Sleeping arrangements for couples living together

In My Humble Opinion
1

I am pretty sure that the majority (vastly) sleep together, but I’m wondering how common our situation is…

My husband and I each have our own bedroom. We only sleep together on nights when we’re having sex (and even then, not always–depends on if I’m ready to go to sleep afterwards or not) or if we have overnight guests, in which case his room becomes the guest room.

The reason is that I’ve got major insomnia issues and it’s not uncommon for me to be awake until 3, 4, or 5am. My husband, on the other hand, is doing his residency right now and has to be at the hospital early in the morning. This means he goes to bed around 10 or 11 and is often up by 5:30. If we tried to sleep together, it would be miserable. We’d be waking each other up and disrupting each other’s sleep right and left.

I think if we had a king size bed it would be different, but we each have a queen. When we have the money to buy a king size bed we’ll probably try the co-sleeping thing (we want the king size bed anyway–it’s way better for sex!).

Anyway, I was just wondering how common it is for romantic couples to sleep apart. Posting a poll so give this a couple of minutes while I set it up–thanks!

Edited to add: sleeping apart because one of you is out of town, or because you’re staying somewhere temporarily that doesn’t let you co-sleep doesn’t count. Consider for the poll only what you do at home.

2

We always go to sleep together on our Queen sized mattress, although sometimes my partner has to get up and move to the chair where he can sleep upright, if his COPD is acting up. I don’t like those nights much. :frowning:

3

When I was living with a girl we always shared a bed. It was a twin.

4

Oh wow, that would suck. I find it very hard to sleep upright.

5

We’ve slept in separate rooms since my husband had surgery on his wrist and we didn’t want to risk bumping it. We stayed apart because we both slept so much better. No more disagreements about room temperature – he likes it hot – or about the ceiling fan – I need the white noise and the moving air. We also go to bed and get up at different times, and I read in bed. We’re in our mid 60’s, and most couples our age I know sleep separately.

6

We prefer sleeping together, but he snores and maybe once or twice a month I end up on the couch. Sometimes various joint & back pain keeps me up and I’ll end up on the couch then, too. It’s kind of rough. I sleep so much better without him but I still want him there with me, even if it means a worse night sleep in the best circumstances. A new, maybe bigger, bed would solve some of the problems but it isn’t possible right now. Thankfully our couch is comfy!

7

We only sleep apart when one of us is having unusually bad insomnia. Then, the insomniac gets up and does whatever (reads a while, has warm milk, paces, etc.) and then goes to sleep in The Magic Bunk Where Sleep Always Comes.

I’d like to suggest a particular mattress arrangement that helps with not waking each other up, BTW: a futon (or foam mattress) with a Tempurpedic-type overlay a few inches thick. This made a massive difference for us. Innerspring mattresses are the devil’s work.

For even more not-disturbing-each-other power, try a pair of twin-size duvets in duvet covers instead of one big one (or blankets). They can overlap enough that you can cuddle together under them when you want to, but they move independently. My parents do this. Alternately, get a duvet a size bigger than your mattress (or one of those “luxury oversized” ones if you you have a king size), and start the night with it sort of loosely piled on the bed instead of stretched taut, so there’s slack for when you roll over. We do this.

8

Same bed, separate matresses, separate duvets. Scandinavian beds are BRILLIANT. Especially if you share a bedroom with Nanook of the North.

9

We sleep together, but both of us (luckily) have no trouble going back to sleep if we are awakened at night. So if one person is getting up well before the other, the sleeper is almost certainly awakened, and we may even chat a bit, but the sleeper can always drift back off. I consider this to be one of the luckiest random good things to even happen to me, as I love, love, love sleeping together and would hate to have it be a source of tension.

10

We sleep together 99.9% of the time. The rare occasion when we don’t is if my hubby falls asleep in his recliner watching T.V. and ends up sleeping the whole night away. It’s one of his “big deal” things that we sleep together and he is usually upset if he accidentally sleeps all night in the recliner.

I probably would sleep better if we had separate beds because of his snoring and traveling around the bed in his sleep. I am one who falls asleep quickly after being awakened though, so the current arrangement is fine with me.

11

This is another bonus for us–I like a fan on and for it to be cool enough for blankets. He says his nose dries out if he has moving air, and he’s quite happy to have the room warm and just use a sheet.

12

My husband and I never sleep together. I’m a very light sleeper and he’s a very active sleeper, plus he stays up really late and falls asleep with movies or whatever on Netflix instant. He’s not a “go to bed” kind of guy, more like he sleeps where he falls.

At the beginning of living together I hated that we didn’t sleep together, I thought it meant we were doomed. The I realized that we were way happier if I didn’t try to fit our square peg into some standard relationship round hole, and 8 years later we’re good.

13

My sister and her husband didn’t sleep together. He’s extremely sensitive to noises and a very light sleeper. Always had to have the room pitch black and a fan on for white noise. My sister grinds her teeth the sound of which would keep him up all night so they slept apart. Eventually they divorced but I don’t think the sleeping arrangements had anything to do with it.

14

Oh wow, this poll read my mind.

Warning: Extremely long post including insomnia.

Psyhusband and I always sleep together in a double bed (5 years now), but last night had me reconsidering! First thing to know is he’s almost twice my size. I weigh around 55 kg, and he weighs about 100. He sleeps very deeply, and is also extremely affectionate. He has to get up around 6:30 for work, and is usually in bed before midnight. Now I, on the other hand, am a night person and hate going to bed almost as much as I hate getting up in the morning. I also really love my sleep and get grumpy if I get less than 8 hours of it, but am a very light sleeper who wakes up at the slightest noise or disturbance. Very bad combination at the best of times.

Our usual routine is: He goes to bed at a reasonable hour, looking slightly hurt that he has to go to sleep alone, again. I stay up until 2 or 3 am, then creep into bed next to him. I usually manage not to wake him up, but he turns over in his sleep, gives a huge, comfortable sigh, and drapes an arm and a leg (how much of one’s body weight is that?) over me and settles down again.

If it’s around 3, I’m generally tired enough to go to sleep like this, ignoring his fairly mild snoring, his habit of forgetting to breathe every now and then so that I lie quietly panicking and wondering whether to poke him to find out whether he’s still alive, and his less common habit, that pops up when he’s had too much coffee, of twitching arms, legs, or both. Sometimes the latter two habits combine, and he stops breathing regularly every 16 (or 12, or 10) breaths, twitching when he starts up again.

Then in the morning, he sets his alarm purposely in time to allow him to press snooze at least twice, while he goes about the gradual and very loud process of waking up, including loud yawns, stretches and mumbled imprecations against his alarm, which is the single most obnoxious alarm tone invented by man (a bossy woman’s voice telling him what time it is and that he has to get up. It sounds like his mother, and he chose it on purpose because it’s the only thing annoying enough to get him out of bed). Through this process, which takes about half an hour, I curl up with the duvet over my head and pretend to be asleep. At last he actually gets up and leaves, I stretch out like a starfish over the entire bed, and sleep peacefully until lunchtime.

Now if you are masochistic enough to still be reading this post, you’ll realise that 3 am to lunchtime is a lot longer than my professed requirement of 8 hours of sleep. So, in the interests of productivity, I decide to try and normalise my sleeping hours. The obvious thing would be to try and wake up earlier, but that sounds way too much like hard work for me, so instead, last night I decided to try and go to sleep at midnight, which was my usual bedtime back when I had a real job :wink: and had to get up in the actual morning.

As you can imagine, it was not a success. It seems that Psyhusband’s back was acting up last night, making him restless. The way his restlessness played out was the following. As soon as we got into bed he draped his arm and leg over me as usual. I lay there trying not to construct complex arguments in my head with my child’s teacher. (I have no child). I got tired of lying in one position and being squashed, so I shoved his leg off. I lay there trying not to think using words. He draped his leg over me again, moving further into “my side” of the bed. I shoved it off. I lay there trying not to sing songs in my head. Leg again. Shove. Encroachment into my territory. Eventually he was curled up in a ball, entirely on MY side, and I had a little strip of bed on the edge by the wall. I lay there trying not to think of international politics. I shoved him harder, and he turned over. Great.
A few minutes’ respite, during which I tried not to think using words by substituting the lyrics of the songs in my head with “La la la.” Then, flick. With a twitch of his leg he whisked the duvet off my feet. I lay there wondering if I could ignore this, while the facial muscles involved in going “la la la” told me they were getting tired, even though I was only using them in my imagination. Then, flick. With a twitch of his arm, he whisked away the rest of my duvet. Too much to bear. I yanked at the duvet, he half woke up. “What are you doing?” said he. “You stole my duvet!” I hissed. As I arranged it equitably over both of us once more, he turned over and draped an arm and a leg over me. “Can I hold you, just until I fall asleep?” he said. :smack:

This went on the entire night. “La la la” turned into “do do do” and back again, and at about 7 in the morning (It was a Saturday! Why did it have to be a Saturday?) I got completely fed up and went downstairs to try and get some sleep on the couch. Just as I was about to drift off, I felt someone staring at me. It was my dog. “Can you hold me”, I felt her saying, “just until I fall asleep?” :frowning:

Fortunately, just then, Psyhusband stumbled down the stairs looking endearingly contrite, and I could go up and have the bed to myself.

I woke up around lunchtime :rolleyes:

15

You’re married to my husband? :slight_smile:

16

I said usually together, but it’s probably like 99% of the time, in a queen size. On rare occasions, I’ll fall asleep on the couch.

17

Never sleep apart unless we are in different cities.

18

This.

19

My husband and I have separate bedrooms and bathrooms.

We sleep apart on average 4 nights a week, less if we are feeling particularly snuggly or just have the desire to be close to one another all night long.

For similar reasons as the OP. I suffer from insomnia, and I move around and wake up a lot all night long. My husband sleeps like the dead. And he snores. Also, the mattress he sleeps on is over 12 years old, queen size. It’s more like a taco these days. I sleep on a (very nice) firm futon with a memory foam topper. It’s just much more comfortable to me. :slight_smile:

We started doing this 3 or 4 years ago. The house had recently become an ‘empty nest’ and we converted one of the kid bedrooms to a guest bedroom.
I’d gone out to visit family for a week, and the very next week he went to a work conference in another city. We’d spent 2 whole weeks apart, the longest ever since being married I think, and realized we both really slept well when we slept alone.

So the guest bedroom became my bedroom. He has the master bedroom with the small in-room bathroom. I have the smaller guest room/library attached to the large bathroom with the tub. It’s a pretty nice set up for each of us.

For a short while I felt like some people just wouldn’t understand this scenario, assuming something was wrong with our relationship, and so I didn’t mention it to co-workers, family, or friends for a few months. Then I remembered I don’t give a shit what people assume incorrectly about our relationship and told everyone. To my surprise, they all completely understood.
An article in the NYT right around the same time or shortly after (found it!) offered a bit of camaraderie too.

One of us will occasionally get up in the morning to snuggle for a bit, and we even get in bed to read together on nights we won’t share the same bed. We kiss each other good night every night, no matter what.

But when it comes to actually just sleeping. Having our own space has proven to be just fabulous.

20

When Mig and I first got together we shared a twin mattress. When Bella came we shared a queen with her. Up until a few days ago I slept with her on the queen bed while daddy slept on a twin mattress on the floor. We just had a homemade trundle set up so he pulled his bed out at night. Now Bella has decided to sleep on the floor.

Yay! I’d forgotten what it felt like to spoon with a man!