Living together, sleeping in different rooms

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Does anyone here have any experience with living with a significant other in a happy relationship while having separate rooms? How did it work for you?

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[+3] - PUNKEY - 05/13/2013Get twins and put them together. There are also those beds where you can adjust each side from soft to firm but I really have not heard good reviews about them.

that sounds sorta boring. isn the best part of a relationship waking up in your girls arms?

iono, i couldn't do it.

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I think that it has a lot to do with the ages of the individuals, their individual biorhythms, and particular lifestyles.

I have known people in very happy, long term relationships who SLEEP separately. They do get together for other activities! :wink:

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I know lots of folk with separate rooms, who are very happy.

I would suspect that the reason it has not been more common in relationships is simply absence of space, and the symbolic baggage it has attached to it in some circles.

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I don't know about anyone else but my husband sings in his sleep. So much for the sound of music.

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It's not like you can't do the waking in each other's arms thing when you want to.

On a practical level:

It would be a problem if one of you interprets the other wanting to sleep separately as rejection.....so I imagine you'd need to be pretty sure about an agreed emotional decoding of decisions about where to sleep....

If you are going to do it, you'd just need to work that stuff out...(like you don't know that).

I DO think that it could be a difficult point if one of you was feeling vulnerable or bad, but what can't be? It's just this can carry some real cultural baggage, and if there were real differences in terms of how much you each wanted to share/not share it might be an ongoing niggle.

I have often been more on the not wanting to share as much end, and I know this has been hard for some guys, and I have felt really bad, so my experience has been of ending up going along to get along.

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Does that have anything to do with biorhythms Phoenix? Maybe you could call it the "Sound of Napping"

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If someone is feeling the frustrations building up, it is not good. Otherwise, fine.

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Sometimes I just want to sleep alone, in my bed, and not have to worry about another person in the bed. I sleep with my BF so we don't have conflict but really sometimes I wish I was sleeping alone.

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My girlfriend sleeps in a separate room when she stays over, because there isn't room for her AND my teddy bears.

Not even on my king size bed. That's a lot of bears, I know. But each one is special in its own way.

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I've only lived with a boyfriend once. We had separate bedrooms but usually slept together. I do remember feeling a little rejected the few times he chose to sleep alone. But, then I came to a point when I wanted to sleep alone. From then on it was a good arrangement.

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We had a big thread about this one:

http://www.able2know.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=92832

I linked to a NYT article about it at the bottom of the second page. Basically, it's becoming more and more common, and while there's still a stigma, it seems to be eroding somewhat.

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Re: Living together, sleeping in different rooms

Robert Gentel wrote:

Does anyone here have any experience with living with a significant other in a happy relationship while having separate rooms? How did it work for you?

yep, i know two pairs very well. My parents: 36 years of happy marriage and counting, and my colleague and her husband (around 17 years).

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There are very good reasons why some people sleep apart :

1. One person snores.
2. One person is a heatilator.
3. One person is a night owl and the other a light sleeper.
4. One person has Restless Leg or other syndrome.
5. One person hogs the bed.
6. Different sleeping conditions which cannot be agreed upon (ie. one likes an open window for a cool breeze, the other likes 85 duvets and a closed window)

and I could go on. Many reasons for sleeping apart... and there should be no stigma attached.

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sozobe wrote:

We had a big thread about this one:

http://www.able2know.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=92832

I linked to a NYT article about it at the bottom of the second page. Basically, it's becoming more and more common, and while there's still a stigma, it seems to be eroding somewhat.

I don't think there has ever been a stigma amongst the rich and upper class.

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The Lady Diane and meself have a king size bed so it's kinds like sleeping in the same bed but in different rooms.

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dyslexia wrote:

The Lady Diane and meself have a king size bed so it's kinds like sleeping in the same bed but in different rooms.

That's only because of your skinny ass.

We had a state premier here who, during his second marriage, adopted with his wife the extraordinarily civilised practice of maintaining separate houses.

Some believed that this was to accommodate his bisexuality, which was an open secret.

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dlowan wrote:

I don't think there has ever been a stigma amongst the rich and upper class.

Probably.

I know that I perceived a stigma when I was a kid. My parents had separate beds (same room though) and when friends came to my house and saw the bedroom they universally thought it was weird. (In fact, I tried to keep the door closed so I wouldn't have to deal with that whole discussion.) My parents divorced, but I dunno whether the separate beds had anything to do with anything. My dad now sleeps in a separate bedroom than his current wife, and they seem to still be going strong. (About 14 years for them I think.)

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sozobe wrote:

dlowan wrote:
I don't think there has ever been a stigma amongst the rich and upper class.

Probably.

I know that I perceived a stigma when I was a kid. My parents had separate beds (same room though) and when friends came to my house and saw the bedroom they universally thought it was weird. (In fact, I tried to keep the door closed so I wouldn't have to deal with that whole discussion.) My parents divorced, but I dunno whether the separate beds had anything to do with anything. My dad now sleeps in a separate bedroom than his current wife, and they seem to still be going strong. (About 14 years for them I think.)

Lol! Oh my yes.

In my solidly middle class childhood milieu, I can recall my absolute amazement and shock when I saw the sleeping arrangements of the parents of one of my friends....SEPARATE SINGLE BEDS!!!!!

With a CABINET between them, so they could not be easily rolled together.

Shock horror.

This, although I knew full well that my parent's marriage was a sexless, cold horror. But at least they slept, albeit miserably, in the same bed.

Mind you, it was equally stunning, although in a different way, when a friend and I went to get something from HER parents' room, and accidentally opened the "toy drawer".

Inside was evidence of actual sexual activity!!!! LUBRICANT!!! CONDOMS!!!!

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In my memory, separate single beds, egads, occurred when we moved to Chicago. I had been sleeping in my own room in an army cot, a tad narrow..

I got their four poster, they got singles. I don't ever remember either of them sleeping on the couch. They both snored like elephants...
That was in the early fifties, and I have a fleeting suspicion it was a national trend at the time.

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Living together, sleeping in different rooms

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