Helping My Girlfriend Sleep
Prologue: April
I helped my girlfriend sleep again this morning. She had an hour and a quarter left before she needed to go to work, and she’d wakened both of us, pre-dawn. It normally takes so long for her to sleep, so I leaned in.
Circles on forehead, slowing. Telling her what I’m doing. Taps on forehead.
But her adjustment, that moving, that clearing of throat, it always seems to happen.
I let it happen, hands off, and I come back when it’s done. Soft touches, strokes, fingers tracing hair and sensitive flesh.
Circles on temples and forehead, slowing. Then letting her know I was going to tap her forehead, which would make her sink deeper. And that I would be sliding my finger slowly down her nose, and as my finger moved down, she would sink deeper and deeper.
And she did.
When my finger left her nose, lingeringly, she didn’t make another sound until her alarm went off 70 minutes later.
Tuesday
I was pretty wiped out from not getting enough sleep two nights in a row—I don’t sleep well when Nina doesn’t; I end up waking when she does and then massaging her to sleep, which can take 45 minutes. I’ve been thinking about trying a better way. I told her I would be going to bed early and she joined me an hour later, waking me. I’m used to this even though it’s not my favorite thing—I usually have no trouble going to sleep when I get into bed, but it takes longer if I wake during the night. She was stressed and tired and stiff and sore, as she so often is. I massaged her shoulders and back and hips and bottom and upper legs. She likes it when I stroke around her kneecaps, a recent discovery. She talked about her day and her concerns about money and career while I massaged her. She said it felt really good, like I had five hands working on her back, but it was just the one—my other hand was on her sacrum—I have big strong hands and tend to involve my wrist and forearm. I started drifting off.
“Do you want to do something?” she asked, which is how she sometimes indicates interest in sex. I said it wouldn’t take much to get me going after rubbing her for that long. She backed into a spoon. She exercises regularly and tonight she felt firmer than usual. I told her so.
“I’ve lost a few pounds,” she said.
“You feel really great,” I said. “Your legs feel stronger, and you know how I love your legs.”
She sigh-moaned, a delightful sound.
A couple minutes more of massaging her, I remembered that rubbing her feet often gets her going to the point where when I switch to her second foot, the foot I’ve already rubbed can find its own amusements, which I like very much. This time her foot got busier than I prefer—I like slow and gentle. She likes to be in charge, calling the shots except in bed, where she enjoys my creativity. This is a conundrum I’ve addressed by being free with massages, letting her respond if she feels the urge but not knowing better that to expect anything in return. I didn’t say anything negative when her foot got busy, I appreciated very much how she was taking that initiative. She asked how it was for me, which I don’t recall her ever doing before.
“That feels wonderful,” I said, which was exactly right. Change requests can come later, once she feels more empowered to assert herself.
I don’t think she’s found a culturally acceptable way to call the shots with me, but I’ve been trying to build her confidence, to gently encourage her, showing my appreciation with words and actions: toast and tea or blueberry pancakes in bed if I know when she wants to wake, dinner prep and cleanup with her, just being together no matter whose turn it is, getting to at least some of her honey-do items the same day she mentions them, trying to listen and be sympathetic rather than problem-solve when something’s bothering her, only offering possible solutions when she asks my opinion. Letting her feel listened to and appreciated.
She got me nice and worked up. I rolled onto her and kissed her.
“Can you keep your mouth more closed?” she asked, and I was glad to hear her say that, she’s given so little of that sort of direction in the past, replying whenever I’ve asked that she likes everything I do, and I know that’s true to a large extent because I make sure she comes before me or with me, more than once when she allows me to let her recharge before I take a turn, something I really like to do especially when we can come together, which has seemed easier when it was her second time.
I kept my mouth more closed.
“That’s so much nicer,” she said.
I lay alongside, raised her leg, entered her from the side, circling her raised button with one hand and teasing a nipple with another. This has worked extremely well for us in the past; it’s one of my favorite positions. I like to get as deep as possible, filling her, then stop moving, using just my hands and mouth, with a couple nice deep slow strokes every 10-15 seconds. She came hard, then rolled over just a little so I wasn’t against her hipbone so much as between the soft firm shapely cheeks of her fabulous bottom, and, hell yes, I came.
I slept well, as I often do after sex that good, but she woke several times, still tired in the morning. I could’ve slept with her longer, but considering what happened the next night I’m glad I didn’t. She stayed in bed for two more hours.
Wednesday
Bedtime was almost a repeat of last night, both of us exhausted. I went to bed early, fell asleep quickly, she came in an hour later, woke me, and she was stressed and tensed and stiff and sore. I massaged her but not nearly as much as last night because I’d been thinking about something new, inspired by a piece I’ve been working on. I told her I wanted to do a visualization; since her mind and body were linked, if her body was relaxed we could use that to help her mind relax. I asked her to begin with her shoulders, where she holds much of her stress, to imagine my hands were on her there, kneading. I actually put my hand under her neck, touching both shoulders, but she was lying supine next to me while I faced her from my side, a proper massage not really possible from this position, which was how I wanted it. I asked her to feel the warmth of my hands, strong and so capable of massaging her stress away as they’d done so many times before. Then I asked her to move her focus to her feet, so many muscles there connecting so many small, fragile bones, find any tension she could, take a deep breath and hold it for a moment, then breathe out that tension and relax. I moved focus up her body to her ankles, shins, calves, knees. To her upper legs, fewer muscles there, but strong. I told her how much I loved her strong legs, told her to collect what stress she could, take a deep breath and hold it for a moment, then breathe out that stress. Then her fabulous bottom, the strongest muscles in her body. How much I loved that, too. The wave of relaxation flowing up over her hips to her ribcage, around to her shoulder blades. I asked her to imagine how it felt when my hands worked her shoulder blades, slid underneath their edges, to feel my fingers pressing tight muscles.
“I like it better when you actually rub me,” she said.
“This is about linking your mind and body in relaxation,” I said. “You need to imagine my touch.”
The wave flowed over her chest towards her neck, the area between being another place she held stress, just a thin sheathe of muscle between her skin and ribcage. And then to her neck, another place she holds stress, also the place on her body that I’m most likely to elicit a moan of pleasure when I press thumb and forefingers to the base of her skull and firmly rotate them. Then her jaw and her cheeks. So many muscles in her beautifully expressive face. Around her eyes. Her forehead.
“I’m relaxing my own face now,” I told her. “It feels so nice.” The wave flowed to her hairline, her scalp. I moved my hand to her forehead, fingertips circling gently.
“Imagine your skin is several inches deep in seawater,” I said, “my fingers are disturbing the sand that is your mind below, making it harder for your thoughts to stay together, that fine sand silting and sparkling in the water of your thoughts.”
“I need to go to the bathroom,” she said a couple minutes later, not sounding sleepy at all.
“You should go,” I said. She rose, came back after three minutes. I resumed, my fingertips gently tracing her forehead.
“As your body relaxes, your mind will find it easier to relax with it,” I said. “Imagine your body sinking into the mattress as your tension, your stress, your thoughts float past, float away, so relaxing.”
“I’d like it better if your hands were on me,” she told me again, her voice soft. I reminded her that this was about linking her mind and body in relaxation.
A couple minutes later I removed my hand.
“Are you falling asleep?” she asked.
“I’m going to tap your forehead five times,” I said, “each tap sinking you deeper into relaxation, into sleep, your body sinking deeper into the mattress. Do you want that?”
“That would be nice,” she said.
One tap from my middle finger, slightly off-target—she likes the bedroom dark so I was doing all of this by feel—not as firmly as I wanted.
“Feel yourself sinking,” I said.
“Four,” I said ten seconds later, another tap more on center, firmer. “Sinking deeper,” I said.
“Three,” ten seconds later. “So relaxed. Feel your thoughts drifting away.”
“Two,” ten seconds later. “Almost there now, so relaxed, so sleepy, so warm and safe here in the dark with me, where stress and tension can flow so gently away.”
“One,” I said with one more tap, the firmest yet, right at her hairline where the skull thickens. “So deep now.”
One fingertip still traced lightly on her forehead.
“Feel my finger go down between your eyes, down the bridge of your nose, reach the end of your nose, linger there, so relaxed now, so quiet and warm and safe. Feel my finger leave your nose, feel yourself so deep, so relaxed, so sleepy.”
I removed my hand gently. Her breath was coming deep and regular and slow. I couldn’t quite believe what we’d done. Was it real? Could she have actually gone to sleep that quickly?
Five minutes passed. She wasn’t moving, her breath wasn’t changing. This actually worked!
I moved away a foot or two and let myself fall asleep. Three and a half hours later I woke, both of us in exactly the same places, Nina still breathing deep and regular and slow.
I lay in bed for half an hour. I’ve mentioned that when I wake in the middle of the night I sometimes have trouble getting back to sleep. I got up, went into the bathroom, played a casual game on my iPhone for 20 minutes. This kind of game, nonviolent and repetitive, tends to make me sleepy. I went back to bed. Nina’s breathing had changed, was no longer so deep and slow, really it was hardly noticeable at all, but she still wasn’t moving. I went back to sleep, waking again two and a half hours later when she got up and went to the bathroom. I was prone, completely zonked. Back to sleep for both of us for two more hours. At 8:30, still zonked, I woke again. The day called and a few minutes later I rose, awake and alert. She stirred but stayed. More than two hours later, hearing activity in the kitchen, I found her there. It was almost noon. We kissed. I asked how she’d slept. She said, smiling, that she’d slept more than 10 hours, that she’d gone to sleep at about 1:00 AM after I’d been talking to her. I asked if she remembered going to sleep and she said no. I asked if she remembered me tapping her forehead. She said she likes it when I do that, but didn’t remember me doing it last night. I told her what I’d done and that I wasn’t sure it had put her to sleep, but that she’d been talking immediately before that. She shrugged. Didn’t remember it at all. Weird.
Thursday / pre-dawn Friday
Nina went out for drinks and dinner with an older female friend, someone we both like very much. Our friend has two teenagers, a whole different set of life challenges, and needs to blow off steam sometimes. My girlfriend is very social, a great listener (maybe not so much with me), and enjoys being taken out of her own life concerns for a few hours. I was still exhausted from lack of sleep, so I went to bed about 10:00 PM. I heard the front door open about the same time but fell asleep 15 minutes later without seeing her.
She came into the bedroom just after midnight, waking me, with lots to say about her evening. I like to give her the chance to decompress, but I was also half asleep so didn’t have much to contribute. I’d actually hoped to break out the massage oil, and at some point when she was asking how my evening went while she was out, I mentioned it.
“You should’ve told me!” she said.
“I was asleep,” I said. “We can do it tomorrow night.”
After 20 minutes I changed positions, rolling away from her and falling into sleep immediately.
I woke again two hours later in the same position, near the edge of the bed. Nina was right behind me, her knee against my back, her ankle between my butt cheeks, the top front of her foot pressing up into my balls. This is not something that’s happened before, though she’d consciously done something similar two nights earlier when she was winding me up. I struggled through layers of sleepiness and rolled toward her, to my back. Being teased to waking full arousal from a deep sleep is a fantasy of mine after having it happen once before—it’d turned me into something of a half-conscious sexual animal.
“Are you awake?” I asked. No reply. Every minute or so her knee would press into my hip. I wondered if she thought I was snoring, but she didn’t seem awake. I rolled back to my side and slept.
I woke again an hour later when she got up to go to the bathroom. I did the same when she returned, but neither of us stayed awake for long.
She woke me again a little after 5:00 AM. “Do you ever worry about money?” she asked. She sounded fully awake.
“I really don’t,” I said, definitely not fully awake. “It’s always worked out before, it’ll work out now ... I just have to believe in myself.“
She was shaking her head. “I can’t stop worrying,” she said.
“I know,” I said, “I’m sorry.”
She went to the bathroom again and so did I—I’d had a big drink of water the last time.
“Do you want to try relaxing again?” I asked.
“Sure,” she said, and rolled to her back. I let her get settled, rolled toward her, extended my arm above her head, my fingertips on her forehead, began gently stroking.
“Feel my touch help your body remember to relax,” I said, whispering into her ear. “It starts with breathing, deep slow regular breaths. Collect that stress, collect that tension, exhale it into relaxation.”
I didn’t ask her to concentrate on specific body parts this time ... I wanted to see if her body would remember what happened with me last night, a kind of implicit post-hypnotic suggestion. I’m hoping to build up to more explicit relaxation and sleep suggestions, perhaps other things if she’s interested.
“You’re in a safe, warm, comfortable room, a place you furnished and painted exactly the way you wanted,” I said.
She laughed a little.
“It’s a warm safe dark space where you’re loved and appreciated, a good place to let your body remember what your mind forgets, to let your mind remember what your body needs.”
She was still and quiet until she adjusted her head on her pillow and said “Just trying to get more comfortable.”
“I’m relaxing myself with you now, and it feels so good,” I said. “Are you ready to have me tap on your forehead, making it so easy for you to sink deeper into the mattress, to sink deeper into sleep?”
“Sure,” she said.
I let my fingertips trace on her forehead and into her hairline for a good 10-15 seconds, then dropped a good solid tap with my middle finger.
“Four,” I said about 8 seconds later, then tapped her again.
“Let yourself drop,” I said. “Let yourself relax, it’s something you want, it’s something your body wants, something it knows how to do even when your mind doesn’t.”
“Three,” I said, and tapped again. “So relaxed, so safe, so warm, so loved.”
“Two,” I said, tapping again. “So close now, so close to sleep, so close to warm deep relaxed sleep.”
“One,” I said and tapped harder, this time leaving my fingertip there. “So deep, so relaxed, so sleepy. My fingertip will trace circles on your forehead, so lightly, then drop between your eyes and down the bridge of your nose to its end, and when it lifts away you will be asleep.” And I did, then removed my hand, breathing slowly and deep.
She was quiet and motionless for a good half minute.
“Thank you,” she said, whispering.
‘Dang’, I thought to myself, but she remained quiet and motionless 10 minutes later even as I rose and left her to sleep.
4½ hours later, at 11:30 AM, I planned to bring her toast and tea in bed, and it was actually ready at 11:28, but she came downstairs into the kitchen one minute before I was ready to go up, so I sat with her in the living room as she enjoyed it. When I asked, she said she didn’t remember me getting out of bed.
We might just be onto something here.