To ask for opinions/experiences on separate beds/rooms?

[itsgoodtobehome]

Me and DH have both been suffering from colds for a week or so. We seem to be taking it in turns to wake each other up in the night with snoring, coughing, sniffing etc. Both of us get up in the morning tired and irritable after not getting a good night's sleep, and feeling ill. Last night, DH decided to sleep in the spare room to see if we could both get a better night's sleep. I was fine with this.

I woke up this morning having had an amazing night's sleep! Also DH gets up way before me, so I wasn't woken by his stupid 'o' clock alarm clock, and didn't wake until he bought me a cup of tea before he went to work. He also had a great night's sleep, and said that he might sleep in the spare room again tonight.

Part of me was thinking 'yay' another night with the bed to myself. But another part of me is thinking - is this the slippery slope to separate bedrooms, and is that a bad thing? On the one hand, I love having someone to share my bed with, but on the other hand, I also love a good sleep.

Does anyone have experience of this? I don't want to end up one of those couples who say they end up living like flatmates, but I also function so much better when I've had decent sleep!!

assuming you have a spare room, why don't you just move in there? Surely he is not going to physically make you join him in bed? hmm.

No, far worse than that. He'd be genuinely sad.

I'm sure separate bedrooms are the reason we are still married.

DH is a lark & I'm an owl, I like to sleep like a starfish and apparently I always pull the duvet off him, we both snore & wake each other up...

So we have separate bedrooms - with visiting rights of course

dh loves it if he gets the chance to sleep alone, apparently I am a terrible bed hogger.

he is a terrible snorer, and sleeper....life long shift worker, I often wake up on my own, and find him on the sofa. No idea why he doesn't go into the spare room.

He doesn't like the idea of separate rooms/beds though, claims he can't sleep properly on his own, whereas I revel in it, when he is on night shift and have the space to myself!

we have a huge bed and separate duvets, means we both get a decent nights sleep!

**claims to love it

dearie me, must proof read.

Another one here with separate rooms.

We both love it, and doesn't stop us having a lively intimate life.

But if good sleep is required then alone is luxury.

Gosh I personally couldn’t.

I sleep so badly when DH not here. Don’t know why, we’re certainly 15yrs down the line not in any honeymoon period but sleep always broken when he’s not there.

But that’s obv not the case with you so I say go for it.

I don’t think I could manage it he was a snorer though.

We also have separate bedrooms. We both sleep much better apart. Sleep is a solitary activity anyway, and we both like room to spread out. Plus I get up an hour earlier for work so I don't disturb him.

It doesn't mean we're not close or we don't have sex. It just means we sleep separately.

Thanks everyone for your comments. It’s good to know that this quite a common thing and works for a lot of people. I am now encouraging him to sleep in the spare room again tonight and I’m looking forward to another great nights sleep. Maybe I will let him back at the weekend —when I’ve had wine and sleep better anyway—

I would love to right now - BF has broken has broken his collarbone and can only sleep on his back.

SNORE GALORE.

We live in a 1 bed so I either have to kick him or just sleep on a mattress topper in the living room. Can't wait for when we have a house and can actually have a spare room for times like this!

Sleeping in separate bedrooms is the best. I know several young couples who live together (under 25,) and even they (well the female in each couple) say they cannot STAND their boyfriend's snoring and fidgeting and coughing in their ear, and they live for the day they can have their own bedroom.

How my mother and her mother before her shared a room (and bed) for 50-odd years with my dad (and grandfather,) is beyond me! Then again, I think women put up with a lot of crap in days gone by, that women don't put up with now.

I lost count of the amount of times my husband woke me coughing, grunting, farting, duvet-hogging, kicking me, whacking me across the head with his hand, and shoving me out of bed, and also SNORING. OMG he could bloody snore! Even in his early 30's and at only 12 stone, he sounded like a pneumatic drill.

Also, he would clear his throat sometimes, as I was dozing off. I would hear 'A-HEM!' and I would sit bolt upright as I was roused to being fully awake from being 50% asleep. I felt like I was being tortured.

It was so bad (some nights,) that I grabbed a couple of fleece blankets and a pillow, and slept on the couch - 3 nights a week sometimes. It would be 1am to 2am, when I crept downstairs sleepily, and crawled onto the couch, but I would sleep soundly til 7am when the alarm went off for work. (I know some people will think why didn't HE go downstairs, but I guess it was that I was already awake IYSWIM.) With hindsight, I should have woken him and said 'Oi, I spent the night sleeping on the couch last time; it's YOUR turn!' But I never did. Oh well...

The chance to sleep separately came 5 years into our marriage when we moved into a 4 bed house. We have never looked back. 30 years later, we are still together. He was miffed at first when I said I want separate bedrooms, and didn't admit it (to others,) for more than 10 years, but he cares as little about what people think as I do now. We are the ones getting 9-10 hours straight through sleep.

We've always done it whenever one of us is ill. It means the healthy person has a better chance of not catching it, and the sick one can wheeze and cough and snore without worrying about keeping the other awake. But also, my partner is an insanely light sleeper- the very slightest thing disturbs him, and paranoia about waking him was really starting to stress me out and affect my sleep as well. Plus as others have said, we have really opposite needs. He needs complete pitch blackness and silence. I need lots of fresh air moving around even if it's freezing, and I actually find a bit of low-level noise- like the clock ticking, or the wind- reassuring.The past couple of weeks we've slept separately during the week, and together at weekends when we can lie in, and that's working nicely.

Married for 20 years, slept in different rooms for the last 10. And our marriage is a much happier place because of it. We both snore, I'm a night owl and late reader, he's an early riser and goes straight to sleep. We can both be up in the night for the loo. So it works for us. I still feel bit sad we're not cuddly sleepers, but that's life. We're in our 50s and most of our friends do the same. It's more common than you think!

Yep - been together 25 years, and probably do 50/50% same/different rooms in a week. We pretty much instinctively pick the nights when we don't have to get up early or whatever, to share the master bedroom - that way I don't mind the snoring and we get time together, and then if one of us has an early start/is especially tired/feeling a bit crap/just fancies it DH takes the spare room. Works brilliantly

I think the key is that it's mutual, that it doesn't interfere with intimacy and physical contact and that the spare room is nice so that it doesn't feel like you've been confined to an outbuilding :)

Every time DH or I are sick, we go into separate rooms - and we often stay that way for a few days longer than necessary because we both get a better night's sleep. But we always end up moving "back in" as we do get lonely eventually. The longest stretch we've done is 5 months after the birth of DD1 as she was a nighttime cluster feeder and that's the age we put her in her own room. I found it really difficult with him being back in with me at first, it took me a good 2 months to get used to sharing a bed again. I do love having the whole thing to myself!