AIBU to ask about your sleeping arrangements with your DP

[Hydrangeblueeyes]

About 3 years ago my husband started sleeping in the spare room due to his incessant snoring. Not only did it wake me up in the night, it stopped me from getting to sleep. I couldn't use ear plugs because I had to be on call overnight sometimes for my work and also my Mum was getting frail and she may have needed to contact me at night. He is also a light sleeper, and would often wake me up when he was getting up in the night to go downstairs if he couldn't sleep ( he would inevitably drop his phone on the bedroom floor when doing that , which meant I was seething with fury and couldn't get back to sleep!!) Any way..... three years later I have retired from work, my mum died and my husband lost weight and doesn't seem to snore. But, I don't want to ever share a bed with anyone ever again. My husband also seems happy with the arrangement. I love my own space, to read as long as I like, paint my nails at bedtime, have the room / bed as warm/cool as I like, listen to podcasts. So why do I feel that it is an admission of failure? That married couples should somehow sleep together, like my parents and grandparents did? I shouldn't care what people think, but I never tell friends/family that we don't sleep in the same bed if the subject ever comes up. It kind of feels like separate beds equals emotional distance too. We get on fine, we been together 30 years with the usual ups and downs. Does anyone else have this arrangement? If so do you feel a bit uneasy about it? Or are we just conditioned to sleep in the same bed as our partners?

Quite the reverse here as dc cosleeps with us.

On the other hand, DH works from home on Tues afternoons whilst dc is at school.

This is something like how I feel, that I have spent years sharing beds with men ( not when married to DH!) and children, and now it is like I have reclaimed my self and come full circle to my childhood/teens when my room ( I was the only girl in the family so didn't have to share) was my refuge where I read as long as I wanted to . Maybe it is regression 😂.This only started due to DH snoring, but now I am amazed that I spent nearly 30 years sharing a bed and room with him.

I know what you mean about a refuge. I had to share a bedroom with 2 sisters until I went to university, and have always wanted a space of my own. I love my bed 💜

I hope he disables the microphone 😉!

Its a bit bizarre isnt it
Perhaps these posters havent hit Menopause yet, its a huge physical and emotional shift
Personally Im delighted that we have successfully negotiated this change and come out the other side
Ive never been a cuddly person either, cant stand someone touching me whilst I try to sleep and need at least one coffee prior to conversation 😂

May I just point out that super king should be nothing special because it's 2 singles. Therefore, it is the true double. 😂
Adults on double bed and king have less width available per person than kid on standard single bed.... (doubles are also usually shorter from the three)
Where I grew up the doubles are called "one and half"

Well exactly it isn't rocket science is it that in a busy household bedrooms and bedtime are often the only place and time that many have time and privacy.

I still don't quite believe that some posters who talk with such utter revulsion and hostility about their coughing, farting, snoring partners are ripping their clothes off in the kitchen before solo bed time .

Sharing a bed is nice. Happy healthy relationships should include sleeping together imo.

No revulsion or hostility. Realism, and keeping a happy marriage just that! 😊

I've always been the same, even pre menopause! As I said, it's about finding good, comfortable sleeping habits. I couldn't face a ful working day, sleeping in a hot bedroom with the windows closed. So, really, it's what suits. We're all individuals, make it work for your situation!

This is just it though
I dont suffer the snoring, farting or coughing anymore
It has improved relations no end

Sharing a bed is nice. Happy healthy relationships should include sleeping together imo
Nope

Someone wisely told me that people often dont want to understand, they just like self medicating via arguing that others are wrong and cant possibly be happy
Therefore I wont seek to convince you further

DH and I together 37 years and still share a bed. While it might suit some people, for me it's very much a part of our closeness, having a cuddle, watching newsnight together, bringing each other a cup of tea in the morning and waking up together. Yes at times his snoring has woken me but usually a prod to get him to turn over does the trick! If it were really disturbing me on a regular basis, I might feel differently.

If it works for you, and you're both happy with it, I don't think it's a problem to sleep separately, many couples do. My parents had separate rooms in the last few years of their marriage, after my dad had an operation, he slept in another room as he needed the space in bed and they never went back! They both seemed perfectly happy with the arrangement.

Do what works for you and don't feel embarrassed.

Sleep and rest is a fundamental human right like the right to food shelter and safety. I think it’s important to protect
i guess how you both arrange intimacy though is something to be thought about.

There's lots of people in your situation for various reasons. You don't need to worry about it.

Does that mean that people who sleep together don't divorce and split up?

Does that mean that people who have separate rooms don't stay together long term. 😂

It's all down to the relationship not the beds.

Slept apart for about the last 8 years, works well for us, still very much in love, have had 2 more children since. The only difficulty is that it obviously takes up an extra bedroom so I still share with our youngest who only being 2 doesn’t mind at all but will need her own bedroom at some point but can probably share with sibling for a few years. Then we’ll
probably need to convert the dining room into a bedroom

No it doesn't mean that those who sleep together don't divorce, obviously. As you say it's the relationship not the beds that matter.

However if posters are actually honest they'd admit that if in separate rooms there's a bit of a distance and disconnect. Often goes with sexless relationships (though not on here some are desperate to convince us) but generally it does not lead to a close, physical relationship.

Well, you can't really judge what's going on in other people's relationships. I don't know where you're getting "desperation" from, it's just a chat and people are sharing experience. Believe, don't believe, it really doesn't matter. If it works then it's fine. Surely?

Yep.

It goes both ways I think. This who don't cans secretly think those that insist on it are clingy or controlling. There's no right opinion.

I think sharing a bed long term with 'he who even the cat abandons sleeping with and he's her human' husband would have killed our marriage. Sleep is king.

The trouble is, for many people, sharing a bed isn't nice. For some it is. Either is fine. People are different.

It can also depend who you're sharing with - for me, bedsharing with DH is awful and cases huge sleep deprivation for both of us, but bedsharing with DC is fine and slightly improves total sleep quality/quantity.

When we toured it, I was interested that the main bedroom on the Royal Yacht Britannia had 2 single beds, but Prince Charles had a double installed when he married Diana, which was considered rather radical at the time.

Yes! I saw that on Britannia. I was partly thinking about that when I posted the original post. I am not particularly a royalist but it was an interesting tour. At that point I was still sharing a bed/room with DH and secretly envied the aristocratic traditional of separate rooms.

our grandparents' generation didn't consider it normal to sleep in the same bed. If it works for you, and helps your marriage, where's the harm? and whose business is it anyway but yours?

My grandparents - all born in the late 19th century - certainly did.

Mine were born around WW1. One set had separate beds, one didn't. Whatever works for the couple!

We had separate rooms for similar reasons. We also got divorced. My ex blames everything and everyone for his affair, including the separate sleeping arrangements- despite an active sex life 🤷‍♀️

Separate rooms here, bloody marvellous.