I’m not currently married, but whenever I hear of a married couple sleeping in different beds or rooms, I always think that wouldn’t work for me. Sleeping in the same bed seems to me like such an intimate, necessary part of a marriage- I really don’t think I would feel emotionally close to my fictional husband if we didn’t sleep together. But then again, I’m pretty much dead to the world once I fall asleep- if I were a light sleeper I might feel differently.
I think it’s a perfectly reasonable state of existence. I’m also a thrasher and find it hard to sleep knowing that I will keep someone else awake. The idea of it makes it harder for me to sleep as well because I’m consciously trying NOT to move. I look like a hot dog on a rotisserie with all the constant motion. And I snore on top of all that. When I go camping I bring ear plugs for the campers around me. They think it’s funny that I hand them out but thank me the next day.
I would also bet that he will resist the idea but if you approach it right I think you can pull it off. As long as he knows you still love him.
See, I’m not married, never have been, probably never will be, and I see someone expecting me to sleep in the same bed as them as an invasion of privacy. Well, maybe not exactly an invasion of privacy, but it always puzzles me that it seems to be expected. I only mention it quoting you since I seem to agree with you about nearly everything else that I’ve seen you post about. 
Separate rooms would help reduce the number of awkward moments when one or the other is entertaining a lover. :eek:
I had a similar thread last year (Seperate Bed Syndrome: The Silent Killer - Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share - Straight Dope Message Board) Since then, the allergies and stresses of our lives have subsided a little and we pretty much sleep together 100% now. Except last night.
No big deal, It’s nice to have a secondary place to go when you need to. I dunno WHAT we’ll do when the twins want separate rooms and we lose the guest bedroom.
I would add that you can sleep in the same bed using a dual sleep system arrangement (expensive) or make your own by combining 2 singles. My parents did that. Don’t know where they got the frame but it’s something that you can look into.
That’s good to hear and appreciated! I guess I view sleeping together as husband and wife as so important mainly because I’m very physically affectionate and those mostly-asleep middle-of-the-night back-kisses and spoonings are symbolic of emotional closeness and extreme trust to me. But everyone has different ways of experiencing that and that’s cool.
I have done, as Dearly Beloved snores like a Black & Decker and grinds his teeth loudly enough to be heard in the next room. As long as I get to sleep first it’s no problem, as I have slept through a hurricane, numerous tornadoes, and an earthquake. So I can sleep through even his snoring as long as I am already asleep. If he gets to sleep first – which is rare, he needs less sleep than I do – then I often go sleep elsewhere.
I started doing this after we had children – I can handle the sleep deprivation from kids, and also the sleep deprivation from his snoring, but not both without becoming an insane person.
It is pretty common over here in Holland for people to sleep on beds made up of two single matresses. I hear it is for reasons of cost, but I don’t know for certain. In any event, a setup like that might provide you some level of relief from all that tossing and turning.
My parents also slept in separate rooms once my brother and I had moved out. Interestingly, Mom got my old room, Dad got my brother’s, and their former bedroom was turned into a den/office. Dad snored like the dickens, was up and down several times a night; Mom had her own routines and preferences as well. They seemed embarrassed to explain the new sleeping arrangement when it came about (don’t know why they felt they had to, really) and hastened to assure me that they were still intimate! :o
Dad died last fall and his room is still “Dad’s room.” Honestly, I can’t imagine any couple more loving and devoted than my parents. They loved spending all their (waking) hours together, occasionally to the detriment of other friendships, and my mother is still, understandably, bereft at the loss of her soul mate of 50+ years.
I guess my point is that sleeping arrangements cannot always be an indicator of marital happiness/closeness/sex. They only indicate sleeping preference.
That said, I love sleeping next to my husband. Don’t know if that will always be the case, but for now, I like being able to reach out and touch him whenever I want, and my getting up twice a night to pee doesn’t seem to bother him!
From the original post I’m not sure what the nature of the disruption is (banging into the other, snoring, etc.), but my wife’s major complaint with me is that when I get up from the bed in the middle of the night it causes too much motion in the traditional, spring-style mattress. One of the advantages of the Tempurpedic-style mattress is that this problem doesn’t exist because the motion on one side doesn’t affect the other. May be worth looking in to if your problem is getting jostled around.
Or if you keep putting your glass of wine on the mattress and then it spills onto your wife when she rolls over.
This is how I thought I was. I thought I was sleeping through it, and in a way I guess I am. But I’m waking up so much more refreshed now that I’m thinking that it was disrupting my sleep without me being really aware.
Well in the early epsisodes Lucy and Ricky had twin beds pushed together, but still made up with 2 sets of sheets, blankets, etc. I always thought that was weird.
My husband and I sleep in the same bed, but it’s a king size and we have separate blankets. All of the advantages of sleeping separately save for snoring noise, none of the isolation.
That does sound nice, and not that I’m not physically affectionate, but I’m both a light sleeper and very grouchy when unexpectedly awakened. I prefer to be physically very close to lovers when we’re both awake, but when we’re asleep, it’s a different story.
We go back and forth between same room and separate, for lots of reasons.
-She used to have apnea, and snored like an epileptic chainsaw. She we’ve both lost weight, that one went away.
-We bicker constantly about room temperature;
-I’m early to bed and rise; she’s a night owl and a hausfrau;
-Mystiff back is better served by sleeping on my side on the futon;
-The damned dogs will push me out of the bed about once a week.
My wife and I slept, poorly, together, for the first two years we were married. We both snore, and she’s a blanket hog, and I got really tired of ending up on my quarter of the bed. She sleeps like a log, and I have to wear earplugs or I can’t fall asleep. When we moved to this house, it had a spare bedroom where we keep the piano and organ and other stuff, which included a mattress. I started to take naps in there, and gradually, I began to sleep in there at night.
It was kind of weird at the beginning, because you think that most people sleep together. But it’s obvious that a lot of people who sleep together aren’t sleeping very well. So we talked about it. “Do you like having a bed all to yourself?” “Yes.” “Do you like not being awoken by my snoring all the time?” “Yes.” “Are you able to get a better night’s sleep when I don’t come to bed at 2:30?” “Yes.” When we did that, I would lie awake becaue she was snoring, and by the time I was able to fall asleep, I’d wake her up with mine. “Do I get better sleep not having to wake up to your alarm at 7?” “Yes.” All these are positives. So we sleep in separate bedrooms, and have for about six years.
We both sleep better. It hasn’t changed our intimacy. It’s a good thing, because I can totally see how after 30 or 40 years of putting up with all of that how some couples want to club each other to death. We don’t aggravate each other during the night anymore. We get along better for it. It works for us.
We sleep in separate beds pushed together. It allowed me to sleep well for the first time in 10 years.
Why:
a. His dog slept ON me. I asked the dog not be allowed in the bed, he would sneak the dog in after I was asleep.
b. He can’t stand to be touched while sleeping, I’m a cuddler.
c. Our king size waterbed was bothering him and he wanted to get rid of it. You may pry it from my cold dead hands.
d. He wanted to try a tempu-pedic (sp?) sweatbox of a mattress. I hated it.
e. He likes hospital sheets tucked in tight. I like to wallow.
f. He turns his clock face down because it is too bright. I read before bed.
g. He likes to flail his arms in his sleep, I like to wake up without a black eye or bloody nose.
h. In the days before our dual chamber king size waterbed, he displaced a significantly larger portion of water than I did and therefore, I slept on the “hump.”
I got mad one night, threw him out of the bed and dragged in a queen from the spare room. I’ve slept like a baby since then, so has he. He hates when people find out. He thinks they think we are freaks. I think I don’t give a crap because I can actually sleep.
Well see now you’re just being unreasonable!