Forgive me, I know it’s judgmental, but when I first came across the internet’s latest buzz phrase, “sleep divorce”, the name for happy couples sleeping in separate beds – with no drama; they just want a good night’s rest – I couldn’t help but think: “Well, well, well, sounds like somebody has a big house.”
And who am I to snark when sleep divorce appears to be helping many couples? It makes sense: sleep is the foundation of health, it affects our mood, our physical wellness, our energy levels, and in turn our ability to be there for one another. If we know good sleep at night makes the parent of an infant more present and engaged during the day, then why not the same for a partner?
Britain is arguably at its most sleep deprived: 77% of us don’t wake up feeling well rested, with one in seven people surviving on dangerously low levels of sleep (less than five hours). Which may explain why a survey from Tielle (a bedding brand, which presumably would be quite keen on people buying an extra bed for sleep divorce) found that one in 20 couples in London are planning to move house to gain an additional bedroom for the sole purpose of sleep divorce. Oooh, well I guess some people are made of money! (Sorry, I can’t help it.)
It is true that sleep divorce doesn’t quite have the same allure when it’s not wrapped in the comforts of Egyptian cotton and a pillow-top mattress. It lacks a certain je ne sais quoi when one of you is in a bed and the other on two sofa cushions pushed together on the floor, being head-butted by the cat; or on a rock hard futon, or the air mattress that has seen one too many festivals (“What exactly is that stain?”). In those scenarios, if there wasn’t acrimony before, there certainly would be after: a one-way ticket to actual divorce, in my books.
And it should be mentioned that in the limited science available on sleep and relationship happiness, sleeping together does appear to be good for couples. A study by the University of Hertfordshire found that couples who slept closer together physically were closer emotionally. Moreover, 94% of couples who make physical contact during sleep were happy with their relationship, compared with 68% of those who don’t touch. The happiest couples were those who sleep face to face – a high I can only assume is induced from oxygen deprivation to the brain, what with all that breathy snoring coming their way.
Still, if you drill down into why the notion of sleep divorce might make some couples uncomfortable, it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. What exactly do we fear? Is it a lack of sex or physical touch? Many couples sleep together before they live together so it’s hardly a prerequisite, and couldn’t such intimacy be matched, or even bettered, with attentive daytime affection, especially after a good night’s sleep? Perhaps there is a feeling that sleeping separately is just not how things are “meant to be”. But surely by now we know that, as with everything in relationships, it’s each to their own, and that there is no one way to be?
Personally, I’m Team Same Bed. Disclaimer: there is no other bed. But even so, I think sleeping next to each other has its charms – falling asleep to a heartbeat, a loving hand squeezing yours when you least expect it, and the joys of spooning among them. It’s not that my husband and I always sleep soundly – far from it. He sleep talks (mostly advising Gareth Southgate) and I thrash around like a hostage trapped in a sack. He is also the temperature of the sun.
But while sleeping next to each other isn’t perfect, waking up together can be. Some of our best conversations happen on a Sunday morning, not least because one of us has stored up a veritable arsenal of “interesting things” to share from news or podcasts they have been consuming while the other sleeps (who doesn’t want to wake up to facts about the global food waste crisis or a 1980s unsolved murder). There is something about that innocent time just after waking, when the duties and troubles of the day haven’t quite crept in, and the mental armour we put on to battle through life isn’t on yet. The mind is free to wander, and the soul is bared. Would waking up elsewhere ever be the same? I’m not convinced. And if you’re reading this section on lie-ins thinking to yourself, “Well, well, well, I suppose somebody doesn’t have children,” all I can say is: yes, OK, you’re right. Fair enough.
Whatever the case, one thing is for sure: there is no need to judge those who sleep divorce, or those who choose to be disturbed by the person they love every night for eternity. It is as they never said, but certainly should: all is fair in love and sleep.
Coco Khan is a freelance writer and co-host of the politics podcast Pod Save the UK
