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88 Comments

1. Ozwitch:

We occasionally sleep separately because of my husband’s jet-lag, he’s an international pilot and has time zone issues so is awake at odd hours, and I am a shockingly light sleeper who once awake finds it nearly impossible to get back to sleep.

So mostly we try to sleep together, but sometimes with an early call or something, we just have to sleep apart.And we are not as young as we were, so the problem gets a bit harder each year.

Having said that, I’d hate to think of a permanent such arrangement – marriage is for cuddling and feeling your soulmate next to you, not just the sexual side. If we slept separately as a rule, I think intimacy would definitely suffer, and not just physical intimacy.

Sep 23, 2008 - 12:36 am 2. jvon:

My ex-wife and I regularly slept apart.

We’re divorced now.

Just one data point, but one worthy of consideration.

Sep 23, 2008 - 12:47 am 3. Bernard Chapin:

I agree with you, it depends on the reason but sleeping together does seem a hallmark of marriage in my mind. Of course, I think the same thing about the wife taking the husband’s last name so I’m a bit of an outlier on the issue I suppose. Another sterling offering, Dr. H.

Sep 23, 2008 - 1:57 am 4. SAF:

My in-laws slept apart because my father in-law snored loud enough to support energy harvesting if he were so equipped. They had a great marriage, by any measure.

I like sleeping with my wife. We get enough alone time when one of us needs to travel.

Sep 23, 2008 - 3:48 am 5. kg2v:

My wife and I do both – most days, we sleep togther MOST of the night. We tend to have VERY different sleep schedules due to the kids and work. Sometimes one or the other will just “crash on the couch” to not wake the other up, but we both sleep better together

Sep 23, 2008 - 4:16 am 6. Helen:

We’re currently sleeping apart because we have a ten week old baby. It’s much easier for me to manage the nighttime feeds sleeping with the baby, and I recognise that my husband physically cannot cope with his job and the broken nights. Also, it means he is able to give me a lie-in at the weekend instead of us both being pulverised with tiredness. But there is a considerable downside in intimacy – and I don’t just mean sex. We communicate a great deal through touch and when I started living with my husband – as opposed to years of sharing with girlfriends – I realised that the act of sleeping in the same bed is enormously beneficial in keeping your relationship on track. As soon as the baby is sleeping through the night we will be back in the same bed.

Sep 23, 2008 - 4:30 am 7. Dana:

I’ve got arthritis and was always a light sleeper. My husband snores. We had an endless parade of animals and kids in and out of the room at night. Eventually, I ended up in the guest room but it might have been due to emotional isolation,too, I don’t know. One day I said, “This just isn’t right,” and bought an expensive mattress, sent him to the sleep specialist and put the animals in another room. Everything is much better now. I don’t know whether sleeping alone created the distance between us or was caused by it, but we’re much better off for having gone out of our way to fix the problem. Maybe it was just symbolic of having decided to work on our relationship as a whole.

Sep 23, 2008 - 5:04 am 8. JohnO:

My wife and I are about to celebrate our 17th anniversary, in separate bedrooms. We’ve been sleeping apart for about 8-9 years owing to my restless leg syndrome, my occasional snoring, the occasional insomnia for both of us, and different night time routines (she likes the t.v. on, I like pitch black). Add to that the different climate preferences–her about 85 degrees and me about 60, and it just makes sense to sleep apart.

Ultimately, the more comfortable you can make yourself trying to get to sleep, the easier it will be TO sleep and the more rested you are during the day. For us it promotes a better relationship if we aren’t in a crabby mood (and believe me, insomnia can really foul with your day), but I realize it’s not for everyone.

Sep 23, 2008 - 5:39 am 9. Robb Allen:

My wife and I share a bed, but many times I simply sleep on the couch. I snore loudly and she’s a light sleeper so if I’m keeping her awake, I’ll just get up and sleep on the couch.

I can sleep anywhere and we have cats that enjoy curling up on you so that’s why I get the boot instead of her.

Also, there are times where I simply cannot get to sleep if she’s already in bed (generally I go to bed first to avoid this). If I wake up when she comes to bed, many times I’ll just leave the room.

It has nothing to do with intimacy, our marriage is fine, but it’s difficult for us sometimes to physically slumber in the same bed.

She’s often discussed getting another bed for the office so I have a place to sleep (with two little girls, the other beds are taken), but I don’t mind the couches we have and am a cheap bastard anyway.

Sep 23, 2008 - 5:43 am 10. Ann:

Even though my husband has seasonal snoring issues and I’m a light sleeper, I still sleep better when he is beside me. I don’t sleep well at all if he’s out of town or falls asleep in the living room.

Sep 23, 2008 - 5:46 am 11. Kirk:

My wife and I have slept in the same bed for around 21 years. Neither of us sleeps well without the other. Just the missing presence is enough to wake the other person within an hour or so unless one of us is dead tired exhausted. The times that she has deployed in the US military (up to a year, as short as two months) cause me large sleep problems. I actually sleep better on the couch than in the bed.

There is just a weird ‘dance of sleep’ two married folks do in bed asleep. My elbow goes here when hers is there, we roll at the same time, when someone is ill the other person sleeps lighter. I can’t explain it, it’s not conscious. Just part of the spiritual bond of love. I could not imagine us sleeping apart by choice.

Sep 23, 2008 - 5:54 am 12. Dee:

Usually we do, frequently we don’t (maybe 1 or rarely 2 times a week). My husband cannot function on less than 8 hours of sleep; I cannot fall back asleep if woken up; and when he snores, it is extremely loud and I cannot fall back asleep. I also work crazy hours and have a lot of work travel. It wasn’t a problem before we had kids, because we could just catch up on sleep on the weekends or go to bed early/sleep in the next day. That option is no longer available when the little one is up at 6am ready to play. So if one of us really needs the sleep, has a head cold, or is getting up early/coming home late, etc., one of us heads to the extra bedroom because it is the most efficient way to ensure both of us can get the sleep we need. And we just celebrated a happy 5 year wedding anniversary, so I don’t think it has detracted from our pretty problem-free marriage. (Maybe we don’t sweat the small stuff since we’re not cranky from being sleep deprived!). But then, it probably helps that we’re making the sleep-apart decisions as a muutal decision likely to lead to an outcome best for both of us under the circumstances…

Sep 23, 2008 - 6:00 am 13. Ron Hardin:

There’s a problem if only one partner likes sleeping with the dog, too.

Sep 23, 2008 - 6:02 am 14. Chrisz:

Dr. Helen,

My wife (of 9 years) and I have a very close relationship and we have always truly enjoyed the closeness of sleeping in the same bed. We sleep touching, even if just a leg or a hip, and find it comforting and value the non-sexual intimacy.

I travel with my work and am gone 2-3 nights each week. We feel that sleeping in the same bed is a way to be close when our work lives and busy routines keep us apart for so much of the time.

It is one of the few opportunities for us and we look forward to it. Ps. There are no sleep issues for either of us.

Sep 23, 2008 - 6:09 am 15. walrus:

I’ve been married for 36 years and we have slept separately for the last 10 or so. I worked as a paramedic for 16 of those years so every third night I slept by myself at the station, and you get used to sleeping alone.

I also snore rather loudly, or so they tell me, and it’s not fair to my wife to not get a good night’s sleep just so that she has the pleasure of my company. She has trouble sleeping and if she wakes up once she goes to sleep, she’s awake for the rest of the night.

I sometimes feel guilty about sleeping alone but overall well rested people get along better than sleep deprived ones.

Sep 23, 2008 - 6:11 am 16. Cuthbert:

Four years ago, my wife was unhappy and my marriage was in deep trouble. When I found out how unhappy she was, I made a number of changes to make things better for her. Today, we are closer than ever before. One of the big changes I made was to start going to bed with her at the same time.

I cannot imagine not sleeping next to her every night – and waking up next to her every morning. It’s very important for us. And, for the record, we both snore.

Sep 23, 2008 - 6:17 am 17. PIAPilot:

My husband and I sleep together. We both travel quite a bit and have a harder time sleeping well when we’re apart. I’ve learned to sleep through his snoring and he’s learned to sleep through my occasional insomnia. I can’t imagine not sharing a bed with him – but luckily we have similar sleeping habits (cooler room, TV is okay or not, etc) so that makes things easier.

Sep 23, 2008 - 6:23 am 18. W. Keller:

My suggestion, enjoy your partner. Enjoy the cuddles, the holding hands as you go to sleep, the snuggle while you Pray, the waking up to her/his face.

You’ll have plenty of time to sleep alone when he/she is dead.

Sep 23, 2008 - 6:33 am 19. AZVet:

Married 9 years and recently made the “permanent” room break.

Between my snoring, my pager (on-call), environment needs (me cold, her warm), her ease of being disturbed, she is late-owl, I’m early riser, etc…

The argument level and testiness of sleep deprivation issues have gone down alleviating one of the main issues of stress in our marriage.

Sep 23, 2008 - 6:40 am 20. Bonnie_:

I’m an early bird and my husband is a night owl. We compromise by sharing conversation and love at my bedtime and then he gets back up again. He blocks the light by building a little wall of pillows for me on our bed, and reads or works on the computer.

In the morning, I’m up hours before he is. When it’s time to wake him, I crawl back in bed and we “wake up” together. We are totally incompatible in our sleep patterns but we found a way to make it work. I think sleeping in separate beds would be terribly lonely and isolating.

Sep 23, 2008 - 6:51 am 21. goy:

My Ex and I slept together for 11 years. It didn’t fix the other issues.

Doc and I sleep in adjacent rooms (15 years same bed, about 3 years apart now). We’re close enough to hear each other breathing, but not so close that I clock her in the nose (again) or kick her in the shins (again) during the very physically active dreams I tend to have. Also, she has MS and is up and down with extreme pain during the night, watches TV to get back to sleep, which keeps me awake. All around, this works for us and interestingly, neither of us sleeps much when one of us is traveling. Sleeping arrangements haven’t had any effect other than we both sleep better.

Sep 23, 2008 - 6:52 am 22. Donald Sensing:

My wife and I went through a period of time when we slept apart fairly regularly, though not the majority of nights. Reason? My back – our mattress was killing me, but she slept like a log. So I slept a lot on my son’s mattress while he was off at college.

We fixed that problem by buying a queen-sized Aerobed with adjustable firmness for left and right sides. So we’re back together every night.

So I think helen is right – the reason for separation is probably more important than the fact of separation.

Sep 23, 2008 - 6:55 am 23. AJ:

“sleeping together does seem a hallmark of marriage in my mind.”

Yep. The destruction of marriage — not taking last names, no time for the kids, etc, etc — is augmented by separate (but equal?) bedrooms.

We have it way too easy.

Sep 23, 2008 - 7:01 am 24. Karen:

When my husband and I married ten years ago, we were both in our thirties–so we were LONG time bachelors. Sleeping with someone else in the bed was a huge change.
We quickly settled on a way to be together and still allow for differences: we do sleep in the same bed, but, due to climate preferences, he sleeps with a light blanket and I with a heavy comforter. He has the TV on his side, I have a reading light. And, we sleep not touching, and usually facing in opposite directions.
We feel that a good night’s sleep is very important and that the way you get a good night’s sleep is not really under your control. So, that eliminates hurt feelings.

Sep 23, 2008 - 7:03 am 25. tim maguire:

I have the same story as Helen–small baby, I take the evening shift so she can get in a few hours sleep, then I sleep in a separate room so I’m not disturbed by the nighttime feedings. Otherwise, I consider sleeping together an integral part of intimacy–if I lose it there, then I lose it at other times too. Sleeping apart encourages growing apart. Which is too bad for me, because I am also a troubled sleeper who sleeps better alone.

Sep 23, 2008 - 7:21 am 26. Lucille Zimmerman:

My husband travels a lot and I usually sleep very well. I sleep differently when my husband is home but I like it when he is there – I think our breathing sounds comfort each other, but I’m less likely to sleep deeply. I tend to toss and turn much more.

I have heard that a lot has to happen in order to fall asleep: your hormone level changes, your temperature has to drop, and your arousal levels have to lower. Couples help regulate all that.

Sep 23, 2008 - 7:23 am 27. punditius:

My wife & I both prefer sleeping together. As a general rule, neither one of us sleeps as well without the other. There are some occasional minor inconveniences – a little snoring now & then, and some disturbance when one of us has to get up in the middle of the night.

But the intimacy factor is what’s important. Our experience is that sleeping in the same bed fosters intimacy. I suspect that it would for most people.

But in marriage, it’s different strokes for different folks. Most everyone should try it, and those who conclude that other arrangements work better should do what they’d like.

But it’s probably a good idea to make sure your partner feels the same as you do, if you want to sleep apart. I think that perhaps some people actually need to sleep with their spouses, and it would be a mistake to make those people sleep alone.

Sep 23, 2008 - 7:25 am 28. no, not THAT Glenn:

Honest name I use to comment, feel funny with it here.

W. Keller: From personal experience, you are both right and wrong. I go with “…Enjoy the cuddles, the holding hands as you go to sleep…” but not “You’ll have plenty of time to sleep alone when he/she is dead.” True only if you can actually *sleep* alone when she is dead. I resurrected an old-fashioned wind-up wall clock. Ticking surrogate for another heartbeat in the room. But woman is soft and warm. Clock has sharp corners and doesn’t cuddle. I spend most nights working.

I was to survey Dr. Helen/THAT Glenn but no polite way. Question left unasked.

Sep 23, 2008 - 7:34 am 29. Why Married Sleeping Seperately Is Changing Home Designs in US : The Real Estate Bloggers:

[...] Hat tip to Dr. Helen, also check out the comments, they are very interesting. Tags: Sleep, Seperate+Beds [...]

Sep 23, 2008 - 7:39 am 30. Barry Krakow, MD:

Helen,

I’ve queried many of my patients through the years on this issue, and the most parsimonious explanation for the decision to sleep apart is reflected in your comment about sleep difficulties such as RLS, snoring, and especially sleep-disordered breathing, such as sleep apnea or upper airway resistance syndrome. However, I think this point can be taken deeper, because while some people are aware of their reasons for sleeping apart, that is, they know they sleep better, a sizeable proportion of people invoke secondary explanations and don’t realize they are actually suffering from an underlying sleep disorder. Instead, they just develop the mindset of wanting to sleep alone and think that’s the full rationale.

The clinical pearl here is that if the person says “I sleep better when I sleep in a separate bed,” what they are often meaning is that they suffer from some form of an intrinsic sleep problem that makes them at risk for more awakenings, arousals or other degrees of sleep fragmentation when they are exposed to the additional “variable” of another person in the same bed.

Many people who sleep separately will reject this perspective, because they imagine nothing is fundamentally wrong with their sleep and that the other person in bed is simply causing the problem.

But, here’s the conundrum that delays most poor sleepers from figuring out that they are a poor sleeper: all sleep patients can’t really know how they are sleeping because they are asleep at the time!

So, the more common direction of this relationship is that many people suffer from subtle disturbances in sleep quality that create the opportunity for worse sleep quality when exposed to an antagonistic stimuli. One of the most frequent inciting factors is another body in the bed, which creates more heat, which then worsens breathing, because sleep breathing is improved in a cooler environment compared to a warmer one. So with that little fact, we would predict that many individuals who sleep better in a separate bed actually suffer some form of a sleep breathing problem.

The interesting thing about these facts are that a truly normal sleeper carries none of the risk described above because their sleep quality is well consolidated, and therefore it would require a more invasive stimuli, like dogs barking inside the house, to actually interrupt sleep. Another body next to a truly normal sleeper would in most cases have very little impact on the normal sleeper.

Something to sleep on…

Barry

Sep 23, 2008 - 7:43 am 31. billo:

My wife and I considered sleeping apart because of sleep-disturbance issues. Two things fixed that. The first was getting sleep apnea treated competently and the second was getting the right bed. We now have a king bed with two separate mattresses; the two mattresses are completely independent (and in fact have little motors in them to raise the head, etc) and have that “memory foam” top that stops propagation of movement. We now have the best of both worlds — essentially separate beds that adjoin each other. So when we want to sleep, we aren’t bothered, and when we want to cuddle, we are next to each other.

The bed was a bit pricey, but it was worth the investment.

Sep 23, 2008 - 7:54 am 32. Al Maviva:

I sleep a lot better if my wife is next to me. Even when she was pregnant and had horrendous snoring issues, I preferred to be there – got forced into the spare bedroom a few times by the auditory shelling, but it went away after a while.

Sep 23, 2008 - 8:14 am 33. pooryoric:

Whenever I’ve had the opportunity, I’ve preferred sleeping with my mate – whether in my dorm room twin bed or now in our comfortable king. My wife’s an RN and occasionally works overnight. I tend to stay up too late and not sleep as well without her.
There are different sorts of marriages, I guess, but I can’t imagine not wanting to sleep with my wife.

Sep 23, 2008 - 8:38 am 34. Linda:

i am looking forward to purchasing one of those new homes with two master suites in the next decade or so at retirement.

after 30+ yrs. of marriage, 4 kids, laws and in laws, career stressors, light sleeper vs snorer, and 6.5 hr sleeper vs 10 hr sleeper, it is an absolute relief to be in separate rooms at the end of a long day and an early morning i think the separate bathroom is even more delightful! the sex is good if not better due to a significant decrease in general annoyance of the day to day stupid stuff (toilet paper hangs how?, toothpaste caps,open/closed toilet lids in the middle of the night, music or not to go to sleep by, tv or not to go to sleep by, 2.5 lb dog or 50 lb dog on the bed etc. etc. etc)

some of the routine compromises made for so many years are cumulative and at times an irritant

and choosing when to sleep with someone and when not to is MARVELOUS!!!

Sep 23, 2008 - 8:47 am 35. Heather:

The “two master suites” thing isn’t really new, at least for the rich–most castles have separate suites for the king and the queen.

Sep 23, 2008 - 8:56 am 36. Sarah:

My parents and stepparents have all slept with whoever they were married to at the time, whenever they were in the same house, except for when someone was having severe difficulties (my stepfather is a snorer who wakes up repeatedly; after the first wake-up it’s better for him to move to a chair.) I think it’s mainly cultural expectation at work here, as they generally slept in the same bed even in the case where one morning showed up and one partner decided to leave permanently. No one’s ever moved to their mother’s place or into a hotel or something when they’ve gotten mad, though my stepdad does travel for his job quite a lot (he’s looking at a new position that’ll send him overseas for three weeks and home for one; it’d be the most he’s been at home since the late 1990s.)

Personally? If I ever get married, I’ll lobby strenuously for a king sized bed. I kick, and have been known to wake up with my head where my feet were the night before. I also tend to need a wall on one side, or I fall out of bed altogether. I’ve only fallen out one time when I’ve had a wall beside me, though I have hit my head hard enough to wake myself up on several occasions.

Sep 23, 2008 - 9:06 am 37. Janet:

My husband of 39 years and I haven’t slept in the same bed for the last three years. The reason is a practical one: the bed itself. He has severe back problems and can only sleep on a Tempurpedic mattress. The Tempurpedic kills my back. The only time I crawl into his bed is when we have guests and my own bed is required to accommodate them. That’s just the way it is, like it or not.

Sep 23, 2008 - 9:10 am 38. sofasleeper:

My snoring is my wife’s stated reason for making me sleep in the basement. The fact she hasn’t let me make love to her in six years couldn’t have anything to do with it. Nah.

I believe marriage is about the children, or I’d be long gone.

Sep 23, 2008 - 9:14 am 39. leishman:

My ladyfriend of 6+ years and I (we’re 50+) live in separate Houses, but always spend Saturday nights together, usually at her house, and sleep alone otherwise. The sleep quality is a little different, but it’s still a treat for both of us.

Sep 23, 2008 - 9:16 am 40. Brian G.:

Dr. Helen,

My wife and I have only recently begun sleeping in the same bed again after 4 years. That is because we have had children and they were sleeping with her. We were trying to transition the girls into their own beds but it wasn’t working. Finally, we bought them a fun and cool looking bunk bed and they finally started sleeping in their own bed. Of course, the sleeping apart didn’t keep the kids from coming.

Truth be told, sleeping apart had no effect on our marriage either way. But, I have to tell you, when my daughter mentioned in front of a bunch of guests that one of the bedrooms was Daddy’s room and that she always runs in to wake me up, it was kind of embarrassing.

Sep 23, 2008 - 9:26 am 41. Gina:

We are married 1 1/2 yrs and sleep apart. I had many romantic notions about cuddling etc., but the fact is, husband’s snoring is like the roar of a lawn mower in the room. Even in the next room I need a fan to drown it out. So I think our marriage would suffer more if I was constantly sleep deprived than if we just acknowledged the realities of the thing.

Sep 23, 2008 - 9:31 am 42. castocreations:

I’ve thought about this issue a lot. Hubby has a swinging shift schedule so rarely do we go for more than a month with the same sleep schedule. Right now he’s sleeping at night, with me. But in another few weeks he’ll be working nights. So I’ll be back to sleeping alone.

When he is home at night though I do NOT like him sleeping in another room. As much as he can annoy me with his restless legs and accidental bonks on the nose I love having him in bed with me.

We do have separate blankets though. And have since before we were married. We both like our blankies. =)

Sep 23, 2008 - 9:41 am 43. Isabel:

You know what is even better than having your own bedroom? Having your own bathroom. My husband and I have been through these issues. I generally sleep better if I am not in the same room but he is in the house. I found that out the hard way. We have had 27 years of marriage so far and for the most part for the first 23 we always slept in the same bed and had no problems with that. When I started a more stressful job a few years ago the fact that he wanted to go to sleep about an hour after I did was kind of annoying as I found myself short on sleep in the morning especially when he ended up waking me up half an hour before I wanted to get up. I started retreating to the guestroom on work nights. Last spring he went to Iraq and was gone for six months. At first it was really hard and I found myself not sleeping more than about four hours a night. The only good nights’ sleep I got was when I spent a nice platonic night in a hotel room with my shooting coach. The fact that he carries a loaded .45 in his pocket might have had something to do with increasing my comfort level.
My sleep at home got better when my son came home from the Army a couple of months ago. Having him in the house made me sleep better. Now that my husband is home again we have done pretty well the last week in the same bed but he has been more considerate of his hours and tripping over each other in our very large master bathroom in the morning is our main problem. We will see how it goes when he starts riding his bike to work again which will get him up at least an hour and a half before I would normally get up. If it bothers me I will be back in the guestroom on work nights. K

Sep 23, 2008 - 9:44 am 44. michael:

We sleep apart because my wife “moved out” to another room. She sleeps better alone, she says, but it bothered me that she did this “unilaterally”. It reflects the lack of intimacy that’s an unfortunate fact of life hereabouts.

I got used to it, though, and now I appreciate the freedom it affords. In the wee hours I can wake up, grab my guitar and make up a song about love gone wrong.

Sep 23, 2008 - 9:48 am 45. Irish Gal:

Married 25 years. We sleep in a king size bed. I sleep on a magnetic mattres pad, magnetic pillow, magnetic eye mask, heating pad under my feet in the winter, 10 blankets (3 in the summer), and blue Hero earplugs (they are the best, because my husband snores like a freight train). He nor I would have it any other way.

Sep 23, 2008 - 9:48 am 46. Miles:

My wife and I both have medical problems that interfere with sound sleep. I sleep on the couch 3-4 nights a week. She has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome which as a side affect causes severe joint pain, temperature sensitivity, and spontaneous dislocations/subluxations of ribs and hips. She has always been an extremely light sleeper, and the pain, even with percacet and flexoril, still causes her to wake up and stay up most of the night.
I am an insomniac, radiate heat and snore [badly]
Luckily I have worked with my doctors and received treatment and meds to alleviate my issues, [for the most part].
When one of us is having a bad night I sleep on the couch, allowing at least one of us to get some rest.

Sep 23, 2008 - 10:19 am 47. KidOnthebedhusbandout:

our 2 year old daughter sleep with my wife on our king size bed. I need a lot of room to turn and twist, and need to do lot of reading for my job. I sleep in the next bedroom on a queen. I like sleeping alone but miss my wife. I hope once the daughter start sleeping alone, i might ger her back!!

Sep 23, 2008 - 10:57 am 48. BMoon:

My wife of 24 years and I are like the commenter who said they can’t sleep well without the other partner. My wife recently went on a trip for 10 days and for the first time since I was a 20 something single, I slept alone for an extended period and I did not like it at all. I was miserable. I stayed up all night blogging or reading, fell asleep often on the couch, and even once snuck into my daughter’s bedroom to sleep in the extra bed in her room. I was sleeping just the bare minimum to avoid my bed.

I told her that if she dies or ever leaves me, I will probably marry again within the year. I am not sure whether that made her feel good or not.

Sep 23, 2008 - 11:05 am 49. Tony:

We have been married for about 25 years. We almost always sleep together when we are both home which is most of the time.

When one of us is out of town I enjoy sleeping alone the first night or two but then I miss sleeping with her. It would not feel right sleeping alone regularly. She has even more of a need for regular physical intimacy than I do and misses sleeping together more than I do. I am not referring to sex although we both still think that is a wonderful thing.

The last few years she has been going through “menopause from hell”. She has a couple of genetic blood disorders that make hormone replacement therapy extremely dangerous. Some nights she moves around a LOT, pulls the blankets off of me, etc. Usually I can deal with that but occasionally I give up and move to what used to be one of the kids rooms. This does not happen often and I would not want it to happen more. For us touching is very important and I think we would tend to become less “close” if we always had to sleep apart.

However, whatever works for both people in a marriage is great for them.

Sep 23, 2008 - 11:06 am 50. SeredW:

We sleep separately a couple of nights every week or month – because my wife works in healthcare. At her job, she’s allowed to sleep but on location. On those nights, we’ll call each other when her shift ends and she can go to bed, and we talk a bit about the day that was. It has been like this throughout our wedding, and I am perfectly fine with it.

A couple of friends of us on the other hand, can’t stand being apart at night. Especially the woman; she says she needs him in bed to stay warm

Sep 23, 2008 - 11:11 am 51. Rich Berger:

I have been married for almost 30 years and sleeping with my wife is and has always been a pleasure (even when one or the other has insomnia). OTOH, we let our dogs sleep with us, but we are not so sure that’s always a good idea. Nothing like going to the bathroom and finding our 90 lb lab snuggled up comfortably on my pillow.

Sep 23, 2008 - 11:13 am 52. PookyBear:

I usually sleep apart from my husband because of his apnea-induced snoring. It bothers me not one whit. However, I imagine if a wife thought her husband’s snoring could be fixed, but that he just didn’t care enough to do it … well, then the wife might take that very personally indeed.

Sep 23, 2008 - 11:55 am 53. bc:

I’m pretty sure snoring and drinking are inextricably linked for most people. You have to quit drinking for several weeks, but the snoring will stop. Once my wife figured out I only snored when I drank, she banished me from bed any time I drank figuring I could stop it if I really wanted to. But not having me in bed made her miserable. So she let me back in, snoring and all. So I quit drinking. That’s how marriage is supposed to work.

Sep 23, 2008 - 12:11 pm 54. Alice AN:

I could not imagine sleeping apart. When either of us has to travel for work, I manage to wing it. But, the intimacy of being lulled to sleep by the sound of his heart beat and breathing, and waking up in his arms, to me is priceless.

Perhaps having been raised by parents that had a very loving relationship and were always openly affectionate with each other, might have impacted my affect. I am also too gregarious to do solitude very well.

Sep 23, 2008 - 12:13 pm 55. ken in sc:

We have been married over 20 years and seem to be content, I think. My wife has been out of town since last Thursday. I have slept better during that time, more than I have for a long time. Of course I miss her being here, but usually, we go to bed at 11 PM and I wake up at 3 AM. I spend the rest of the night listening to her breath or snore, and turning from one side to the other. I am mostly trying to find a cool place in the bed. She likes it much warmer than I do. With her gone, I have kept the thermostat low, and turned on the ceiling fan. I slept like a baby all night. She cannot tolerate the ceiling fan being on at night. She is due back tonight. Maybe I should consider sleeping in another room.

Sep 23, 2008 - 12:16 pm 56. ken in sc:

BTW, I notice there are numerous references here to men liking it cooler than women, for sleeping. Is there any research on this subject?

Sep 23, 2008 - 12:25 pm 57. xxx:

my wife and I sleep in seperate houses. Very good for my social life and dating. We spend a night a week together.

Sep 23, 2008 - 12:48 pm 58. queenie:

I read the above comments, especially about couples who don’t sleep well when one of them is out of town, and I could totally relate. I’m going through it right now. My hubby is out of town, and I can’t sleep! He is going through the same thing. We stay up late at night video chatting on our laptops and pining for each other. I really feel for military families with extended separations. How do they do it?

We are married 9 years. We sleep in a Queen size bed, and have often said that we like the intimacy of it over a King size; we snuggle and spoon a LOT. I see that as people get older, though, it sometimes becomes necessary to sleep apart for health/quality-of-life reasons. I dread that day.

Sep 23, 2008 - 1:00 pm 59. Anna:

My husband and I got married, 1st time for both of us, 5 years ago. We were both 38. We each have our own room. We tried sleeping together the first year or so. But he can’t sleep with me in the same bed, he gets restless and kicks the covers off. I can’t sleep with his restlessness. We have a wonderful loving relationship, we are very affectionate with eachother. And intimacy is great too. We just can’t sleep together. Maybe if we started younger, I don’t know. But I must admit, sometimes I’m not sure if it’s the right thing to do. But I do like having my own room, it’s like my little haven.

Sep 23, 2008 - 1:33 pm 60. Sandi:

We just celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary and have slept apart for around 1/2 of our marriage. We love each other very much, have a great relationship, and are quite compatible otherwise. We have no kids– just 2 cats– and they both sleep in a separate place so they don’t disturb our sleep.

I never was very good at sleeping with my husband. I’m a light sleeper and affected by noise and movement in a bed. Like others who have commented, we have opposite temperature preferences (how do you put a down comforter on only 1/2 of a bed?), and my husband has a tendency toward insomnia at times. I like to spread out when I sleep and might have done better with a king-size bed, but our small bedroom can barely accommodate our queen-size bed. My husband’s almost 6′4″ and I’m 5′5” and I always felt cramped and would even sometimes get headaches from the sleep positions I’d assume to stay on my side of the bed through the night. We also each have nights when we’re getting up a few times to use the bathroom, and my husband occasionally gets sudden body jerks and jumpy legs (not RLS) that startle us both awake. In the past, when one of us got sick and we’d sleep apart, I’d always luxuriate in what a great sleep I’d enjoy alone, and my husband admitted he also slept better because he wasn’t worrying about my sleep.

I worked night shift for 2 years and got used to sleeping alone and so did my husband. I wish we could sleep together because it’d be easier when we travel or stay overnight with family, and I like the intimacy and togetherness of sleeping in the same bed. I also feel a stigma attached to us sleep-aparts– that many people think we’re somehow abnormal or unAmerican or our marriage is in trouble, so I only tell our “secret” to those closest to me. I’ve slept on the floor in the past rather than tell a hostess that we can’t sleep in the same bed. As I get older, though, I’m slowly becoming more accepting of our choice and caring less what people think since we know the truth about our marriage, and we’re so thankful for decent sleep.

Sep 23, 2008 - 2:16 pm 61. paul:

give it time…

sperate bed syndrome will be squeezed into the DSM-IV, complete with a new line of prescription txs, which most likely will be ambien, under another name.

Sep 23, 2008 - 2:31 pm 62. JR:

Winter, yes; summer no. My beloved spouse, like so many women, is, well, kinda lizardoid, and she is comfortable sleeping in ninety-five degree heat, while I need to be under a combination of an airconditioner and a fan.

Sep 23, 2008 - 2:51 pm 63. Ryan:

Sandi: Get a twin comforter on a king sized bed. (Right now I can only get on my bed from the bottom; both sides are against the walls.) In the winter I like to have a physically heavy blanket over me but that tends suffocate my wife. So I steal one of my kids twin bed comforter… it’s not very manly to sleep under Dora the Explorer but I sleep better and so does she. Oh and it doesn’t look all Home and Garden but hey this is real life not a magazine. You’d be surprised what you can train yourself to sleep through, if you take it in small steps. Start in the same room and leave if you wake up.

Small Baby Helen: We rigged a small hammock for one of our babies. Got him about a foot off the bed. Let my wife feed him in the middle of the night and he wasn’t at risk of being squished by me or my thick blanket. It only worked when he was really small and liked to be all bundled up. When he started moving around we moved him to the crib so he could flop around to get comfy.

Sep 23, 2008 - 2:56 pm 64. Clayton Jones:

I sleep on the sofa, because I detest my wife. The only reason I’m still around is because of the children.

This link is only tangentially related to the current topic, but I’d be curious to know your thoughts.

http://dailypundit.com/?p=29931

Sep 23, 2008 - 3:04 pm 65. fred:

My wife and I just observed our 20th wedding anniversary. We are happy and still in love. I enjoy being around her and that feeling is mutual. However, we both snore and I have a complication from a total hip replacement surgery in Nov. 2000 called peroneal nerve palsy – and the peroneal nerve is STILL recovering, with the attendant neuropathic pain particularly bothersome at bed time. So, I have nights when it is difficult for me to get to sleep. We sleep in separate bedrooms because of this. It has had no effect whatsoever on our relationship. We do miss sleeping in the same bed, but the wiser course is to sleep separately. It has had no effect on our sex life whatsoever. It is more important for us to get the sleep we require and be healthy. So, one could say that we make this choice out of love for each other.

Sep 23, 2008 - 3:30 pm 66. notutopia:

We’ve slept in separate rooms for the last 8 of our 10 years of marriage. We’re in our mid 50’s.
My hubby is a MD. I am a RN Educator. He is on call 24 hours at a time, gets late night calls and beeps frequently as an Anesthesiologist and has to go into the hospital. I have a fixed daytime hours work schedule. I was the one in an emotional quandary even though I was the one becoming sleep deprived with very ill effects to my functional levels of concentration, as a result of the constant disturbances. Our physical presence in bed was very important to me. But, admittedly, over a year or so I began to get very angry when our sparse quality sleep time was disturbed by the addition of his horrendously loud snoring combined with apneic spells. I realized that he had NO idea how bad it was because he was still “dead to the world asleep” and couldn’t hear himself, nor was he being inconvenienced. I was so frustrated with his denial of his condition, that I stayed up one night and taped his sonorous breathing and lip flapping with his exhales and the next morning over breakfast, I played it for him and gave him the ultimatum. Go have a sleep study and get some treatment, because I could not tolerate it any longer. I ended up making the choice out of sheer self preservation to move into the spare bedroom on the other side of the house and sometimes I could still hear him gasping. Now, 9 years later, he is finally on CPAP at night and no more snoring. And, he’s now the one getting frustrated over his frequent calls that interfere with HIS good nights sleep!
We’re still together and we both sleep well in separate rooms.

Sep 23, 2008 - 3:32 pm 67. HiRandy:

I’m reminded of Rodney Dangerfield telling us –

My wife and I sleep in separate beds, eat breakfast apart and take separate vacations — we’re doing everything we can to keep this marriage together.

Sep 23, 2008 - 3:57 pm 68. Milhouse:

Most Orthodox Jews have separate beds. For about half the month they’re not allowed to sleep in the same bed; for the other half, some put the two beds together, some have one single and one double so they can share when it’s allowed, but the standard behaviour is to remain sleeping in separate beds even when it’s not required.

Sep 23, 2008 - 4:11 pm 69. Arwen:

We are the epitome of weirdness with two beds in the same room. We simply can’t afford a new bed right now, but it might solve the problem. We both have aching backs and hubby’s movements would wake me literally every hour. We are hoping a tempurpedic-like mattress cheap from somewhere like overstock.com will help us eventually.

I do highly recommend “pillow soft” earplugs and an eye mask for keeping the peace in the other areas such as noise and light. Also, hubby fixed his snoring/apnea with a sleep mask and it’s imperative for snorers to look into that.

But two master suites? That’s been done before in luxury circles, but seems ridiculous.

What we long for is simply a bigger bed. Or perhaps two fulls put together to help with the movement problem. We just can’t find a proper headboard to make it look right. Maybe headboard companies could find a new niche here.

Sep 23, 2008 - 4:32 pm 70. Chester White:

Married 22 years. Always sleep together. Never have considered otherwise, nor are we likely to do so in the future.

This is just one of those “trend” articles the MSM runs from time to time where a reporter thinks up some story and finds 3 people to corroborate it, disregarding 10 others who tell him he’s nuts.

One is an anecdote.
Two is a coincidence.
Three is a NEW INTERESTING TREND!

Call the Lifestyle editor!

Sep 23, 2008 - 6:05 pm 71. Bill Clinton:

My wife doesn’t like the extra woman in the bed, so we always sleep apart.

Sep 23, 2008 - 6:18 pm 72. gc:

We have been sleeping apart for a number of years due to: (1) kids, (2) different schedules — I like to go to bed early and get up early, and he likes to go to bed late and get up late, and (3) my husband’s major sleep apnea issues. I also think I am a much lighter sleeper than my husband, and I tend to wake up in the middle of night, and have trouble getting back to sleep if there is any other distraction. In the end, I found I could not maintain a high quality of health without our sleeping separately. I have thought about whether having two beds in the same room would work, but we also have issues with our daughter needing company on the second floor.

Sep 23, 2008 - 6:31 pm 73. Oh, bother:

When we were shopping for a house in 2002, everyone said the second master was to facilitate care for parents. We bought our house because we could easily convert one room to a second master for his mother.

My husband weighs twice what I do and has sleep apnea so badly he scared the folks at the sleep center. In our old bed I skid to the center of the bed and was so uncomfortable I woke five or six times a night. Thank goodness for a Sleep Number bed! A queen is large enough to hold us plus the cat and our 25# dog. Add a CPAP machine for him and a separate sink in the bathroom for me and life is great. I do keep earplugs ready, just in case. (Why the sink? He has a beard.)

Arwen, you might consider creating a “headboard” from fabric or some other decoration attached to the wall.

Sep 23, 2008 - 6:39 pm 74. TAF:

My grandparents always slept in separate beds in the same room (I think Milhouse 4:11pm may have hit on the reason). Seemed to work for them.

My wife and I sleep in the same bed at home (a king), but when we travel if the hotel can only provide a queen, we’ll take two doubles instead (the usual other option). We can’t get comfortable in a queen or smaller (we’re not that large, but we do apparently move around a good deal in our sleep to judge by the disorganization found in the morning).

Sep 23, 2008 - 10:58 pm 75. DJ:

As a evening/night shift worker for the last 15 years, and a member of the military (often on-call) before that, I dreaded interrupting my wife’s sleep with regular late-night arrivals. When her alarm went off a few hours after I crashed, my sleep suffered as well. For the last few years, I’ve timed my trip to bed with her rising, both to increase the quality of our sleep and to allow some snuggling/interaction/communication without loss of sleep for one or both parties. On the rare occasion that I need to rise early, I “start” my night on the couch, and move to the bedroom when she rises. It has worked well for us; may not for others.

Sep 24, 2008 - 1:03 am 76. andersonh1:

I usually end up in the other room because my wife snores rather badly. I don’t like having to sleep apart from her, but I just don’t sleep well when she’s waking me up multiple times per night.

Sep 24, 2008 - 4:56 am 77. Lauren:

My husband and I have been together almost 3 years now and we have recently been sleeping apart about 1/2 the time…I blame the baby, who we are “transitioning” back into his own bed. Also, when my husband has nasal allergies (which he often does), he wakes up flailing and saying “I can’t breathe,” then moves to the couch. I hate him sleeping on the couch, but I understand sometimes a dude’s just gotta get some zzzzzzs. I like sleeping with him, even though he snores like a freight train, and I’ve recently promised not to wake him up to tell him to roll over if he’s snoring in my ear because THAT sends him to the couch, too. I toss and turn a lot (and haul the baby to one side or the other with me). I wake and fall back to sleep easily, except when someone’s roaring in my ears. We both like the house cold at night, but I like a thick comforter and my husband gets too warm under it – I LOVE the separate blanket idea (not sure why I didn’t think of using twin blankets, his and hers, lightweight and heavy, but it’s BRILLIANT). I’m convinced married life and parenthood are all about flexibility and not taking anything too personally – but I am ready to send the little dude to his baby cage so the big dude and I can snooze alone more!!!

Sep 24, 2008 - 9:52 am 78. Maureen:

My husband and I have been married for 38 years and have never considered sleeping apart. That is our favorite part of the day to cuddle and talk.

We both get up to go to the bathroom but with our Temperpedic mattress – you don’t feel movements by the other person.

Sep 24, 2008 - 1:17 pm 79. Geezerlust:

Having been married to my starter wife for 52 years, we have always enjoyed sleeping together nekkid. It’s the touch of her and the shadow of her smile. She snores like chain saw but I am a heavy sleeper. Fortunately, I was able to deduce that she has sleep apnea and she sleeps way better and more safely now with a c-pap machine complete with hose-nose. I would not have noticed from a separate bedroom. I wouldn’t change a thing. Love is grand, no doubt about it.

Sep 24, 2008 - 2:56 pm 80. Chuck:

I’ve been married to my present wife for 13 years, having lost my first love tragically.

I snore like a lumberjack, or so I’m told by my wonderful wife. My first wife often complained about my snoring too. Present wife says I actually slow the rotation of the ceiling fan on the intake. LOL

I’ve told her I would gladly sleep in another room or the sofa but she won’t hear of it. She just gives me a light punch in the side and I’ll usually turn over and stop for awhile.

I never feel it and sleep like the proverbial ‘dead person’.

There is no greater pleasure in my life than waking early, turning toward my soundly sleeping wife, and just watching her for a bit. I can only imagine what a tortuous night she might have gone through just sleeping with me.

Sep 25, 2008 - 6:56 am 81. Jane:

My guy travels for his job, a week at a time usually, several times a year. And I get cold when he’s gone. Even with the dog and the cat having more space to be snuggly, it’s just not the same. We also get a lot of conversation in, at both ends of the night, that never seems to happen otherwise, when the kids and the resident elder take most of our attention. If there were medical reasons, I’d deal with those, whatever it took, before going for the separate beds solution.

Sep 28, 2008 - 4:04 pm 82. Love and Marriage and Sleep | No More Restless Nights:

[...] very interesting post over at Ask Dr. Helen via [...]

Oct 26, 2008 - 2:42 pm 83. Carolyn:

After several failed marriages and several failed relationships, I do not feel comfortable sleeping apart. My husband of only tw years purchased a magnetic therapy mattress which has memory foam in it. I can not tolerate this mattress, it is too hot and I sink in it. So now he sleeps on a queen sized one in the middle bedroom and I sleep alone on a twin mattress. Nobody sleeps on the new king pillow top mattress in the master bedroom. I do not feel comfotable sleeping in a bedroom that was his and his former wife’s who is deceased. We will be moving from this house but due to damages from a hurricane that will be delayed even more months. I regret agreeing to move into the same house, espceically after learning of the previous spouses lifestyle. I have sleep apnea and a seizure disorder. It wasn’t until after we married that I learned I was having seizures in my sleep. Now do I feel comfortable sleeping alone? No I do not? I lose sleep. It takes me too long to get to sleep. He gets up earlier than I do and then wakes me regardless of how long it takes me to get to sleep. I stay sick all the time because of allergies to things in this house and to this area. It’s depressing.
Sleeping alone in this case is wrecking my marriage. I didn’t marry him to sleep alone. I feel like I am playing second fiddle to a mattress. And SEX what is it? I can’t remember.

Oct 30, 2008 - 8:48 pm 84. Carolyn:

That is supposed to be TWO years. We have been married a little over TWO years.

Oct 30, 2008 - 8:50 pm 85. ann:

Second marriage for both of us. He snores(loud) It keeps me up. lately he has been sleeping on the couch. I guess he feels bad for keeping me up. i miss him but have been sleeping much better.
Maybe one day we can get this fixed. I often think a king size bed would help. Too bad my husband is cheap.

Nov 20, 2008 - 8:00 pm 86. Frankolin:

I sleep alone I prefer it, and my wife and I don’t touch each other at all, we love each other very much, and we both live for our little girls. I think this whole sex and sleeping thing is a bunch of bunk, and People are stupid to allow society to dictate to you how to sleep, or sex, or Viagra, etc. People just need to grow up, no contraception, no sex, just try it sometime, you’ll be shocked to believe you can actually contain yourselves, and you may just appreciate your mate a lot more for it.

Dec 5, 2008 - 3:47 pm 87. Rashid:

My wife and I were sleeping together during the first two years of our maariage. Thereafter we splited to separate rooms when we had our second child (girl). I usually sleep together with the boy (first child) while my wife sleep in a separate room with the girl (to take care of the baby girl). This we have been doing for about two years now. This does not realy affects our marriage much except that I find it strange and relunctant to always wake up from my room to meet her in her room whenever we need to make love. some times I slept off and some times I need to wait until our boy with me had slept. We are planning to re-arrange things soon.

Feb 20, 2009 - 1:48 pm 88. Fazel:

My wife and I are getting into a lot of fights lately caus she sets her alarm for 1 hr before she gets up and keeps hitting the snooze button (she says this helps her wake up). But my argument is ,you set an alarm to wake up,not to hit the snooze button. So I end up on the couch like a single man wishing I had someone next to me. The fights could lead to our divorce as we are both grumpy and have terrible days ,but I do love her.

Mar 31, 2009 - 9:14 am

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