Separate rooms - is it really so terrible?

[PinkCareBear]

I've come to the conclusion I would be much happier sleeping in a separate room to my partner on a permanent basis. About a year ago, he started snoring and breathing very heavily in his sleep, and I am a very light sleeper/sensitive to noise. I then can't sleep, toss and turn, waking him up as a result.

He's been sleeping in the spare room maybe 5 nights a week, but we've been trying to have him back in the bed to see if we can both get a good night's sleep together. Last night was awful, I was up most of the night due to his snoring/loud breathing.

DOes anyone have a secusseful relationship despite sleeping separately? I don't know anyone in real life who admits to sleeping apart.

[Princess1066]

Married nearly 31 years - slept apart for 20 - he snores & I'm a dreadful sleeper - works for us

[yearinyearout]

I sleep in the other bedroom quite often. We mostly start off in the same bed so it doesn't affect our sex life...I just disappear when he starts snoring!

[RidgedPerfection]

No - I have suggested it but DH was horrified. He snores very, very loudly - he can be heard from any room in the house - and it's impossible to get any sleep. Currently I go to bed at about 9 - 10pm, read and sleep a little until he comes to bed at about midnight which wakes me as he switches the light on and then plays on his iPad for a while. I start to drift off but then the snoring commences and the rolling over so that I am teetering right on the edge of the bed. I lie awake thinking murderous thoughts until I get up and go into the spare room to try and sleep and then my alarm goes off either at 2am or 3am for work. It's awful.

The positive aspect is that DH goes away a lot for work so I get some good quality sleep then; the difference in how much better I feel is insane - I am like a different person!!

[ChipSandwich]

It's not as unusual as most people think. My mid-thirties nephew is a policeman and works shifts, and they have young children. They sleep in separate rooms. My parents slept in separate twin beds placed as far away from each other as possible because my father snored like a 777 jet in reverse thrust. If they'd had a spare room available they'd have slept in different rooms.

My sil and her husband sleep in separate rooms for the same snoring reason. My own daughter sometimes emigrates to the spare room to escape the noises off from her fiancé, but she's still going to marry him in June. And he's like a yard of tapwatter (Is that just us northerners?) That means he's 6' 3" and 12 stones.

We've been married 35 years and it's only in the past year that we've
(by we have, I mean 'I' have ) discovered the joy of having your own quiet space to sleep. He has always snored very loudly, and I've just
always put up with it. He's not fat, but he has a large collar size and that is a sort of genetic thing which he can't help. He inherited his neck from his Dad who was also quite slim, but had the same genetic throat configuration and snoring issue. Around 20 years ago dh went to a sleep clinic and was diagnosed with a chronic case of sleep apnoea. Again, not associated with being overweight, but just the genetic configuration of his breathing tubes.

All good. He got a cpap machine. Again all good. It was heaven for a few years, and I got used to the peace of not being kept awake all night by snoring. And then the bloody cpap machine started to annoy me, buzzing away there all night. And when he opens his mouth and he's facing me I get a force 8 gale round my face.. I prod him and tell him to close his mouth. He responds "My mouth IS closed"

Well yes, NOW it is, but it hasn't been for the past half hour!
When I get into bed, and listen to his settling down noises (it takes some time for the cpap to kick into, and match his sleeping breaths)
he snores off and on for a half hour or so. So that's half an hour for me to be hugely irritated and for the adrenaline to start coursing through my veins and keep me awake for several hours more.

12 months ago I had a significant injury to my ankle. Any movement in the bed caused me pain so he went into the spare room. We are lucky that we have a spare bedroom and I do acknowledge that.
Both of us sleep better and longer and more restfully and have agreed that this is the way to go. If we ever feel like having sex, we have no kids at home so we can do it wherever we want.
In the living room mostly, if and when it happens. But a good uninterrupted night's sleep is absolutely paramount to personal well-being. Don't put up with having years of shitty sleepless nights like I did.
My MiL was scandalised when she visited, and me and dh slept in separate rooms. I told her it was because his snoring kept me awake.
She said that fil (now deceased) also disturbed her sleep, but that she would never have slept in a different room from him because you marry someone for better or worse.

I think she's just now realising that she could have made her own sleep more peaceful if she'd just cast off tradition. They had enough bedrooms for her to have her own.

Their youngest son, who was about 10 at the time, and was sharing a bedroom with his parents, took the duvet off his single bed and went and slept in the bath, and shut the door, to escape his father's snoring. The effects of disturbed sleep should not be underestimated.

[separatebeds]

We have been in separate beds since I beginning of this year when I realised our bed was giving me back pain and the spare bed was so much better. We are much happier for several reasons:
my husband goes to bed earlier than me and I like to read a little later. In the past he has asked me to turn off my reading light as it bothers him - this really used to piss me off. Sometimes he snores and gets cross when I wake him to say roll over. I don't like to be touched /leant on whilst asleep. Sometimes my husband dreams and has thrashed about in his sleep - I no longer find this amusing. Sometimes his vile farts would wake me up in the middle of the night - disgusting and not something I need to be subjected to. Often my husband craps in the night and flushes the loo (in the ensuite) - waking me up. This is something he claims he can't stop doing. We are no longer frequent shaggers - this is not a problem for us.
We both treasure our sleep and seem to be much happier this way.
We are 46 yrs.

[BlitheringIdiots]

We've had separate rooms for years and all is well in our marriage. If we had continued to share a room we would have divorced we are polar opposites. Night owl for one and early to bed for the other. Different hot and cold preferences. Wouldn't go back to sharing a room

[Rockbird]

We've been married nearly 20 years and mostly slept in separate rooms. We're both light sleepers and I've spent most of the last 11 years with at least one child in the bed! We're hoping to move soon and if possible we're just going to bite the bullet and have proper separate rooms. Everything else is grand and we're very happy but crap at sleeping in the same bed!

[longearedbat]

We've slept apart for years. Our sleeping habits are totally incompatible. I love my bed and bedroom, my h loves his. We both get good sleep because we aren't disturbing each other. In fact, we have taken it one further and have separate bathrooms as well. We have been together nearly 24 years. I think not having to be in close proximity to each other all the time has helped the longevity of the relationship.

[ChipSandwich]

I use earplugs from Boots and they drown out any noise whatsoever

I have tinnitus so earplugs sort of lock the tinnitus in and make it worse. I doubt I'm alone with that. A nice swishing noise of waves on a beach, or a gentle dawn chorus can overwhelm the tinnitus and distract me from it. The bloke next to me snorting to a crescendo of snorts and then snorting a bit more cannot. Caught between a rock and a hard place with ear-plugs, to be honest.

[Still18atheart]

Heaven . With exdp we didn’t get to the stage of moving in together but I said if we did we would we’d have separate bedrooms. Purely because we slept so badly together and I need my beauty sleep otherwise I’m grumpy

[Fizzysours]

Been sleeping separately for 4 years. Together 21 years. He was sad about it. But he snores like a drill. I deserve a frigging medal for not smothering him for the first 17! Jokes apart we were close to splitting up and now I am back to loving him to bits plus fancying him. We hold hands and hug a bit more during the evenings. I get sleep. I need sleep. People need sleep.

[CTRL]

Ive heard of and know of many couples who do it ; personally I have never done it myself. Then again I’ve never had a partner that disturbs my sleep.

Is there no way your husband can get those nasal clips that prevent him snoring ?

I just feel like sleeping in separate rooms sometimes can be the start of living separate lives.

[caringcarer]

Get him to get checked out for sleep apnoea. My dh started snoring and he has it. Now he sleeps in a mask with air and no more snoring.

[Neverender]

Omg I'd love that!

[ChipSandwich]

he attended a sleep/snoring clinic where they discovered some kind of physical deviation that could be treated but he opted not to have it, so yes it could have been sorted

Same with my husband. They found a physical reason for his snoring and he had the surgery which was very painful, he couldn't eat solid food for a couple of weeks. It didn't stop him snoring. Still went on to have a cpap machine.

[Orangeballon]

Having your own room is bliss, we had a five bed detached with two of the bedrooms being large in size. We had one each. He snores like a trumpeting elephant. You can always nip in together for a cuddle.

[givemesteel]

I'm mid 30s and dh and I have slept apart for a couple of years, but we are still in the pregnant / breastfeeding / waking baby years, so I don't know what we will do long term. But tbh I prefer having that alone space after a busy day.

Also dh likes to go to bed about 1-2 hours after me and I can't really settle to slerp knowing he's going to come in and wake me up. I can't help it, it's just the way I am. So if we sleep together I either have to ask him to come up before he woukd want yo or accept I lose a couple of hours sleep a night that I really really need right now.

There's also the whole differences in mattress, in duvets etc, his snoring (pretty mild) my night wees... All the practical realities points towards seperate rooms long term, but I do think we've lost some of our intimacy from not sharing a bed.

[Smilingthru]

My husband and I have done this since we before we were even engaged! Best thing ever! The only time we’ve broken this is when we bought our DDs home from hospital and he stayed in my bed for a few nights to help support with BF etc. Best thing ever! X

[SevenSeasofRye]

Interesting post. My parents slept in single beds and then separate bedrooms all their married lives.
My husband started snoring and developed restless legs then insomnia. I was being driven mad by it so he would start going to the spare room in the middle of the night. For the past couple of weeks we’ve just started sleeping separate and he sleeps through now. I feel lonely and abandoned but at least we both sleep properly. It seems a sad state of affairs but seems the only answer.

[keepforgettingmyusername]

We have separate beds because toddler DS sleeps in bed with me. Neither of us are in any rush to share a bed again and I'm not sure if we ever will on a regular basis again. The notion that couples must share a bed to be close makes me laugh now!

[Megan2018]

We’ve had separate rooms for years! Very healthy marriage, currently pg.
We designed our house to have 2 proper master bedrooms. We both luxuriate in Superking beds but only share if we have a house full of guests eg Christmas.

I have a sleep disorder and DH has a field based job with early starts a lot of driving daily.

In relatively recent history only the poor shared a bed, married people with money had their own rooms.

[minionsrule]

Similar here, DH has always been a dreadful snorer (as is his mum!!!). Week nights i start on our room but 90%of the time i either can't sleep or i wake up during the night and move.
Weekends i go straight to spare room as alcohol makes him snore worse.
Works for us

[ChipSandwich]

The only people I know that do, are elderly couples, to be honest

Heh The first response. Make it an old person issue.

In my experience, the older the couple are, the more likely they are to feel they have to adhere to the rules of sleeping in the same bed.
Like my 80 year old MiL who would have loved to have her own space because of FiLs snoring, but would have been afraid of judgement from him and others if she'd tried to make her own life more comfortable.

No such worries for me and husband. He snores and I fidget. We piss each other off in sleeping terms so we make use of the separate bedrooms we have available. We're getting on, obvs, with a mil of 80.

But it really isn't age related. MiL stayed in the marital bed throughout, because to sleep in another room would be tantamount to the end of a marriage. (Which it's obvs not)

Please. It's not an old person thing.

[80sMum]

The problem with sleeping separatley is you get used to it. So when you book hotels etc you can't get a night's sleep!

Yes, that's true! I have spent some uncomfortable nights sleeping on the floor, or even sometimes in the bathroom, of hotels! Thankfully, we very rarely stay in hotels now; usually only one night before catching a flight. We prefer self-catering holidays to hotels and always book a place with at least two bedrooms.

[ChipSandwich]

I just feel like sleeping in separate rooms sometimes can be the start of living separate lives

Nope. You're just separate whilst you're asleep. It's lovely to get up in the morning and say a fresh hello.. Sometimes I'm up first and have the coffee and breakfast ready. Sometimes he does. Sometimes if I know he's awake (when I hear his radio on) I go in and bring some tea and toast.. Sometimes he will bring me tea and toast whilst I'm still fast asleep (He hasn't finessed it sufficiently)

It's what you make it. If you are growing apart anyway it will happen quicker. If you love each other but disturbed sleep is forcing you apart, it will bring you together and make your loving relationship sustainable.