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?

I know more couples who sleep separately than together including us. Feel really sorry for anyone who has to bed share unless they really want to!
Edir to say that the dog prefers only sharing with me 😉

During covid my work was very stressful and full on and I was also peri menopausal so sex became less and less frequent. I did think about HRT to boost my sex drive and discussed it with DH. He said it was up to me and to definitely go ahead if I thought it would add to my over all wellbeing. He also said not to do it if I was only doing it so I would feel like having sex ( I think he was a bit worried that I would become insatiable!😂) He has had a lowish sex drive due to medical issues for some years. So our sex life is all but done.

DH and I have been married for 28 years and have had separate rooms for the last 18 or so. He snores and I talk in my sleep so having our own rooms is an absolute must. He's also an untidy bugger and I like order and calm so my bedroom is my haven. We always sleep separately on holiday as well! It's absolute bliss.

Separate bedrooms and separate bathrooms leads to a long and happy marriage - I brag about it to friends and anyway the dogs take precedent!

DH and I separated for 3 years and I slept alone and loved it. We eventually got back together, but still lived apart. TBH I loved it but he didn't, and as he also owns the house I had to capitulate, plus it was costing a fortune, lol. I now have to sleep with a stupid boy! I miss my space in bed where I could write a journal!

This is how I feel, If I am truthful. I am willing to give up that closeness and emotional intimacy in order to have my own space which I value so highly. We have been together a long time and I hope we stay together, but sometimes I wonder if I have let things slip a bit too much.

We have separate rooms. We've been together 21 years and married for 13. We've had separate rooms for about 15 years!

I'm a light, fidgety sleeper who gets as grumpy as hell when I'm tired. DH is a deep sleeping snorer who can sleep anywhere, any time!

We share a room on holiday and staying at friends houses. I'm happy to wear ear plugs foe a few nights but they give me ear ache after a while. I still don't sleep as well though.

We're more than happy to admit those are our sleeping arrangements and as such know a few people who do the same.

I think the older generations are more conditioned to believe the same bed is almost a condition of marriage but out generation (we're in our 40's) and younger are happier to just do what works.

My GM had relationship like that for about 35 years. They loved it and were very happy together apart! It also made it very easy on inheritance (abroad, different system). She never wanted to live with another man after my abusive GD. No matter how lovely (this guy was). And I was spoiled in two flats as a kid 😁

Never thought of it from that point of view, but yes we have the space. Most families are not so overcrowded as they used to be.

So I couldn’t imagine this for myself, I miss my husband if we are sleeping apart due to illness. But I knew two couples who were married for 50 and 60 years respectively who had twin beds in the same room.

Works fine for us too. Yes, people see it as a fire warning of certain relationship doom.
In actual fact far more women sleep right next to a partner who rapes them, verbal, physically or psychological abuse them....so sharing a bed is not a sign of healthy relationship

I personally would hate it. And I suffer from insomnia. I don’t think I could sleep separately form my husband it would feel wrong.

But each person and relationship is so different that if it works for you both then it’s perfectly ok! My view is that people think it’s weird because they somehow feel that your relationship mustn’t be very good (or as good as theirs) in their eyes. It’s not Something they want for themselves. But who cares about what others think? They should mind their own business.

It sounds like house mates rather than a marriage. I’m single so have automatically got my own room but in your situation I’d want at least some bedtime cuddles and beyond……!

Simple answer: Jealousy. Most of them are jealous. They are as jealous as fuck that you have your own little space. Also a few of them just genuinely don't understand and don't get it, because they can't be away from iccle hubster for 5 minutes and just have to cuddle up in bed with him, and feel lost without him there. A few others genuinely cannot fathom any married couple sleeping separately from their spouse and think it's the first sign of problems in the marriage. I have known a few married couples in the past where the woman can't sleep properly AT ALL because of her husband's snoring and she will NOT go to the spare bedroom. because 'married couples shouldn't sleep apart.' LOL! What horseshit. 😆Imagine being such a martyr! Go to the spare room and get some sleep woman!

I cannot fathom how anyone can sleep in the same bed as their spouse/partner for 40-50 years or more. Sharing a tiny 6X4 ft space sleeping with another adult for the rest of your life is bizarre IMO. It is not conducive to good sleep at all. Men snore, they grunt, they thrash about in the night, they fart, they breathe on the back of your neck, they cough, and they steal the duvet. There is NOTHING appealing about sharing a bed with anyone IMO. Even if you have a bigger bed, you can't get away from the snoring. And NO I am not wearing bloody noise cancelling headphone!

I grew up with my own bedroom and my own bed, and I have never liked sharing. I had a one bedroom flat with my DH when we first got together, and we were OK for 3-4 years, then we bought a 2 bed house, still shared a room for another 3-4 years... Then I had our first baby. They had the second bedroom. DC 2 was born a couple of years later, and shared that bedroom.. During the first 3-4 years of their lives DH thickened out, put weight on (maybe 20 pounds) and hit his mid 30s, and he started to snore. So I had to sleep on the couch and it pissed me off as I couldn't sleep properly. He got worse as time went on..

tl;dr, we moved when the DC were infant school age to a 4 bed house and I had my own bedroom. 25-ish years have gone by, and I would never go back. I love it. My own little cosy room exactly how I want it, and peace and quiet and no DH snoring, grunting, farting, coughing, or thrashing about in the bed. BLISS!

He was disgruntled at first, and all like 'what will people think?' and tried to hide it from people. I didn't give a shit. Still don't. He was OK after about a year and didn't care anymore, and loves having his own room now too.. Over 30 years married now, and perfectly content. Seen many a couple hit the rocks and spilt up. And some of them slept together.

(We moved out of the 4 bed about a decade ago, and moved to a smaller home, a cottage, but I still have my own bedroom.)

Oh, and we pay for separate bedrooms in hotels too. Sod the cost. The holiday would be ruined if I had no sleep! I have had quite a number of women who have come on the holiday with their husband (and are sharing a room) sigh, and roll their eyes, as they didn't know they could have had separate room, and they are deeply envious of me. 😆 'Oooooh I wish had known you could have separate rooms from your husband!' they say as they look at me wistfully, getting my OWN room key!

.

I’m in this happy club too! I was the fidgety snorer, forever being told to stop snoring or stop fidgeting which made me want to scream at being constantly woken, and I would go to the spare room. One day it just became permanent. I love it. I often have my dog on the bed I don’t give a stuff if people think that’s gross, I adore her little sleeping body there and she doesn’t mind whatever noise I make. Don’t often stay in hotels but we did it a couple of years ago and never, ever, again.

No i can't understand this. Id be so sad sleeping separately. My best part of the day is getting into bed together. I often wake at night and have that horrible nighttime anxiety feeling. When I get that I always reach across for him. Id rather put up with snoring than sleep alone.

Most of us have kids and other commitments so can't be at it in the living room or on kitchen surfaces willy nilly. I think it is absolutely normal to wait for the privacy of bed and those who sleep separately but profess to have wild sex lives I think protest too much.

To share a bed and to have sex whenever is part of a healthy, good relationship. To sleep with the dog alone whilst dh is wanking next door is not.

We sleep separately as we have a child who has never slept through in 3 years and the layout of the house means its easier to take turns sleeping in the double bed in his room. We missed eachother terribly at first but we've got used to it. We slept in the same bed visiting family a while ago and I'd forgotten he snores, I'm sure he wakes our kiddo up too but moving house soon so hanging tight to change things up!

Okay that makes sense

We haven’t got a spare room but if we did we would definitely sleep separately, when we go on holiday I always book a two bed place so we can have a room each and it’s amazing. We both sleep better, nothing strange in it at all.

We do feel married, but definitely more in the friendship realm now. I think if I was a lot younger ( in our 60s now) I would be more concerned. He is kind and funny and generous, our finances are tied up and we have a comfortable life, grown up children and a dog we both adore. Our early years were fairly passionate.

Sleeping separately from my (ex) partner was the best decision I ever made and I'm never permanently sharing a bed with anyone ever again

I’ve commented on a similar thread before as I love the way things work at ours. DP works shifts and will often do a couple of months of nights at a time. I regularly get the tv to myself in the evening and then head upstairs to starfish in the middle of the bed. Unlike everyone else that has made a conscious decision there is no pressure or worry about whether we’ll share a bed together again as it just happens naturally when he’s off or back on early/mid shift.

I’ll never share my bed again. Sleep is beneficial to everyone in the house!

Currently sleeping in separate beds. Our youngest child comes in which makes for very uncomfortable sleep. Sometimes our eldest child comes in too. Then the dog. Then my husband decided his bad back was down to our mattress.

When my parents are staying he moves back in and it's nice but I'm getting very used to the arrangement. We often go to bed together and are intimate and then he toddles off.

My parents have slept apart all my life and I always hated the idea but now I'm living it and it's not a big deal!!