Couples who prefer to sleep alone: Your room or mine?

In pursuit of a good night’s sleep, an increasing number of couples now choose to sleep alone.

Couples who share a bed suffer 50% more sleep disturbances than those who sleep apart, according to recent research by a sleep specialist in Britain. In a separate study, a British sociologist found that when one bed partner moves during their sleep, there’s a 50% chance the other partner will be disturbed.

75% of adults either snore or wake up frequently during the night, according to the National Sleep Foundation. More than half of women surveyed by the Foundation reported that they slept well only a few nights a week.

Sleeping poorly is not good for one’s health. As sleep specialist Dr. Neil Stanley points out, poor sleep is linked to heart disease and stroke, lung disorders, depression, traffic accidents, industrial accidents, and divorce.

Nightly sharing of the “marital” bed: A recent historical development

In ancient Rome, there was a separate “marital” bed that was not used for nightly sleeping. The modern practice of spending the entire night together in the same bedroom began with the Industrial Revolution. In overcrowded cities and towns, there wasn’t enough living space for a room of one’s own. Before the Victorian era it was common practice for couples to sleep apart. For the wealthy, who could afford plenty of bedrooms, it was always an option.

Stephanie Coontz, a professor who writes on the history and sociology of marriage, argues that sharing a nightly bed is not only recent but artificial. “It represents this cookie-cutter model that developed in the early 20th century that told people you had to get every single need met by this constant togetherness. … It doesn’t tie in with what we know about the variety of coupled relationships that have worked in history.” The idea that one should be “permanently turned on, permanently available — that if you sleep in another room, maybe you’re not very sexual — is just an unnecessary burden for modern couples.”

Separate bedrooms may also reflect the modern practice of forming permanent bonds later in life. Each party brings an extensive set of lifelong habits to the union. Some watch late-night TV, some get up early to go to the gym, while others want to keep texting well past their partner’s bedtime.

The empty nest has more rooms

Is sleeping apart making a comeback? Sleep specialists, sociologists, and historians may conduct their research, but those who really know where couples want to sleep are architects, builders, and real estate developers.

At a condominium project in Seattle, 25% of the 270 units have two master bedrooms. Another developer in St. Louis County said every one of the 30 detached homes he was building had two separate-but-equal bedroom suites. A survey by the National Association of Home Builders predicts that more than 60% of custom-built homes will have two master bedrooms by 2015.

The practice is not limited to the well-to-do. Homeowners with limited space can find a place to sleep in a spare bedroom, the den, or the rec room. In Hawaii, architectural clients ask for a “punee,” a daybed, on the lanai, the covered porch.

Couples in their thirties may be asking architects for two master suites, but Paul Rosenblatt, author Two in a Bed: The Social System of Couple Bed Sharing, believes aging plays a role in sleeping apart. Many couples he interviewed chose to have separate bedrooms once their children left home. An extra bedroom is “suddenly available and, if you have trouble sleeping, you go into the kid’s room and find you slept better than with your partner.”

But then again, the phenomenon may simply be a matter of modern lifestyles. University of Michigan sociologist Pamela Smock says, “Couples today are writing their own script, rewriting how to have a marriage. … The growing need for separate bedrooms … represents the speed-up of family life — women’s roles have changed — and the need for extra space eases the strain on the relationship. If one of them snores, the other one won’t be able to perform the next day. It’s nothing to do with social class, and it’s not necessarily indicative of marital discord.”

A Well Kept Secret

Sleeping apart may be more common than anyone knows, since not everyone is willing to discuss the subject. Architects and designers report that their clients believe there’s a stigma attached to sleeping separately. Interior designer Charles Brandt says, “The builder knows, the architect knows, the cabinet maker knows, but it’s not something they like to advertise because right away people will think something is ‘wrong’ with the marriage.”

Professor Smock says it’s the man in a heterosexual couple who is reluctant to change familiar sleeping arrangements. “Men are supposed to be one, dominant, and two, sexual. … Their wives might be thrilled to have their own bedroom, and see it as a romantic thing — going back to their romance, going back to dating, to intimacy, but the husband might not see it that way.”

According to one young woman, “Sleeping apart makes sleeping together an extra special thing. Also, you get the eternal thrill of doing it in someone else’s room. [It makes] sex just like college all over again.”
A 60-year old woman thinks the arrangement adds spice to her relationship. “It’s more exciting … when you can say: ‘Your room or mine?'”

Commenting on this increasingly common social pattern, Professor Smock takes it one step further: “A lot of people I know fantasize about living in the same apartment building as their husband — but in a separate apartment. That could be next.”

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Links of interest: Sleep
The “lie down and die” model of sleep
High school students should sleep in