(image via Flickr)
A few weeks ago, my husband went on a business trip for a couple of days. I was dreading sleeping alone again; J hasn’t been deployed in quite a while and I’ve gotten used to spooning before we drift off to dream world. To my surprise, the first night he was gone, I had the best sleep that I can remember having in a long time. It was one of those sleeps where you wake up in the same position in which you fell asleep. I didn’t toss or turn or wake up in the middle of the night. I experienced a blissfully deep slumber. Was it because I was alone in the bed?
According to a recent study by Dr. Neil Stanley at Surrey University, sleeping in a separate bed from your partner can be beneficial to your relationship and to your health, as sharing a bed can lead to harmful sleep disturbances. “Poor sleep is linked to depression, heart disease, strokes, lung disorders and accidents,” says Dr. Stanley. Plus, if you’re tired, you’re more miserable, he explains, and that can lead to divorce. Divorce caused by sharing a bed?!
Unlike this writer’s husband, J has never unintentionally punched me in the face in the middle of the night. However, he does sleep smack in the middle of the bed, leaving me with less than half of the mattress’s surface area to claim as my own space. He radiates heat in the summer and steals the blanket in the winter. But he’s the best at cuddling before we fall asleep and the first person I want to see when I open my eyes in the morning. So what if every night I don’t experience the best sleep of my life? I think I’d be more miserable if we slept in separate bedrooms — or worse, in separate twin or double beds in the same room. So near yet so far! Although there is something to be said for having a room of one’s own…
How does sleep affect your marriage?
Twitter: @sillylittle
My husband is an insomniac which leads to lots of problems. One of the things I hate the most is waking up and finding him gone. Yet I do sleep better when he is not there. He sleeps better when I’m not there either. Neither of us can imagine not sharing a bed so we’re looking into getting a bigger bed.
.-= Linda’s most recent blog post: Cute Booties! =-.
Twitter: @purelyelegant
My husband unintentionally punched me in the face while we were sleeping a few months ago…his latest fiasco is his toe nail leaving a four inch cut across my leg that looks like a knife cut. I didn’t feel him give it to me but I woke up to my leg stinging like crazy! It’s left a nice red scar across my leg and he is now mandated to wear socks at night. I know I sleep better when I sleep on my own but something about the idea of having seperate bedrooms seems sad. Honestly, I’ve seriously debated it and I love the way it used to be with seperate bedrooms with a nice sitting room/office in between.
As long as I can remember, my parents always started the night together and woke up seperatly. Now- I get it. I often leave in the night to get a few hours uninterupted. On the weekends I stay put, since I know no mattrer how bad it gets we can always sleep in or take a nap.
Twitter: @jennacole
Jennifer-Interesting! That’s an arrangement I’ve never heard of but I think it might be something we start doing when the baby comes.
My in-laws sleep in separate rooms, and have done so for as long as my husband can remember. We don’t plan on doing so yet, but differing preferences in room temperature might drive us to that in the future. For right now, sleeping without him every once in awhile due to his travel schedule at work is just enough. I still get scared every once in awhile because I swear someone is in the house but it all turns out okay in the end. We’ll see how things change when the baby comes.
.-= Jenna’s most recent blog post: From Those Friends to That Couple: Engagement in March =-.
I’m not married yet, but my fiance and I sleep together in a queen sized bed. He always ends up taking half the bed. We both know we sleep better when we are apart, which doesn’t happen anymore since we bought a house together, but we couldn’t ever possibly have separate rooms or beds in the same room. We are excited for the day we can get a king—when we stay in hotels that’s the size we get and it’s PERFECT.
My fiance and I have a good arrangement worked out. I can’t sleep when he snores (which is all the time) and he doesn’t like me waking him up to stop the snoring or to go to work. We sleep together on weekends (sometimes I bring ear plugs!), but during the week we have some ‘cuddle-time’ then separate for the remainder of the night. I would love to be able to stay with him all night – but we both would take sleep over being crabby anytime.
For all of my life, my grandparents had 2 twin/full (I can’t remember) beds pushed next to each other. There was one head board, but they each had their own separate sheets and blankets and then there was one very large comfortor that was spread across both beds when it was made. They were married nearly 60 years when my grandmother passed away….maybe they knew something….
My husband and I have always slept in different bedrooms — we actually agreed on this arrangement before our marriage! It works wonderfully for us. We cuddle a lot on the couch, or in each other’s bed in the wee morning hours, but when it’s sleep time, we go to our separate bedrooms. Sleep schedules are not an issue, his snoring and insomnia don’t wake me up, and we just get great rest. And it hasn’t impacted our sex life at all… still going gangbusters there. :-) We’re 28 and 30 — not too old! — and we HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT.