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Why some married couples are choosing to sleep in separate beds.
It was somewhere between the incessant snoring and the choking sounds coming from her future husband that Paige Barr decided she wasn't going to go through it every night. That was more than 13 years ago, and Barr, a 36-year-old casting director/actor, still married the man she loved -- she just doesn't sleep in his bed.
It's a decision that was the best for their relationship, Barr explains. Before separate beds, she was so bereft of sleep that during the day, she was a nightmare. Her husband Daniel Craft, a 38-year-old manager of music rights and data, suffers from sleep apnea so sleeping apart, "means we both get some well-deserved 'me' time, even though we're both pretty independent."
Barr and her husband aren't alone in their decision to split their sleeping arrangements.
The National Sleep Foundation took a 2001 telephone survey of 1,004 random adults and found 12 percent of married Americans slept in a bed alone. The same survey in 2005 found that number had climbed dramatically to 23 percent.
And it's not just an American quirk.
The Sleep Council of England reported in 2008 that an online survey of 1,408 adult couples found 1 in 4 regularly had a spouse who found a good night's sleep waiting for them in a guest room or on a couch.
For some couples, it just makes sense to seek refuge in another bed. Heather Miller, a 46-year-old marketing director, and her husband, Mike, often find themselves sleeping separately thanks to the crazy hours her husband works -- such as 24-hour shifts about five days out of each month. "He's an emergency room doctor who works different shifts," explained Miller. "That's pretty much made him an insomniac. He's up and down and moving a lot. I'm a mom and I'm a light sleeper, so he sleeps in the guest bedroom and we both get some sleep."
It's not uncommon for such differences in sleeping styles to lead to a departure from a same-bed routine. Stephanie Coontz, the author of "
Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage," explains how couples are making adjustments to better suit their lifestyles. "Constant sleep deprivation does not foster sexual feelings, " says Coontz. If one partner snores or kicks and keeps the other awake, she suggests separate sleeping arrangements, having learned the benefit of such arrangements first hand. "For several years, my own husband worked a shift that required him to get up at 3 a.m., so we found that our relationship was much better if we slept apart on his work days and together on his days off. It's really important that couples work out arrangements that meet their needs instead of listening to one-size-fits-all advice."
Despite sleeping in separate beds, sexuality doesn't have to suffer. Barbara Risman, the executive director of the
Council on Contemporary Families, said there's no reason that separation between a husband and wife during sleep would have to affect their sex life. "There doesn't seem to me to be any necessary impact of sleeping apart on the sexual relationship," she said. "Couples can have sex, and then go to a separate place to sleep. And presumably each one knows where the other is, and can surprise them."
Alisa Bowman, a 39-year-old author of several books and the relationship blog
Project Happily Ever After, said she and her 43-year-old husband, Mark, sleep in separate beds at times due to incompatible sleep habits, but it doesn't stop the romance. "We have sex during the day, so it truly doesn't matter where either one of us sleeps at night," she said. "If anything, it helps because I'm a lot more likely to be in the mood if I'm well-rested."
Coontz, however, admits sleeping in separate beds may take some of the spontaneity out of sex, but says it's not necessarily detrimental. "Yes, sleeping apart prevents you from doing the cuddling that can sometimes lead to spontaneous sex," she said. "But it can also be a real turn-on to know that you have to make a special effort to have sex, not just roll over and do it. It all depends on how the couple handles it and what their preferences are."
Getting a good night's sleep is just as important as intimacy, said Barr. She had so much trouble sleeping with her husband that her entire day was ruined by a bad night's sleep. Now, she said, the idea of curling up alone in bed and sleeping through the night trumps having him roll over and be romantic. It helps that they make a point of not abandoning other intimate moments. "I suppose it affects some spontaneity, but if I get solid sleep instead, it's worth it," said Barr. The pair is able to sneak in some snuggle-time before going to bed when they read together.
For Miller and her husband, it wasn't separate sleeping areas that hindered their spur-of-the-moment romps. Instead, it was having four children -- three teenagers and an 11-year-old. While her husband's insomnia is what sends them to their own rooms at night, she hardly blames him. "It's definitely not him, it's me," she admits. "I'm the one who can't sleep when he's moving around, and I worry that if I roll over when he's just about to fall asleep that I'll wake him up."
Bowman and Miller said they hadn't pictured sleeping separately when they first got married. Bowman used to fall asleep with her head on her husband's chest each night. Miller and her husband spent their initial married years in a three-quarter size bed.
Of course, sleeping in separate beds isn't an entirely new phenomenon -- after all, Lucy and Ricky slept comfortably in separate beds at night. While it may have been more common in years past, Risman notes that separate sleeping quarters have been on the rise as seen in the number of suburban homes being built with two master suites. The fact of the matter, says Coontz, is that sleeping in the same bed was a growing trend for the past 60 years but before that, it wasn't the norm at all.
"It is important to note that up until the mid-19th century it was quite common to sleep in separate beds for middle-class couples who had the space," she said. "It was in the 1950s and 1960s, as sexuality became a bit more open for married couples and therapists insisted that they should have as much togetherness as possible, that it became really popular to have the same bed. Today, more couples are feeling free to go back to other arrangements, if it meets their needs."
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