Ok, I can’t really think a great way of wording the title, but basically - I’d like to know if you feel that sleeping in a separate room each night from your DH, could have the potential to/will make the relationship suffer on the whole?
So, background/explanation:
DH and I have had three DC’s in three years, so naturally our relationship has somewhat been put on the back burner for a while now, what with all of our attention being focused on our very young children. We rarely, well, never get time alone together. My mum will happily take the eldest two DC one or twice a month for the afternoon (they’re 2 and 3), but that still leaves us with a breastfed baby who rarely naps, so while we do value her taking the other DC’s as it means our ‘load’ becomes lighter for a few hours, we’re still not exactly ‘free’ to be alone together IYSWIM.
I’m currently cosleeping with the baby. Baby is 5 months old and EBF so it’s just easier to have him in bed with me all night for the all-too-constant feeds. DH has, this week, announced that he can’t get sufficient sleep with the baby in the bed with us and has taken to sleeping in the lounge. I told him I didn’t think that was a great solution to this problem, and if he could come up with an idea/a fix whereby DH can remain sleeping in the bed with me, but a way in which I also won’t have to spend hours each night trying to get the baby to settle in to the next-to-me cot (baby won’t sleep in there at all, it was one of the other reasons why having him in bed with us happened, as I was getting no sleep at all trying to put him down over and over again with no luck!) then I’ll happily take any of his suggestions on board and we could work towards a situation that better suited all of us!
Anyway, he woke the following morning after his first night on the sofa, and I asked him what he thinks we should do about this issue. He said that he’ll be sleeping on the sofa for the foreseeable future and that actually, he got a really good nights sleep away from us. I didn’t want to admit it, but I too got the best nights sleep I’ve had in ages, as for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t kept awake by ridiculously loud snoring and having the entire duvet yanked off of me every five minutes. So, we both slept well, that’s a good thing, I guess, but I’m wary that us sleeping in separate rooms combined with us generally having very little time/opportunity/effort to put in to the relationship, will forge together and culminate in us becoming more like house mates/friends, if you see where I’m coming from?
After being around two toddlers and a breastfeeding baby all day, every day, I’m completely past the point of being touched out by the time DH gets in from work. My ‘affection-o-meter’ is entirely full by 6pm and I just have nothing left to give to DH. I’m anxious that us being apart throughout the night too, will be something of a catalyst in a relationship that’s already lacking in affection and time?
Has anyone been through anything similar and can say either 1) different rooms had zero effect on the relationship and that once DC’s were older and you had more time, your relationship ‘blossomed’ again? Or 2) sleeping separately sparked the beginning of the end?!