Happily Married by Day, “Divorced” by Night

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I grew up watching The Brady Bunch. I watched Mike and Carol Brady tuck in for the night in separate beds and found it a little strange. Separate beds? Don’t happy couples snuggle in for the night? I vowed to be the type of wife who puts on a pretty little nightgown and snuggles in next to her husband every single night. Fast forward a few years, and my husband and I rarely sleep in the same room. Call it sleep privacy, call it the night divorce, call it crazy — I call it our normal.

Woman Sleeping Alone

Bring On the Questions

Let’s take a moment to gather ourselves after the audible gasp heard around the room. Whenever I tell people that he and I don’t sleep in the same bed on the regular, I am met with all sorts of questions.

“How do you have sex?” The same way you do: WHEN WE ARE AWAKE.  

“A mother and father belong in the same bed.” Even if they never, ever get a solid night’s sleep? I feel like this is negotiable, Karen.

“When do you spend time together?” Well folks, we spend plenty of time together. We spend time together while the kids nap on the weekends. We often spend one-on-one time together after our children go to bed. But when it’s time to get down to the business of sleeping, I don’t want a partner in crime.  

“Is everything okay?” Umm . . . yes, I think so. Why — did you hear something?

Let Me Explain

I’m here to tell you that we are okay. In fact, we are better than okay. Where we lay our heads to rest at night says nothing about the state of our relationship. The truth is, we are compatible in just about every single way during waking hours, but in sleep? We are 100 percent incompatible. Polar opposites, and NOT the kind that attract.

I prefer to sleep in complete silence and darkness. Every single sound wakes me. T could fall asleep in the middle of a rave, kid you not. He stays up late and doesn’t ever appear to be tired. Ever. It’s really sort of miraculous. I, on the other hand, require an infinite amount of sleep and launch myself into bed as soon as I feel like it’s socially acceptable (i.e., 8:30 p.m. on a good night). I wake up early to go to the gym, while T would rather sleep in.  

Not to mention the SNORING. It’s not fair to me to stay up all night long because my husband snores, and it’s not fair to him that I wake him up every 13 minutes with a swift kick asking him to roll over so that I can have a reprieve from the chain-sawing.

As long as I can remember, sleep has not come easily to me. A good night’s sleep is like a precious gift from the universe, so I will be damned if I’m going to spend the rest of my life in a permanent state of exhaustion just so I can assure everyone our marriage is fine.

Embrace the Sleep Privacy

I used to feel abashed about our habits, but our dirty little secret came out at a party recently, and guess what? I learned that three-fourths of the people present preferred sleep privacy. Say what? These are my people.

couple in bed

In the end, I will take all the raised eyebrows and whispering glances in the name of a good night’s sleep. I’m a better mom, wife, employee, personal chef, exerciser, and overall family coordinator if I’m not fumbling around in a constant state of fatigue.  

How about you, friends? Are you on team “sleep privacy”?

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Amanda
Amanda is a New York girl living in a Texas world. In 2009, she followed her heart to the Lone Star state to Mansfield. She is wife to Timothy, and mother to Ryann and Grey. They love traveling and hunkering down at home with equal passion. Amanda is a speech pathologist by day and the maker of snacks, giver of baths, and the reader of bedtime stories by night. A lover of food and health, she spends an alarming amount of time researching plant-based recipes, experimenting in her perpetually messy kitchen, and of course, subjecting her family to the fruits of her labor. When not portioning out perfectly even snacks, you can find her at Orange Theory Fitness, in the Starbucks drive-thru line, reading anything, daydreaming about date nights, and planning the Fyfe family’s next adventure.

22 COMMENTS

  1. This wins the internet today! Amanda, this has been such an encouragement to read. We, too, sleep separately for ALL THE SAME REASONS. He snores and flips around all night, needs less sleep, is a human furnace, and is basically incompatible with my sleeping needs. I fall asleep easily in various conditions, but I wake easily, freeze easily, and need more rest than he does. Our marriage is fine. I just can’t sleep next to him and it’s something we don’t talk about with others. This has been great to read that we are part of a larger population who are also apparently not talking about it.

    • Daisy, thank you for reading!! The snoring is a real deal issue. It’s the worst!!! Isn’t it funny how we think no one else has the same issues and struggles as we do? I thought we were going to be blackballed from our friend group the night we let it slip that we have our own rooms. Turns out it’s more common than we thought! Enjoy your sleep privacy!

      • My husband of 2 years is fun to cuddle with. I love being close together.
        He works 3rd shift and I like sleeping alone.i sleep better and am independent enough to be okay with it.
        Good read and I totally get it!

    • Exactly! I mean, seriously. Am I supposed to just NEVER SLEEP WELL AGAIN just so I can say we share a bed?! I want to weep just thinking about those sleepless nights. No ma’am.

  2. We have separate beds in separate rooms lol I can sleep all bundled up with no snoring and no fan blowing. It’s bliss.

  3. Amanda,
    Thank you so much for this article! It made me lose any guilt over kicking my sweet, squirmy daughter and my chainsaw snoring husband out of the bed. I love them both dearly but sleeping with both of them made me have zero decent nights sleep in FOUR years. I honestly don’t know how I functioned. When I started suffering from severe fibromyalgia, I had to sleep alone. I was taking sleep medicine for insomnia and I was in so much pain that I couldn’t stand anyone touching me when I tried to sleep. I know my husband wants to leave the guest room and come back to bed with me, but I think I’ve finally got the solution to my sleep problems. I’ve also made my bedroom my solo comfortable sanctuary. I’ve added girly touches that made me relaxed and soothed — double brushed sheets, floral quilt, light colors. I don’t want to give up this sleeping space EVER. Sleep is so valuable and me and my white noise machine and I sleep together just fine.

    • And you and your white noise machine deserve all the happiness in the world, LOL! Girl, I struggled through the sleepless nights until our children were born. From that point on, there was NO WAY I could go without a decent night’s sleep. Insomnia is so tough- I struggle with it as well. I’m wishing you 10 hour pain-free nights of sleep on the regular!! xoxo

  4. TEAM SLEEP TOGETHER! Native Texan here and happily married for 18 years. Yes, my husband and I are polar opposites including our bedtime routine. He snores and I gotta have my fan on. Marriage is all about compromise and learning how to handle different situations such as sleeping together. In my opinion, sleeping together is just as important as sex. Creating that special connection between each other, differences aside. Starting and ending each day with my husband, comforts me and completes me. Every night I ask him to open the door a crack. Because the little kid inside of me still needs a night light. He hates it, rolls his eyes and obliges. Every night, he has to sleep with his c-pab. I hate the sound of it. Every little noise wakes me up. But you know what…we deal with it. Our bodies learn to adapt and we fall asleep. You speak of fairness, is it fair to wake each-other because of this habitat or that one? But, you know what is not fair? Blaming someone else. I would never blame my husband for a restless night of sleep. Even if he was the culprit. Instead, I would find a solution. One that would keep him in my bed.

    • Jean, thanks for reading! It sounds as if you and your husband have found a situation that truly works for your marriage- just as T and I have. It’s amazing how each and every union is so very unique!

      Just to clarify- I do not blame my marriage or husband for my chronic insomnia. As mentioned above, I have suffered from disordered sleep my entire life.

      Best wishes for a happy spring!

    • Ohh, that’s such a great question! I’m sure the answer is different for every family. T and I aren’t intentional about explaining our sleep patterns to our children. Most likely because they go to sleep before we do and wake up long after we are up and around, so the question doesn’t come up very often.

      My hope is that since my kiddos see the love we share in so many other ways throughout our day, where we sleep won’t negatively impact their thoughts about the sanctity of our marriage.

      Thanks for reading!! xoxo

  5. Fantastic article! My husband and I not always, but often sleep separately. We have 4 children 13, 6, 3, &6m. The youngest still nurses through the night and I have trouble sleeping without thw added distraction. My husband is Narcoleptic, a dedicated soft snorer, and wakes up hours before the rest of us for work. The main reason though is that our bodies needs are different comfort wise. Our current bed makes his back hurt and our old bed hurt mine. In the future we may get one of those beds where the sides can be adjusted separately… but for now, we are perfectly happy with how things are!

    • Those beds are amazing!! We definitely split up when our babies were nursing- if we stayed in the same room, no one slept. Well- except for the baby. 😉

  6. I sleep in the same bed as my husband, but when we first got married, it took (no joke) an entire year for me to sleep through the night. For a long time, I was waking up constantly and in a state of exhaustion all the time. I remember my husband going on an overnight trip when we were about two months in and I was like, “Finally! I can actually get some sleep!” Not sure why I never thought of this. My parents sleep in separate rooms and my sister and her husband sleep in separate rooms, mainly because of snoring.

  7. We sometimes end up in different rooms too! Do what works for you, your husband and your family and don’t let anyone judge you or tell you differently. My husband and I don’t even try to sleep together in a queen sized bed anymore when we travel. Sleep is so important for physical and mental health. If you’re lucky enough to have the space for alternate arrangements, then do what makes your marriage happy and functional.

    • I get panicky when we travel because the chances are good we’ll have to sleep together. If possible, we each take a kid and retreat to separate beds! And yessssss ma’am. Do what you have to do to make life work!

  8. Fun read! I hear ya on the snoring. It is so hard to sleep through!!!

    But hey, didn’t Mike and Carol Brady share a bed? That’s what was so scandalous about the show – they actually showed them in bed together chatting at the end of the night which up til that point most TV couples were shown in separate beds.,

  9. My husband and I have a king size bed and a pillow wall! Basically it’s a body pillow between us so I don’t kick or hit him at night (I move alot). Do what works for you. I imagine the worst is travel for you two. Two hotel rooms probably gets expensive!

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