A
male
age
51-59,
anonymous
writes:My wife and I sleep in separate bedrooms. We have been married for 19 years and this started about 6 years ago. Before that time, we always spent the night together. In fact, I can remember once when my wife was away at her mom's in another state that she said she couldn't sleep without me by her side and that made me feel good to hear. Now, however, we only sleep together maybe 2-3 nights per year - if we are visiting a relative or traveling. Often, even when we travel my wife requests a hotel room with two beds. Sometimes that is not available and so we end up sharing a bed. Sometimes it's okay when we do and other times it's not and it is irritating.This all started when would get upset about her refusing to be intimate with me or we'd have some other sort of argument. I would then go to sleep on the couch by myself, not wanting to be near her. This was just occasionally. However, we keep different schedules. She's a morning person and I hate mornings. She's a light sleeper and she would get upset when I went to bed and woke her up on accident. She often would not be able to get back to bed. Her insomnia was only gotten worse with age. I snore (always have) and suddenly she decided that my snoring was unbearable and keeping her awake. Sharing a bed we also both feel rather cramped and hot. She will steal covers and sometimes kick and elbow me in my sleep. She says she feels claustrophobic if I sleep with my arm around her.Overall, I think we both get better sleep apart from each other. However, I really miss going to bed with her at night and waking up with her in the morning. For a while, I would wake up early and spend time in bed with her. Rarely, she would do the same. Lately, we stopped doing that. It makes me very sad and a little ashamed that we cannot stand to share a bed with each other after doing so for 13 years. Our parents (and her sister) both think it's a bit weird, but they also know that I snore and that my wife is a light sleeper. (My wife once kicked her mom in the back for snoring when they were forced to share a bed.) Part of me doesn't care what other people think, but the other part thinks that if most people share a bed then why can't we? Are we just so incompatible? If so, is that a symptom of deeper problems? I think I would be happier if we went back to sleeping together, but we get sooo much better sleep with each of us in our own big bed in our own rooms. My parents slept apart from each other for most of their (rocky) marriage so maybe this is why I think this is somewhat acceptable. My wife's parents got divorced when she was young.How much should I be concerned about this? Is this really abnormal? I know people used to do this all the time in the past and yet I feel like if I admit to anyone they look at me with pity or else like I have two heads or something.
View related questions:
divorce Reply to this Question
Share |
Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (15 October 2011): okay first of all, when you are fighting is going to bed mad and sleeping on the couch that is a problem.no matter how mad you are you should always sleep in the same room no matter what.you should never go to sleep mad at each other either. this can cause serious problems in a marriage.second it really isn't normal to sleep in separate rooms, so i disagree with what everyone else has said. sleeping in separate rooms is asking for trouble.this is what people would call an unhappy marriage. you need to talk to your wife about what is going on and see if maybe there is some kind of solution.the worst thing you can do is not talk to your wife-communication is very important.
A
female
reader, person12345 +, writes (15 October 2011):
 A LOT more couples than you think sleep in different bedrooms. In fact sharing a bed makes fairly little sense for actual sleeping. In general, women have more trouble sharing a bed/sleeping with someone else than men do. You have to be a little more sensitive to the fact that while you love sharing a bed, sharing a bed for her means a sleepless night to make you happy. If it's incredibly important to you, here are some things you can try to make it more pleasant for her:
a memory foam mattress or topper. Those will take away a lot of the bouncing around and disturbances of you coming to bed after her.
Separate blankets. It's ugly, but I know when I first started sharing a bed with my partner, I couldn't sleep. Then once we got separate blankets and top sheets, voila, no more insomnia.
Don't try to sleep cuddle. It looks adorable in movies when people doze off in each others' arms, and in a post-orgasm haze it works great. But in reality for sleeping it's hot and annoying most of the time. Women especially have a lot more trouble than men sleep cuddling.
Get a fan. This cuts down on the hot sticky factor a lot and adds a little white noise for your snoring.
Get her some good earplugs, again for your snoring.
Buy yourself something to stop snoring. Nose strips for instance. If those don't work, go to a doctor and get a recommendation.
...............................
A
female
reader, Nime +, writes (15 October 2011):
 The lack of sexual intimacy and not sleeping together are two separate issues. The latter is very normal. More and more houses are being built with two master bedrooms as married couples realize they get better sleep sleeping in their own rooms. You may have been able to share a bed in your younger years, but as you get older your body and mind change and for many adults falling into and staying in deep sleep becomes difficult. Lack of sleep is obviously detrimental to one's health and emotional state, so getting the best sleep possible should be your priority here. If you and your wife can no longer sleep together that's fine and very common; you might be surprised how many couples sleep apart. My parents have been happily married for 34 years and they've slept apart for years because they both snore. If you really want to sleep with your wife you might look into solving your snoring problem, but you've admitted you get the best sleep separately so that's what I'd stick with.Again the lack of sexual intimacy is a different issue and you should tackle that separately.
...............................
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (15 October 2011): I have been married for 7 years now. When my son was born we started to sleep apart because at the time one of us, mostly me, would take care of the baby; but it was not just that...The fact is at the beginning of the marriage I was so sensitive and he hurt me a lot by being careless about his comments. Now I am senseless and I don’t care about what he says. I have changed and I don’t want to share my bed with him at all. When I think why it should be like that why I don’t like to have sex or share my bed? I see it’s all about my feeling and it is not my fault. It was him that made me change to be like thisI don’t have any problem with him now, we are living together with no fight or argument but just my feeling for him is not strong anymore even though when he is not here I still miss him. I hope is not the case for you but just take a look to see what you have missed in your relationship.
...............................
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (15 October 2011): my hb and I also sleep in separate rooms (it's been about 2 years now, and we been married 12 years) and what you describe sounds similar so I think I can understand what you're going through and what your wife is going through.my hb snores very loud (sleep apnea) so I've always been unable to sleep properly in the same bed as him since the start of our marriage. ear plugs helps to some degree but not enough because his snoring is as loud as a chainsaw (literally). only being in another room actually enables me to get a proper night's sleep. He was supposed to wear a CPAP machine to help him breathe better and when he did it reduced his snoring and made me sleep better but it felt uncomfortable for him so he stopped and thus I went back to sleeping in another room so I could get proper sleep.but that's not the reason we continue to sleep in separate rooms. it's because our relationship is awful - stemming from his past infidelity, lies about finances and debts, and other things. after 12 years of marriage I have very little trust in him and have, over the years, de-invested myself emotionally in this marriage because I dont' consider him someone I can trust and depend on. I'm pretty much on my own in this marriage and in life and I have accepted that. So I'm very guarded around him, and after a few years this has translated to not being able to be physically intimate with him either (big surprise?). I've wanted to get divorced for a long time (I fantasize about being divorced all the time) but my religion doesn't allow it. This is the real reason I insist on sleeping in separate rooms. If we travel together we sleep in separate beds. I know it's devastating to him to not be getting any sex, but he's the one who devastated me first by betraying my trust repeatedly and lying to me repeatedly for so many years so, hey. you reap what you sow as far as relationships go. (we're now in marriage counseling, initiated by him because he wanted the counselor to guilt me into have sex with him again, and ironically from the marriage counseling I'm actually working up the nerve to go ahead and get divorced despite what my religion says about divorce.)your situation may not be as dire as mine, but it may be similar just less serious. yes you do get better sleep when you sleep apart. But that is not the cause of your reduced intimacy. Your emotional relationship to each other is bad for other hidden reasons (maybe you yourself don't even know them, yet) and this is why your wife doesn't want you even touching her. your lack of physical intimacy is just the symptom of underlying relationship problems.I mean, if it was just the noise/snoring issue, and she otherwise loved you completely and wholly, there's so many ways around the noise issue. She could get ear plugs, you could get a CPAP machine if you have sleep apnea as the reason for your snoring. You could make time to be intimate and then retire to separate rooms later on when you've satisfied each other. If your emotional relationship to each other was good, mere logistical sleeping arrangements are not a barrier to physical intimacy.I've actually read some articles that said that married couples sleeping apart is more common than most people like to admit. It makes sense because many marriages are distressed (if the divorce rate is 50%, it's naive to think that the remaining marriages are all good ones. at any one time some are headed toward divorces that just haven't happened yet). But no one wants to talk about this because it's very private and embarrassing. it makes people feel sexually defective and thus provokes shame in people to admit that their spouse and them don't share a bed. So, take comfort (?) in the fact that you are NOT alone. Many married couples sleep apart for various reasons. whether it's good or bad for their marriages, it depends on the reasons. But probably this is a wake up call that something is wrong in your relationship to your wife. And it's not too late to try to fix it because she hasn't physically left you yet, obviously. if you want to get your intimacy back, you have to address the deeper relationship problems. Your goal shouldn't be to get the sex back, that's shortsighted and won't work just annoy and alienate her even more. And will NOT lead to more sex either. Your goal should be to become emotionally close again, to fall in love with each other again (and to do so you have to identify and resolve the problems in your relationship), and then the sex will naturally follow. Otherwise, it won't. I would suggest you start by talking to your wife about the RELATIONSHIP between you, the trust and feelings of closeness, not about the lack of physical acts of intimacy. Ask her how she feels about you and the marriage, ask her to be brutally honest with you (you may need to prepare your ego ahead of time) and to tell you if you're doing things that make her unhappy or uncomfortable. of course you dont' have to do anything about this at all. it wasn't very clear in your post what exactly you're asking. You ask if you should be concerned about this. Well that's up to you. what are your concerns? that you're being "abnormal"? no you're not - many married couples sleep apart, usually for negative reasons but not always. In your case it does sound like a negative reason. can you learn to accept your marriage as it is, and learn to be happy with the other aspects of it that are positive?If what you're looking for is just re-assurance that your situation isn't statistically abnormal, you can be assured of that. you can google for information on "sexless marriages" to find more statistics but realize that the reported numbers are probably underrepresented because many people are too ashamed to admit it.
...............................
|
