her up for such a trivial reason, when it would take less effort for him to check the time himself.

"We both work full time jobs and have an infant," she added. "I do 100% of the nighttime baby duties because my husband commutes farther than I do. So, he says it just makes sense for me to let him sleep since he has to be out the door before I do in the mornings."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has described sleep deprivation as a public health epidemic, with more than a third of U.S. adults getting less than the recommended seven hours of sleep per night in 2016. The COVID-19 pandemic only worsened the problem, with stress, anxiety and fears over the financial and health effects of the virus driving up rates of clinical insomnia.

Long-term sleep deprivation can lead to numerous health issues, including inflammation, obesity, Alzheimer's and an increased risk of heart attack and stroke. A lack of healthy sleep also undermines the brain's ability to rejuvenate, effectively accelerating the aging process.

Reddit users were furious over the woman's account of her husband's actions. Several even questioned whether his deliberate, continuous interruption of her sleep constituted a form of abuse.

"She's already getting so little sleep because she's doing ALL the baby duties and he's taking even more sleep from her. Sleep deprivation is literally a form of torture when it's extreme enough," one comment noted.

"My ex used sleep deprivation on me as one of his abuse tactics," another reader said. "This post has me screaming inside."

A third user agreed, "It's a form of psychological abuse if you've asked him to stop, he continues, AND you are the caregiver to an infant. Him having early meetings [has] zero bearing on kid rearing. He needs a massive wake up call."

The woman told Newsweek that while she had not considered her husband's behavior abusive, it has taken a serious toll on her marriage.

"I hadn't thought of it as abusive, just self centered," she said. I've decided to seek marriage counseling, by myself. He won't join me. But after being in therapy for a while I am considering a break from my husband."

Inflicting sleep deprivation is an under-recognized form of abuse, according to DomesticShelters.org. In addition to the physical health effects, denying a person sleep can make it more difficult for them to leave an abusive relationship. The longer they lose sleep, the greater their risk of depression, hopelessness and even a sense that they are losing their mind.