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My partner and I sleep in separate rooms. When I say that, you may imagine a married couple in their fifties or older. You might envision some stuffy house—one from old money—with separate wings, and the two of us in our old-fashioned dressing gowns and slippers, shuffling around the hardwood floors, asking where the Bengay and Aspirin are. But, nope—we are a spry couple in our early thirties who sleep in separate rooms. We’ve been together just shy of seven years, and sleeping in separate rooms for half a year now. When I tell people this, I see them trying to hide their true reaction, but I see bits of it slip out: they’re worried about us. Whatever the facial equivalent of the word “Yikes” would be—that’s what I see come across their faces. My close friends just say what they’re thinking, “That’s not good for intimacy,” “It’s the beginning of the end,” and things like that. Well to them I say this: you must have the luxury of being really solid sleepers. Not us. The sound of a pin dropping wakes me. The sensation of a sheet of cotton moving across my shoulder jolts me out of sleep. The tiniest movement of the mattress and I’m shot out of my REM cycle. Sharing a bed, night after night, with another human, just wasn’t in the books for me if I wanted to remain sane and healthy (remember that sleep is pretty damn important for our health!). My partner is the same way. We stopped pretending to be blissfully happy getting no sleep every night. We moved into separate rooms. And rather than it ruining our relationship or being “The beginning of the end” as my dramatic friends put it, it’s actually benefited us in many ways.
A more efficient sleep
When my partner and I shared a bed, it took me roughly 10 hours to get just seven hours of sleep. Because I’d be woken up so frequently by my partner adjusting, pulling on the blanket, getting up, flushing the toilet, talking in his sleep, and all the other things that would occur, I spent a lot of time just trying to go back to sleep. I wasted so much time in bed because I slept in fits and stops.
