Sleeping with your spouse, or not -- a question

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KCtheMommy

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This thread has nothing to do with sex. Our sex life is just fine thank you. 😛

This is about SLEEPING with my husband.

I think it’s hit the point of pointlessness in our house.

It’s a tried and true battle that has been waged for years now. YEARS. Fact is: we just don’t enjoy sleeping in the same bed. OK maybe when he comes home from deployment for about three days, then it’s back to politely trying to figure out a way to sleep elsewhere. Nobody’s feelings are hurt. The pre-conceived notion that a married couple must sleep together is seeming to be JUST a notion.

We have two problems, but I am going to call them 1A and 1B because they are equal in annoyance to each of us.

1A: I snore. It’s way worse when I am pregnant. He’s a light sleeper. It drives him nuts. Even with those breath right strips and I am hardly snoring, we have the following problem:

1B: He can’t stand to be touched, at all, while asleep. He loathes having his feet touched even when awake. If I should barely and accidentally touch his foot in bed he jumps about a foot. Which wakes me. When he turns over in bed it is a huge process that shakes the bed mightily and wakes me.

For a while there his thing with my snoring turned into him purposely shaking the bed and doing his flip-flop turn coming a foot or two off the bed and landing as hard as he could to wake me and show me his displeasure. He finally quit when I started calling out “The Olympic judges are calling that one a perfect 10!” Or “DH must be losing his edge, due to lack of height, tonight’s score is only a 7.5!” :mad: :rotfl: “No really, honey, it needs to stop, it’s rude.”

We also fight over the blankets. :rolleyes: Yes, we’ve used two, but we fight over my family-passed-down was practically my wubby even though it’s big – quilt. You guys, we have literally fought over this blanket for years. We fight over pillows. We only have like six or seven on our bed.:rolleyes: But the blankie – if I try to get some which involves touching him sometimes to get the blanket back: then it’s a big stress for me. Seriously my eyes pop open when I accidentally touch him ala’ “oh darn, here we go again!” Take into account that Dash comes in with us about 3AM to nurse and sleep. If Dash bumps him or touches him, same thing. :eek:

I have a super bad back, so I bought a special back care mattress. I can’t sleep on the couch. DH has a love hate relationship with the thing. First, it’s two soft. Second, the double bed in Shane’s room is too firm. I didn’t ask if the porridge was just right…

Now he has back issues and the firm bed hurts him. He needs the back care bed. But he really doesn’t like sleeping with company. At this point: nor do I. We are both suffering insomnia at this point. Last week we just gave up and sat up to watch Biography together. :o

Two nights ago our son spiked a fever. I went and laid down with him in his double bed, the firm one, and slept. I did it again last night since going to the doctor we discovered Shane has strep. I have slept SO GOOD the last two nights. Even in a double bed with my two boys. I asked DH, he too said it’s been heaven, and he loves not having to share the blankie. LOL My back is a bit sore, but the sleep is AWESOME. No insomnia, ahhhhhhh, relief.

So wonder what should we do? Get a bigger bed that’s one of those awesome memory foam things and doesn’t move when your partner does? Spacing the name, but did lay down on one in a mattress store and nearly fell asleep right there. Tempurpedic – that’s it. We’d need a King, right now we are in a Queen.

Get two separate beds for the master bedroom ala’ I Love Lucy? Yes we have a big master so it could be done.

***Does anyone else have this problem? What do you do? ***

Seriously, it’s not a lack of love or lack of closeness, it’s just practical, and right now we are forcing an issue that we are both losing. Again, sex isn’t the problem, we have no problem there, it’s simply sleep, and neither of us are getting it, or enough of it. I LOVE it when he goes to work in the morning – I am like “it’s MINE! The bed is alllllll miiiiiiiiiiiine!! Bwahahaha!” Stretching out, arms and legs anywhere I want them, blankie all to myself, any pillow I want I use. I bet if we had separate beds we would actually have sex more. Because we’d be rested. LOL 😛 I am so curious to see how many other folks have this issue.
 
You could get rid of your big bed and get two twin beds like back in the olden days:D If it was good enough for Lucy and Desi, it’s good enough for KC and Hubby:D And then you could each get your own wubby!
 
As you very well know, sex has nothing to do with where one sleeps.

DH and I like to sleep together. We would like it better if we had not gotten rid of our king-sized bed, when we thought we were going to sell our house, and got the full out of the basement so the room would be “to scale.” Now that we have other plans, we are getting a king again for our anniversary. So, sometimes I sleep in the living room. And we take shifts when we take our after lunch naps.

I know of other couples who have very satisfactory marital lives, thank you very much, but they have separate beds, and even separate bedrooms. My late, great aunt and her dear DH come to mind (Trust me, that’s soemthing I want to blot out of my brain). My parents do as well. For somebody younger, my BFF.
 
happymommy said:
You could get rid of your big bed and get two twin beds like back in the olden days:D If it was good enough for Lucy and Desi, it’s good enough for KC and Hubby:D And then you could each get your own wubby!
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Our master is actually big enough for two doubles.

I am about to move the double out of Shane’s room because of the need to get Dash’s crib in there. Hmmmmmmm…Yep, formulating a plan. Will talk to DH tonight when he gets home.
 
For us, it depends.
My DH snores… and it can really disturb my sleep. Sound machines have REALLY helped with that!! (the ocean waves drown him out! :D)
Right now, DH sleeps in with our boys because Bridget tends to wake up at night (she sleeps with me) and nurse… and we keep him up if I have to turn on the lights to change her diaper. So it’s best for all right now that he’s in the other room.
My grandparents had 2 twin beds in their bedroom… 🤷 so it’s certainly not a new thing!

I look forward to the days when our kids are grown and sleeping on their own, we can afford a nice high quality mattress, crank up the sound machine and play footsie in bed together again 😛 … but for now, this works for us… :o
 
I’d either get a better mattress in a king or get separate beds in the same room. Gosh, I’m impressed that ya’ll have stuck it out this long! 😛 DH is a heavy sleeper and I’m a blanket hog, but other than that, we’re good. And we have a nice comfy mattress that is heavenly for my bad back…did I mention it’s a king? I really really like having a king–it give you the option of being cuddly or sleeping on opposite ends if you’re ticked off at each other. 😃 🤷 😃
 
We have Cal king bed and usually don’t have a problem.

Sometimes DH snores and I just kick him/shove him until he stops.😃 If I bother him by snoring or something else and he does anything about it then I don’t remember it in the morning.🤷 Sometimes he wants to cuddle up on warm nights and I can’t stand that. “Get your body heat away from me!”:mad:

But seriously. I don’t have any problem with couples sleeping apart if it works for them. Once enough of us kids moved out my parents took to sleeping in separate rooms except when they had visitors who needed the sleeping space.

Now if you do want to be in the same room you could try two twin beds. If you can figure out some solution for the blanket war you could even push them up against each other side by side. I believe I standard king is something like two normal twins and a western/California king is like two extra-long twins. Some people who need a little space definition or want different mattresses but want the look of a big bed will go that route. I guess that’s kind of the cheap version of those adjustable beds for two people. I don’t know if you can get them close enough together to use a single fitted sheet. I have enough trouble getting the fitted sheet to stretch enough to fit over one mattress when it comes out of the dryer.

Of course multiple mattresses in the same room won’t solve the snoring problem.
 
My aunt and uncle have separate beds. I always figured that was why they only had half as many kids as my dad 😃 I think as long as your snoring wasn’t too bad that might be the best solution? We love sharing a bed (aside from DH’s running marathons in his sleep) so I don’t have any special insight.
 
OutinChgoburbs said:
I know of other couples who have very satisfactory marital lives, thank you very much, but they have separate beds, and even separate bedrooms. My late, great aunt and her dear DH come to mind (Trust me, that’s soemthing I want to blot out of my brain). My parents do as well. For somebody younger, my BFF.
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My mom used to tell a funny story about my great-uncle’s wife. She was a very frank person. When my parents went to visit them shortly after they were married, she told my mom that she slept in a separate bedroom from my great-uncle ONLY because he snored horribly…otherwise they had a great love life. 😛 Bless her heart, she did not want my mom to get the wrong idea about her and Uncle Pete!
 
My husband and I have not slept in the same bed, except off and on, for about 11 or 12 years. In the beginning, I would be unable to fall asleep with him there next to me because I knew he would start to snore as soon as he fell asleep. If I turned on the fan to cover his snoring, that would upset him. Of course, I’d have it so high that it sounded like a jet engine. So, I would lie there, waiting for him to fall asleep and then I could go sleep on the sofa, angry that I was the one having to move when he was the one causing the disturbance. Unfortunately, the sofa wasn’t long enough. Never slept well, but at least I slept.

After 6 months of that, he took a job driving over the road. The bed was now mine except for the 4 or 5 days of the month when he was home. Then, it was back to the sofa.

After two years of that, he found a job closer to home where he slept all day and drove all night. So, for the next 5 or 6 years, he slept in the bed during the day and I slept in it at night. On weekends, I slept either on the sofa or on a mattress on the floor in our daughter’s bedroom.

We moved 3 years ago. No kids here now. He has the master bedroom with a pillowtop mattress, which I HATE. It’s too soft. And I have my own bedroom across the hall with a nice firm temperpedic mattress, which he doesn’t care for. Neither of us sleeps well even alone in the room, but at least we are not disturbing the other at night.

He still snores, often waking himself up. He frequently lifts one leg and slams it down on the mattress in his sleep. I’m constantly throwing the covers off then pulling them on again because of hot flashes (my last doctor assured me that she’s never heard of a 70 year old woman having hot flashes. That was supposed to comfort me. But, I’m getting closer and closer to that age.) Then I have to have a fan on me to cool off. That disturbs him. We both are up and down 3 or 4 or 5 times a night. And none of them are at the same time. Sometimes he wakes up at 5AM and can’t get back to sleep at all.

Every once in a while, I’ll try sleeping with him, but so far, it’s not been successful. And I don’t anticipate that it ever will. A bummer. I really liked lying in bed with him at night before we went to sleep. I miss the talking and cuddling.
 
KC, my husband works a weekly swing shift-- one week of every month he’s on midnight shift-- he’s at work while i’m asleep.

i miss him when he’s gone (i wish we had a dog) but i do enjoy having the whole bed to myself.

when he’s sleeping during the days (while he’s on midnight shift) he likes having the bed to himself, too.

we both snore.

we both steal blankets.

we both roll, toss, kick and annoy.

i suppose if we didn’t have that single week of perfect sleep monthly, we’d be looking for a basement bed for him. (not for me. i ain’t going nowhere.)

(just this week, we built for naomi a little nest on the floor to get her out of bed with us. if she was walking (she’s 2 and a half now), i think we’d put her in with her sister, but she’s not, so she stays. it’s nice, really, because in the morning she climbs in and is all a-cuddle. who can resist? )
 
violetandgandal said:
My husband and I have not slept in the same bed, except off and on, for about 11 or 12 years. In the beginning, I would be unable to fall asleep with him there next to me because I knew he would start to snore as soon as he fell asleep. If I turned on the fan to cover his snoring, that would upset him. Of course, I’d have it so high that it sounded like a jet engine. So, I would lie there, waiting for him to fall asleep and then I could go sleep on the sofa, angry that I was the one having to move when he was the one causing the disturbance. Unfortunately, the sofa wasn’t long enough. Never slept well, but at least I slept.

After 6 months of that, he took a job driving over the road. The bed was now mine except for the 4 or 5 days of the month when he was home. Then, it was back to the sofa.

After two years of that, he found a job closer to home where he slept all day and drove all night. So, for the next 5 or 6 years, he slept in the bed during the day and I slept in it at night. On weekends, I slept either on the sofa or on a mattress on the floor in our daughter’s bedroom.

We moved 3 years ago. No kids here now. He has the master bedroom with a pillowtop mattress, which I HATE. It’s too soft. And I have my own bedroom across the hall with a nice firm temperpedic mattress, which he doesn’t care for. Neither of us sleeps well even alone in the room, but at least we are not disturbing the other at night.

He still snores, often waking himself up. He frequently lifts one leg and slams it down on the mattress in his sleep. I’m constantly throwing the covers off then pulling them on again because of hot flashes (my last doctor assured me that she’s never heard of a 70 year old woman having hot flashes. That was supposed to comfort me. But, I’m getting closer and closer to that age.) Then I have to have a fan on me to cool off. That disturbs him. We both are up and down 3 or 4 or 5 times a night. And none of them are at the same time. Sometimes he wakes up at 5AM and can’t get back to sleep at all.

Every once in a while, I’ll try sleeping with him, but so far, it’s not been successful. And I don’t anticipate that it ever will. A bummer. I really liked lying in bed with him at night before we went to sleep. I miss the talking and cuddling.
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You could talk and cuddle and then go to your own bed. Best of both worlds for you!!
 
My parents (mom and stepdad) have separate bedrooms.

I would think any of the solutions you’ve mentioned would work for you. I would make sure the king would solve your issues before you invest a lot of money in it – maybe try one in a hotel??? See if that’s enough room for y’all.

If the snoring is an issue, try ear plugs. I’m a light sleeper and any time I travel where I’m sharing a room, I bring them. They’re fabulous and block most of the noise.
 
KCtheMommy said:
***Does anyone else have this problem? What do you do? …***I bet if we had separate beds we would actually …
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Lucy and Ricky must have had a similar problem, as they slept in twin beds. All married television couples from the 50’s must have had similar problems. If you get twin beds, maybe decorate your bedroom in black and white, then tell every one you’re just getting ready to film an old family sit com.
 
KCtheMommy said:
…

1B: He can’t stand to be touched, at all, while asleep. He loathes having his feet touched even when awake. If I should barely and accidentally touch his foot in bed he jumps about a foot. Which wakes me. When he turns over in bed it is a huge process that shakes the bed mightily and wakes me.

For a while there his thing with my snoring turned into him purposely shaking the bed and doing his flip-flop turn coming a foot or two off the bed and landing as hard as he could to wake me and show me his displeasure. He finally quit when I started calling out “The Olympic judges are calling that one a perfect 10!” Or “DH must be losing his edge, due to lack of height, tonight’s score is only a 7.5!” :mad: :rotfl: “No really, honey, it needs to stop, it’s rude.”

…

***Does anyone else have this problem? What do you do? ***
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LOL! Awww man KC, this is sooooo my husband. I always describe it this way to other people and you have me cracking up over here. I never knew that other men did this. DH flip flops all night long just because he is a light sleeper. But yes it does wake me and the entire house up and it gets worse if he is annoyed with something. I feel like he thinks he’s on a trampoline when he turns over! He too does not like to be touched, but more like he just can’t get comfortable holding someone else or like me sleeping on his arm or holding him. He gets hot like a heater so he can’t sleep near anyone. We might as well sleep in different beds but we just don’t have 2 beds for our room.

Anyway I have no actual advice for you but thought I’d let you know you are not the only one. I am a heavy sleeper though but it annoys me right before I actually fall asleep or if I wake up in the middle of the night. My in-laws sleep in separate beds like some people mentioned in here. They both snore too so that is why they sleep in different rooms. I don’t think it is all that uncommon.
 
I guess ya gotta do what ya gotta do to get some sleep.

In my case I couldn’t leave outta the bed if I wanted, after you know what. She’s funny like that. If she was snoring my only choice would be to listen. She’s got like this instant wire connected to her. If my foot hits the floor after, she wakes up, “Where ya goin?” “Going to see if the door was locked.” Which really means I’m going for Mt Dew and to watch TV. “I locked it long time ago, lay back down.”
 
Brad snores like a monster, he shakes the bed!!! I do not like to touched just because it is sooooo difficult for me to get comfortable with all my aches and pains.

Separate beds have been hunky dory for my honey bunches and me 🙂
 
My husband and I have separate bedrooms, at opposite corners of the house. He’s got his own bathroom, too, because his banging around in the a.m. would wake the baby, who sleeps with me. Additional reasons for this arrangement are that he snores, and he sleeps ON TOP of the top sheet! :eek: Ever tried rolling over when a 200lb. man is on top of the top sheet? Can’t be done. It works beautifully for both of us, we have a happy marriage and we’ve been intimate at least 7 times.
 
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