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20th May 2022

Musings: 1 in 7 couples prefer sleeping in separate beds and I agree with them

Melissa Carton

Two in the bed and the little one said move over…

A recent survey found that one out of every seven couples in Britain said that if space were not an issue they would prefer to sleep in separate beds.

It may seem strange to some to want to sleep in a bed without their partner or spouse but I have to admit, I do prefer having my own bed.

When I say I like to sleep solo a lot of people look at me like I’m some kind of Victorian weirdo, but hear me out…

My husband and I have very different sleep patterns and when we share a bedroom we argue, a lot!

He has insomnia and stays up most of the night which meant either sitting in the bed beside me with his laptop or mobile phone screen blaring white light on me or coming into the bedroom at 4 am after staying up to watch tv in the sitting room and waking me.

It just wasn’t working. When I know I have to be at work in the morning I like to hit the hay early and rise with the sun but I was finding it impossible to get any sleep the way that we were.

To be honest, I just like having my own space in general.

Even when I was a kid I’d be like Harry Potter in the press under the stairs, reading while the chaos of everyone’s busy lives bustled around me.

Sometimes I just needed a minute to myself.

I think one of the best weekends I had in the last while was when I had to work a Saturday morning but my husband had promised to visit his mum down the country with the kids.

I told him to go without me and ended up spending that Sunday lounging around, watching Netflix and rearranging my room. I bought myself a new bed set and for about a day after the kids got back, it actually looked like sane people lived in the house.

During the poll by YouGov, it was discovered that women are more likely to prefer to sleep by themselves, with 19 per cent preferring to sleep in their own bed compared to 11 per cent of men. So I’m really not alone.

They found that the main reason was also similar to my own predicament with women being lighter sleepers and saying that their partners often woke them up.

Even though I prefer my own bed I do think that sharing a bed with a loved one has its perks as it gives a great sense of security and comfort.

Now if I could just have that comfort without being roused from my sleep in the middle of the night, that’d be great!