Wife Still Sleeping with Our Daughter
Reader’s Question
I have been married for 8 years to my wife, whom I did not know well when she got pregnant. We have a wonderful friendship, albeit with no sex or sleeping together. She has divulged to me that she suffered sexual abuse as a child. Since I work in the education field with students who have SED’s, I am quite aware of what early sexual trauma can do to a person, and I am willing to live with our arrangement as something of a crusade component to my work (I know that’s egotistical — oh well, at least I have my beautiful, talented wife). I wish we could have a sex life, but our daughter’s healthy upbringing is paramount, and that includes mom and dad staying together — it’s not that big a deal. I’m an older parent, I had a great time when I was young, and my wife is the love of my life.
However, my daughter is 8 years old, and my wife has slept in the bed with her nearly every day of her life. I have argued with her many times about the potential for emotional complications, but she gets very defensive and launches into complaints about my character, snoring, the light in the room, suspicions about my motives, calls me “one of those sick mental health professionals,” etc., etc., etc. (She ONLY assassinates my character when we talk about sex or sleeping together — the rest of the time she says I’m a saint. I have seen this before, and I get it.)
I have pledged to her that she will be in no peril from sleeping with me, I have bought appropriate curtains, I lie awake fearing that she will hear me snore from the next room, I have assured her that I will never repeat traumas from her past, etc.
Question #1; could you please provide me with statistics or potential effects on our daughter, and Question #2: should I get a place down the street if she won’t move to her own bed any other way? We had an extra room, but it is currently occupied by her mom, who needs our care.
Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply
It sounds like you have a wonderful friendship here…but just a friendship. Your wife is using a variety of strategies to keep you at a physical and sexual distance. Sleeping with the daughter is only one of those strategies — others being the excuses of snoring, lights, motives, etc. When you mention that you didn’t know each other well until she became pregnant, I would suspect you married without an extensive, get-to-know-each-other courtship period. Over the years, you have come to respect each other, treat each other well, and recognize that you are both good people. However, the relationship didn’t develop beyond a friendship level, making you a good man and a saint but not a romantic partner. As obligations have increased over the years, including the daughter and her mother, both have adjusted to the current lifestyle with random distress when you confront her with the fact that the marriage doesn’t work like a traditional marriage.
You are not likely to separate the mother-and-daughter sleeping arrangements. Your wife not only supports but encourages the arrangement. Your wife wants that arrangement more than your daughter. At your daughter’s age, it’s not much of a psychological problem but will eventually become an issue in a few years when your daughter notices that her peers all have their own bedrooms and want to trade sleepovers. Sadly, your wife is more interested in the sleeping arrangement as a marriage strategy than how it may later affect your daughter.
I wouldn’t move down the street as your presence has nothing to do with the daughter’s independent sleeping. If you and your wife wanted your daughter to move to her bedroom, that would not be very difficult. The problem? Your wife doesn’t want her to go. I’d also not place much emphasis on comments about your snoring, lights, motives, etc. Those are defensive justifications and excuses.
If your wife is the love of your life, this arrangement may be acceptable to you. It’s not likely to change. If you want your daughter to sleep in her own bedroom, you’ll probably need to open or build-on a fourth bedroom, allowing everyone (including the mother-in-law) to sleep in their own bedroom. You and your wife seem to hold each other in high regard — but high regard doesn’t equal intimacy. In marriages, the priorities often shift over time and in this case, loving someone, your daughter, mutual high regard and friendship, and the need to stay together for your daughter (and mother-in-law) may be enough to continue the relationship. It’s your call. What you see is what you get.
