Sleeping in separate rooms is not always a sign that something is going wrong in your relationship. Photo / Getty Images
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Hi there,
I’m really concerned, my partner and I have been sleeping in separate beds for three years now since our second child was born, is this okay? Our first child was a good sleeper, but our second child would wake many times during the night. I am a stay-at-home mother so I would attend to the baby during the night, and my partner started sleeping in the spare room so he could be alert for work. Now our youngest is 3 and sleeps through the night more often, but we still are sleeping in separate rooms. Should I be worried? - Hayley
Hello Hayley.
The short answer to your question is “it depends”. Sleeping in separate rooms is not always a sign that something is going wrong in your relationship. Recent research suggests that many people (17 per cent in a recent Australian survey of 2000 couples) sleep in separate rooms. There is a belief that sleeping separately is usually a sign of relationship problems but this is not borne out by the research. In fact, if sharing a bed damages your sleep (e.g. because your partner snores loudly or has a very different bio-rhythm from you), that’s far more likely to harm your relationship. Sleep deprivation makes everyone grumpy!
Nevertheless, it is wise to stop and ask yourself, is this okay? Wise, because it sounds like sleeping separately is a pattern you have slipped into without discussion, and making major changes to your relationship without talking about them is dangerous. It’s important to talk through why you’re making the changes and what they mean to each of you. You don’t say why you’re concerned, but that’s something you should be talking to your spouse about and also asking if he has any concerns. It’s also vital that you have talked through how you will deal with the impact of the changes on things like your sense of being special to each other, your sex life, your ability to have private conversations etc. Because there are many myths about sleeping separately, it’s crucial that you don’t leave room for misinterpretation about what you’re doing.
A good guiding principle to remember as you consider, “Is this okay?” is, are you prioritising your intimate relationship (both verbally and sexually)? With young families, it is easy to give all your time and energy to the practicalities and neglect your personal and romantic connection. This may be a necessity when children are first born. Still, as children’s demands ease a little over time, many couples do not take appropriate steps to re-establish their intimate connection as a priority.
One reason this happens is that intimacy is challenging – true intimacy requires the discomfort of vulnerability. Exhausted parents often don’t feel like they have the energy for that level of emotional work. So their conversations and sex lives become shallow and routine at best and nonexistent at worst – becoming “ships that pass in the night”. If avoiding the work of staying connected is part of what’s fuelling your decision to stay in separate rooms, then that is something to be concerned about. If you don’t want to end up “living like flatmates,” then you have to both be willing to put in the work to prevent that from happening.
Reconnecting as a couple might involve things like making time to talk on a deeper level, increasing eye contact, making efforts with affectionate touch or sexual connection, and having more fun times together. We all tend to focus on the area we value and feel at ease with the most. Because your partner is different from you, their desire for reconnection will likely focus on a different area than you will. These kinds of differences create the tension and conflict that make us want to avoid trying to reconnect intimately. The trick is to talk about your differences directly without making each other wrong or bad for wanting something different. To explore and negotiate how much each of you is willing and able to make an effort to stretch out of your comfort zone.
One of the main reasons there is a stigma around separate rooms is that it has often been a way to avoid reconnecting physically with our partners. Are you hesitant to place yourselves in a position where the issue of your sexual connection is likely to come up? When couples want to avoid sex, they often reduce all physical closeness and affection for fear that it will lead to sexual initiation. Although it is most commonly women who are not feeling like sex when dealing with the demands of young kids, some men also struggle to reconnect sexually after kids.
Another barrier can be an expectation that sex will get back to how it was pre-kids. This type of thinking causes many couples with young children grief. There are so many significant changes after you have children. For both of you, there are substantial changes to your stress levels, sleep patterns, fatigue levels and, perhaps most importantly, your identity. Typically, life is busier and more demanding than it has ever been. With all that going on, it’s unreasonable to expect that your sex life will operate the way it did before you had children.
We recommend lots of talking about what you want from your sex life, given the realities of the situation (your resources of privacy, time and energy). Getting what you want typically requires a radical rethinking of your expectations and behaviour around sex. We encourage couples to aim for sexual intimacy, not intercourse. Think of your sex life as made up of any form of touch, talk or messaging done with sexual intent. Doing small things to connect sexually. Your sex life is no longer made up of, “How many times do we make love each week?” but more “Are we relating to each other as romantic and sexual partners, not taking each other for granted?”
So, sleeping in separate rooms is not, in itself, a cause for concern. Instead, we encourage you to use this change as an opportunity to do a bit of a “check-up” on the state of your connection with your partner. To have some direct conversation about your thoughts and desires for the “couple” part of your relationship, and make sure that you both have the best kind of relationship you can given your resources.
• Verity & Nic are psychologists and family therapists who have specialised in relationship and sex therapy for more than 25 years. They have been working on their own relationship for more than 40 years and have two adult children.
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