Is Sleep Divorce the Secret to a Happier Marriage?

Picture your average night sharing a bed with your partner. Are they happily dozing off while you’re tossing & turning? While you’re hot and bothered and on the verge of shoving the duvet to the floor, are they swaddled like a baby? What about those nights when you’re ready to go to bed early but your partner is a night owl and prefers to burn the midnight oil, thus keeping you awake in the process?

While outdated tropes persist of misbehaving husbands pitifully dragging their blankets to the couch after some marital rift, there are actually many happily married couples sleeping in separate bedrooms. Kicking your partner out of bed is, incidentally, the latest expert recommendation for a good snooze. That is, along with sleep trackers, herbal pills and lavender-scented pillow sprays, of course. The concept makes complete sense, if you consider that sharing a bed means approximately fifty per cent of your sleep disturbances are caused by your partner.

Additionally, if you snooze in your own room, you’ll probably wake up happier and healthier, personally and when it comes to your relationship. The age-old saying of ‘not knowing what you have till it's gone’ comes into play here. By sleeping in separate beds, you have a better chance of prioritising intimacy and physical touch, as you now have to ‘work for it’. One might wonder why sleeping apart has such a bad reputation then, when it can be so beneficial for your relationship. Sadly, the blurring of lines between sex and sleep are at the core of social pressure. The thinking goes - if you are not sleeping together, are you still being intimate?