The Impact of Sleeping Apart: A Journey Through Our Relationship

I used to sleep for 8 hours every night. And then I fell in love. Okay, that’s not quite accurate. In the years before I met my husband, I had the occasional sleepless night for all the usual reasons: job interview nerves, excitement about hooking up with an attractive stranger, watching 30 Rock for 19 hours straight to numb my brain after things didn’t work out with an attractive stranger, etc.

But no matter where I was or what was on my mind, I usually slept well—to the point where I took it for granted. I didn’t realize I could sleep through a rainstorm, or that I was the only one in my social group who didn’t have an Ambien prescription. When people expressed surprise at all of this, I would simply shrug and say, “Well, I really like sleeping.” I’m touched that they didn’t throw decaying deli meat at me right away.

On my 28th birthday, I received my comeuppance: I met someone who I almost instantly recognized as the man I would marry. Jesse had dreadful, noisy neighbors, so we started spending almost every night together at my house, and something strange happened: I couldn’t sleep well. I jumped up as soon as he tossed and turned. If he snored, I got up. If he awoke in the middle of the night and got out of bed to use the restroom — even if he did so slowly and meticulously that he looked like he was in a modern dance performance — I startled awake and battled to fall back asleep.

I assumed that suffering for your sleep was part of being in love. I assumed the problem was my old, worn-out queen size mattress, so we purchased a brand-new one. When it didn’t work, I assumed I’d bought the wrong mattress, so we spent money on high-end mattress toppers that promised to soften all movement. They did not. I initially assumed the problem was an unsteady bed frame, so I attempted to repair it by placing various household items under the bed legs. And when I kept waking up every night when my then-boyfriend farted gently in his sleep, I had to confess that the problem was between us.

We maintained our restless yet loving relationship, and three years later, Jesse moved into my apartment. When I went through a period of intense personal stress shortly after, I discovered that I could hardly get an hour of sleep in the same bed as him. I began to feel like a cat: always grumpy, up at strange hours, and prone to falling asleep on any soft surface I discovered. I isolated myself from our bed, sleeping almost every night on our little couch, a camping mattress pad, or an air mattress that could only be inflated to full size in the center of our kitchen. On occasion, I’d try our shared bed, but by 3 or 4 a.m., I was generally awake and heading to the waiting, nasty arms of our couch.

Jesse was in continual emotional anguish over my sleeping troubles, and he went to great measures to avoid waking me up, such as waiting until the point of discomfort to get up and use the bathroom at night, or staying up hours after his bedtime to ensure I was sleeping well. He subsequently informed me that if something woke me up, he would blame himself and be kept up by guilt. Soon, we both felt absolutely useless and drained.

When I woke up in our shared bed night after night, I didn’t feel intimate, sexual, or any of the other positive sentiments we associate with sharing a bed. I felt like a victim. Over the years, I saw doctors, was given various medicines, exercised vigorously, and listened to calming podcasts, but nothing seemed to work. Jesse regularly offered to sleep on the couch, but when he did, it kept me awake as well—I stayed awake to see whether he could fall asleep on the couch, and if he had a horrible night’s sleep on there, I felt guilty, as if my sleep issues were affecting the entire family.

I selected the couch because I could deal with my own sentiments of bed-related martyrdom far more easily than I could with the notion that I was harming him. That is not to say that I handled my decision to be couch-bound maturely; I still spent far too many mornings watching the sun rise through our curtained windows, sleepy from Lunesta, stewing in my own wrath at my body, the cultural tenets of monogamy and sleep-farts, and the unfairness of the cosmos.

For the past few years, we’d spoken about getting separate beds, bringing it up in the same way I imagine people who want to find out whether their spouse is interested in becoming swingers bring it up: first by making jokes (“it would be soooooo funny if we just had two little beds, like an old-time sitcom couple”), then by presenting it as a good idea “for the future,” and finally, committing to it, dedicating a weekend day or two to figuring out how we’d make it We reserved separate beds whenever we went in hotels and looked forward to the refreshing, straightforward sleep we knew they provided.

I assumed that loving couples shared a bed (despite the fact that I loved my husband but had not slept in the same bed with him on a regular basis since long before we married). Still, I never imagined we’d get separate beds. I couldn’t picture a morning that didn’t begin with me cranky, underslept, and sitting on a fragile couch that was clearly not built to support an adult’s complete body weight for 8 hours straight. Because I subconsciously believed this was the better alternative. I assumed that suffering for your sleep was part of being in love. And those who were unwilling to suffer for that, well, what was the next aspect of their relationship that they were willing to sacrifice for convenience?

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