Sleeping in separate beds or rooms is the third surest way to an actual divorce. Contempt and criticism around sex, money, and misc. tasks being the others.
The assumption that everyone has to sleep together is pretty normal, actually. It's standard in most hunter-gatherer cultures, and most pre-modern agricultural cultures too, for the whole family to simply pile up. So, I consider the Western norm, for example, of separating children from a young age off to sleep alone to be very unusual, anthropologically speaking. On the other hand, such surveys often note that a sizable minority of the individuals tend to stay away from group sleeping by preference. And I'm pretty sure dislike of snoring is a human cultural universal.
If you never spend the night or even the odd nap together, unless it is a platonic relationship, I do think you may be missing something critical. Maybe even if it is a platonic relationship. Some studies suggest sleeping next to friends and relatives, results in the same kind of stress hormone reduction seen in intimate couples as well.
But you can't always have ideal. In my case, one of us is a heavy snorer. And one of us, your dear commenter, finds it very hard to fall asleep. Crashing in another bedroom a few nights a week can save the sanity of all involved. Be experimental. In my case, if I finally do fall asleep, I'm practically comatose. He usually wakes up in the middle of the night either way, and so joins me after that. Everyone's happy that way.
Just as you shouldn't kick them out of bed forever over one night of restless sleep, sleeping together every single night shouldn't be clung to either. Bad sleep deprivation, or resentment towards one's partner over sleep issues, can potentially ruin a relationship just as the presumed loss of intimacy might.
The Lifehacker article is brief. If you want something deeper, I recommend Wendy M. Troxel’s recent book “Sharing the Covers”. The author acknowledges the term “sleep divorce” and suggests alternatives, as the book is also about the mental and overall health of close relationships.
In Mahatma Gandhi’s 1921 book “A Guide to Health” chapter IX he states: “It is not enough to observe the laws of health as regards air, water, and food. The man should altogether cease to sleep in privacy with his wife. Little reflection is needed to show that the only possible motive for privacy between man and wife is the desire for sexual enjoyment. They should sleep apart at night, and be incessantly engaged in good works during the day. They should read such books as fill them with noble thoughts and mediate over the lives of great men, and live in the constant realisation of the fact that sensual enjoyment is the root of all disease. Whenever they feel a prompting for enjoyment, they should bathe in cold water, so that the heat of passion may be cooled down, and be refined into the energy of virtuous activity. This is a hard thing to do, but we have been born into this world that we might wrestle with difficulties and temptations, and conquer them; and he who has not the will to do it can never enjoy the supreme blessing of true health.”
Well. He might overreach here, and in other parts of the book I question whether science supports his claims, but we’re a diverse bunch of individuals; experiment and see what works. His admonishment to breathe only through the nose is, erm, on the nose according to James Nestor and his journalism in his recent book “Breath” where he and another person went ten days with their noses plugged, for science.
Back to sleeping: I find it helpful to sleep alone, in part because I’m sensitive to touch and sometimes find it tough to return to sleep once disturbed. Being rested is even more important now that I’m responsibly for a child. It took some adjustment, but since my partner is more of an owl to my lark, and we both like our private time for recharging, and we are still attracted to each other to the point of distraction from virtuous activity, sleeping apart continues to be a healthy move.
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 20.3 ms ] threadIf you never spend the night or even the odd nap together, unless it is a platonic relationship, I do think you may be missing something critical. Maybe even if it is a platonic relationship. Some studies suggest sleeping next to friends and relatives, results in the same kind of stress hormone reduction seen in intimate couples as well.
But you can't always have ideal. In my case, one of us is a heavy snorer. And one of us, your dear commenter, finds it very hard to fall asleep. Crashing in another bedroom a few nights a week can save the sanity of all involved. Be experimental. In my case, if I finally do fall asleep, I'm practically comatose. He usually wakes up in the middle of the night either way, and so joins me after that. Everyone's happy that way.
Just as you shouldn't kick them out of bed forever over one night of restless sleep, sleeping together every single night shouldn't be clung to either. Bad sleep deprivation, or resentment towards one's partner over sleep issues, can potentially ruin a relationship just as the presumed loss of intimacy might.
In Mahatma Gandhi’s 1921 book “A Guide to Health” chapter IX he states: “It is not enough to observe the laws of health as regards air, water, and food. The man should altogether cease to sleep in privacy with his wife. Little reflection is needed to show that the only possible motive for privacy between man and wife is the desire for sexual enjoyment. They should sleep apart at night, and be incessantly engaged in good works during the day. They should read such books as fill them with noble thoughts and mediate over the lives of great men, and live in the constant realisation of the fact that sensual enjoyment is the root of all disease. Whenever they feel a prompting for enjoyment, they should bathe in cold water, so that the heat of passion may be cooled down, and be refined into the energy of virtuous activity. This is a hard thing to do, but we have been born into this world that we might wrestle with difficulties and temptations, and conquer them; and he who has not the will to do it can never enjoy the supreme blessing of true health.”
Well. He might overreach here, and in other parts of the book I question whether science supports his claims, but we’re a diverse bunch of individuals; experiment and see what works. His admonishment to breathe only through the nose is, erm, on the nose according to James Nestor and his journalism in his recent book “Breath” where he and another person went ten days with their noses plugged, for science.
Back to sleeping: I find it helpful to sleep alone, in part because I’m sensitive to touch and sometimes find it tough to return to sleep once disturbed. Being rested is even more important now that I’m responsibly for a child. It took some adjustment, but since my partner is more of an owl to my lark, and we both like our private time for recharging, and we are still attracted to each other to the point of distraction from virtuous activity, sleeping apart continues to be a healthy move.