Separate beds at 28: Why would a loving couple want  to sleep apart?

As many as one in five British couples sleep in separate beds. According to a recent survey, snoring, tossing and turning, and talking in your sleep were cited as the main irritants, with ever more stressful careers and lives that demand a good night's rest making us increasingly reluctant to put up with them. But does choosing to sleep apart sound the death knell of intimacy?

Colin Byers and Laura mason

No more pillow fights: Colin and Laura say their sex life has improved since they started sleeping apart as they are now less tired and irritable with each other

Laura Mason, 28, a PR manager for a national charity, has lived with her fiance Colin Byers, 28, the manager of a coffee chain, for five years.

The couple, who live in Birmingham, moved into separate beds four years ago.

Her story:

Two o'clock in the morning and my head was pounding.

My eyes were itchy and dry, and my heart was beating unnaturally fast. Next to me, Colin was fast asleep, having just turned over and shaken the bed. He's 6ft 3in and weighs 15st  -  and he was snoring loudly in my ear.

He was also boiling hot, so every time he touched me I felt stiflingly hot, too. I lay awake knowing that tomorrow I'd have the usual high-pressure round of phone calls and meetings.

I love my job, but it's very stressful and I have to be on top of the game at all times, so I really need eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. Lying there, I felt uncontrollable rage until finally I kicked Colin awake. 'Will you stop b****y moving!' I yelled.

He stared at me, confused. 'Why are you shouting?' he asked.

I glared at him. Huffily, he got up and wandered off into the spare room. I felt momentarily guilty, but that soon faded. At last I could sleep. I drifted off in minutes, in the idyll of my wide, cool bed.

That was four years ago. It was shortly afterwards that I explained to Colin that I thought we should sleep in separate beds. Despite Colin's initial shock and hurt, we haven't looked back.

People look at us askance when we tell them.

helena tim

Married couple Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton live in separate homes in London, linked by a single corridor

It seems to be the antithesis of romance, and other people's attitudes make us occasionally question our judgment  -  if we love each other, surely we should be able to sleep in each other's arms.

But the truth is we can't. Maybe if I didn't have such a demanding career I might be able to manage with a broken night's sleep.

As it is, I can't. I cannot function meaningfully without at least eight hours' sleep.

I do miss Colin. It's odd to wake up in the night and think: 'Where is he?' It often takes me a few minutes to realise that he's in the spare room.

In the depths of darkness, you can feel rather alone. But I'd rather feel lonely every now and again than permanently exhausted.

When we first got close, we slept together every night. There is something very intimate about snuggling up to your loved one, and I have shared beds with boyfriends in the past.

But I have never really liked it. I like my space, and I don't equate intimacy and love with sharing a bed.

I love our physical relationship and am perfectly happy cuddling up on the sofa, but it
just doesn't work for me when I want to get to sleep.

In the early days when we were sleeping together every night, our relationship really suffered.

We were both tired all the time, which meant we were snappy with each other and had far more rows.

Colin has to be at work for 6am and his typical day is very busy, too, so the sleep deprivation was really getting to both of us. I couldn't concentrate on anything and I felt incredibly stressed.

After about six months I snapped and suggested sleeping apart. Colin looked incredibly wounded, but very quickly realised how much sense it made.

I was really worried at first that we might psychologically begin to withdraw from each other and live separate lives, but that hasn't happened. 

We are just as close as ever. In fact, as soon as we made the decision, our sex life improved. We'd had a great sex life in our first year together, but having no sleep was making us too tired and irritable to crave that intimacy.

With a full night's sleep, we not only worked better, but we had more time for each other. Evenings now follow a pattern  -  I usually cook a meal while Colin lays the table.

We have a nice dinner, sometimes with a glass of wine, and then we either chat, watch TV or I work on the computer.

Then I might have a bath and we'll start off in the same bed.

fawlty towers

Bedside manner: Basil Fawlty , played by John Cleese, and wife Sybil, played by Prunella Scales, in BBC comedy Fawlty Towers

With the pressure taken off from lack of sleep, we're both far more in the mood for sex. If we don't have sex, then after a while one of us will set off for our own bed at about 11pm.

Colin can snore and roll around to his heart's content, and no longer disturbs me when he gets up in the early hours.

I read recently that men and women were never meant to sleep in the same bed.

According to Dr Neil Stanley, a sleep expert from Surrey University, it is a bizarre thing to do, as our brains are not programmed to cope with someone else's movement and noise at night.

We need to relax in silence and space to be able physically to repair and reprogramme our brain for the day ahead.

It is vital for both physical and mental health. That made me feel much better about our decision.

Friends still accuse us of being unromantic, but that's absolutely not the case. We are closer as a couple precisely because we have resolved our sleep issues.

We know we love each other  -  we cuddle and hold hands when we're together  -  but we just can't sleep together.

His story:

I did feel rejected when Laura effectively ordered me out of her bed.

In my mind, I have an image of a loving couple wrapped in each other's arms at night, and how can you not feel hurt when someone says they don't want that?

I also felt very defensive. It's not my fault that I snore. I also know that I am a restless sleeper, but I think there are psychological reasons behind this  -  I have a stressful job, and I am sure I chew things in my mind when I am asleep. That means I am forever turning over.

But when I thought about it logically, I understood that, for Laura, sleeping with me was very disruptive.

So, on a practical level, I realised that sleeping together just didn't work for us. But yes, part of me does still feel hurt.

In the beginning, we tried everything to resolve our sleeping issues. We spent  £1,000 on a fabulous mattress from the White Company, another £1,000 on a super-king-size bed from The Bed Warehouse and hundreds more on pure Egyptian cotton linen sheets.

At first, we thought: 'Isn't this wonderful, all this space?' Isn't this comfortable?'

But it didn't resolve the problems  -  I still woke Laura up throughout the night and then, if she got up before me, she would wake me.

Normally, we aren't a couple who argue, but we were both so tired we got really tetchy with each other. I also began struggling to get to sleep in the first place.

It was just there in my subconscious  -  that even when I was asleep, I had to try to be quiet and not snore or turn over too often.

That was making me stressed and anxious.

It didn't help that I have a problem with my body temperature. It might be my size, but it really seems to soar at night.

I like to sleep with the window wide open and the covers thrown back. Laura, on the other hand, likes to snuggle, with the window shut.

In the end, we realised that nothing but sleeping apart worked.

I had a double bed when I was eight years old, as I have always been quite big. Then my parents divorced when I was 14 and I had to move to a small single bed in my mum's new house.

I hated it and couldn't sleep, though perhaps that was because of the divorce.

That's why I was worried about sleeping apart initially. There's a tiny part of your brain which thinks: 'Have I done something wrong? Is it that I am not physically attractive at night?' I know that's nonsense, but you can't help thinking it.

I do miss Laura when I wake up in the morning alone, but we make up for it with kisses and cuddles when she gets home from work.

We don't tend to talk about it to all of our friends. Although I am sure lots of other couples have this issue, they just aren't brave enough to bring it out into the open and say: 'Actually, I would be happier sleeping in my own bed.'

I'm not sure what the long-term effects might be  -  sometimes I wonder if not sleeping together means that we will grow apart in time.

The more space you have, physically, on your own, the more you make your own decisions and don't feel you need anyone to tell you what to do. I hope not, but only time will tell.

We make a big effort to be close to each other the rest of the time, although neither of us is clingy. I don't equate constant hugs and cuddles with love  -  I think friendship and fun are just as important, and, intellectually, we are very compatible.

Sleeping apart has in no way ruined our sex life  -  if anything, it has made it better.

First, we are less tired and have more time for each other, and there's something quite erotic in 'visiting' your partner in her bed, then going back to your own room.

Sleeping apart makes us calmer, nicer people. We have been very honest with each other and it takes a lot of reassurance to say: 'It isn't you, I just have to get a full night's sleep.'

I am looking forward to a long, happy marriage to Laura. We've just had to accept that we are not sleep compatible and make a rational decision about it. I really don't care what other people think  -  this works for us.

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