Sleeping on separate beds may save marriages
More married couples are splitting up - in terms of sleeping arrangements. Does sleeping in separate rooms make a husband and wife grow apart or bring them together in new ways?
Bear in mind that you spend one-third of your married life sleeping together in the bed. Getting separate rooms is more than a new trend – it’s not just about escaping the teeth grinding and other annoying sleep habits of your partner.
Although sleeping with your spouse fosters intimacy, sometimes sleeping with a tossing and turning or snoring spouse means you don’t sleep either. Getting a better night’s sleep could improve your marriage.
“Sleep is the most ‘selfish’ thing you can do. You can’t share your sleep with somebody else,” states Dr. Neil Stanley a sleep doctor at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, “We know that people who have poor sleep have higher rates of divorce. They’re more miserable…and more depressed.”
The taboo of having two rooms
It is possible that deep-seated cultural taboos surrounding the sacred space of the marital bed stops couples from talking about their sleeping arrangements:
“A lot of people, mainly middle-aged women, relocate in the middle of the night by going to the back bedroom but they don’t admit to it,” Dr. Stanley suggests, “There should be no stigma about separate bedrooms, but there is that cultural stigma that people apply to it.”
The stigma stems from the assumptions that if a couple are not sleeping side-by-side, then they’re not having sex. But that is not necessarily the case because sex and sleep are two different activities – although both occur in the bedroom.
Better sex lives
Sex lives can be improved when a couple realise the best way to a great sex life is not to share the same bed. It’s possible that taking sex out of the routine marital bedroom is one of the best ways to spice up your sex life. It’s also easier to be intimate when you have your own private space – it frees both of you from the pressures of being constantly together.
Is sleeping on separate beds suitable for you?
If both of your sleeping habits are incompatible and adversely affecting your marriage getting separate bedrooms may be a good long term solution. For example, if one of you is a night -owl or an early riser then your conflicting cycles may cause you to be more quarrelsome. However if both of you constantly need to be alone and apart from each other, there may be other underlying relationship issues that need to be addressed.
In the end as long as you love and care deeply about each other, what does it matter where you sleep?
