Normalize Sleeping In Separate Bedrooms Like Old-School Hollywood

Getting adequate sleep is romantic.

My preference is to live in a gothic estate where my bedroom features a wood burning fireplace and my night-time routine includes brushing my hair in front of my vanity while wearing an ostrich feathered robe. As I am a normal person and not Lady Mary from Downton Abbey, I settle for my ordinary bedroom. Just so long as it’s mine. All mine. At least when it comes to sleeping.

The idea that people are meant to sleep together in the same bedroom — let alone in the same bed — night after night is absurd.

Sleeping is my number one priority in life, and I will do everything in my power to protect my need for peaceful slumber. I simply can not function without adequate sleep, and I need more than most people. Experts say you can function on four. My husband averages around six. I require between nine and eleven.

When I say I can’t function without sleep I mean it literally. If I don’t get enough sleep my world falls apart. My anxiety spikes, I catastrophize simple things. My ability to reason disappears. I have zero patience. I often say the number one reason we only have one child is because the lack of sleep was so debilitating for me that I literally quit my job and we moved from NYC to my parent’s basement in Virginia.

I don’t take my responsibility to get enough sleep lightly. But there are obstacles.

My husband snores. We’ve tried everything. I invested in high-quality earplugs, which block the sound to such a degree that one night I didn’t hear the smoke alarm. They work. But after a few days my ears become so sore I can’t use them. We also tried bite guards, nose strips, sewing a tennis ball into a t-shirt so my husband can’t sleep on his back resulting in a pinched nerve that caused him so much pain he ended up in physical therapy.

My husband and I also have incompatible schedules. I go to bed between 10:00 and 11:00pm. Sometimes I even get in there at 9:00pm, which I find glorious. I wake up naturally between 7:00 and 7:30am. My husband doesn’t go to bed until 1:00am on a good night. It’s not unusual for him to still be up when the clock strikes 3:00am. He’d go full vampire if he could. His work day typically starts with a 9:00am call. I don’t know how he does it, but he functions highly on very little sleep (though his lack of sleep likely contributes to his snoring, a discussion we’ve had more than a few million times).

There’s also the matter of my aching hips, which requires me to change positions frequently throughout the night. My preferred sleeping position is to form my body into a sharp sideways V shape, like a compass measuring a 15 degree angle, my arms and legs sticking out straight so if you to were use my butt as the handle my arms and legs would stick out pencil straight enough to draw a tight circle. This position requires taking up the entirety of the bed. I prefer to sleep under a comforter, but it must only cover my torso, and I arrange it so that it forms a barrier between my knees so that they never touch. I am the human embodiment of The Princess and the Pea.

There is simply no room for my husband in this equation. The only solution we’ve found is sleeping in separate bedrooms. We have a small apartment with a tiny guest room, which we have dubbed the sleeping cave. We take turns, alternating who gets to sleep in the main bedroom, but if I’m being honest, my husband usually takes the guest room because we have a really great bed that I prefer to sleep in so my hips don’t hurt. He’s a good man.

The idea of couples sleeping in separate bedrooms is a taboo concept that many people shy away from. Will people think my marriage isn’t sound? A Troy McClure/Selma sham? Do we lack intimacy? The Bradys were groundbreaking when they shared their bed for all the TV world to see, something Lucy and Ricky couldn’t dare do in puritanical America, though I posit the twin beds were Lucy’s idea all along so she wouldn’t have to deal with Ricky’s nonsense and could get a solid 8 hours. When my husband and I were first grappling with the complications in our disparate sleeping needs, I drew inspiration from old Hollywood and historical PBS dramas where the ladies and gentlemen had separate but equal quarters and men asked permission to join their wives for the evening, the women poised at their vanities, shall they permit entrance? Even Lisa and Ken Vanderpump know the value of preserving a little mystery. Separate bedrooms are the bedrock of a solid relationship.

Sleeping in separate bedrooms makes the time we do spend together in the same bedroom, and specifically, the same bed, more romantic. We light a candle! I shave my legs (sometimes). We even fall asleep together with me snuggled into the nook of my husband’s warm neck, our breathing in sync, our hearts content. But once the first snore is emitted it’s time for him to go. We kiss good night and part ways. I turn on the fan for background noise and assume my sleeping position. I fall into a deep, sublime, uninterrupted sleep and awake feeling refreshed and energized, ready to greet the day. My husband emerges from the guest room about two hours later.

I’m always very happy to see him in the morning.

Photos: 1) Jean Harlow in Dinner at Eight 2) Lucy and Ricky in I Love Lucy 3) Hedy Lamarr and James Stewart in Come Live With Me