How A Sleep Divorce Saved My Marriage
You get into bed exhausted after a long, busy day at work and then with the kids at home, looking forward to some quality shut-eye. Only to be rudely woken up by your partner’s (nightly) snoring and restless legs! By now it's 1AM and you can't fall back asleep. And then just as you start to drift off again, your alarm goes off! It’s not even 7AM and you’re pretty much ready to rip your partner’s head off! Sound familiar?
How do you make this scenario work every day without major frustration seeping into the relationship? Say hello to the Sleep Divorce.
Don’t worry, it’s not as sinister as it sounds.
Getting a good night’s sleep is such a luxury these days, and getting proper rest can make all the difference the next day. More importantly, the frustration of getting woken up by loud snoring, not being able to go back to sleep and then dragging my feet the next day, just to have the process repeated AGAIN, was really getting to me and it was starting to threaten my marital bliss. I was constantly irritated, juggling home and work, and the smallest of things would get me shouting and arguing just because I was so frustrated.
Something had to change. And fast. So I suggested to my husband that we trial a sleep divorce - sleeping in different rooms. While this may seem counterintuitive and perhaps signal a drastic step backwards in your marriage, it’s actually quite the opposite. If I went to bed at a time that suited me and got a good night’s rest without any disruptions I’d be less cranky and irritated, so the chances of fighting with my husband would rapidly reduce too!
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For a sleep divorce to work, I strongly believe that both partners have to be committed to it together, seeing it as a way to improve the relationship, rather than let it bring distance. We trialled sleeping in different rooms for one week, Monday through Thursday. He stayed in our room, while I bunked in with the kids. If your children are old enough to understand what you’re doing, involve them in the experiment too - it totally takes the pressure off the situation and can even get them excited about having ‘Mummy sleep in my room for a few nights’.
It worked! Because I was finally sleeping enough (and getting up at the usual time anyway for school, etc), I quickly went from being irritated with my husband in the morning, to waking up rested and happy, with hardly any tossing and turning through the night! Just a few days can make a big difference.
And as promised, we went back to sleeping in the same room Friday to Sunday nights, and repeated the sleep divorce on Monday evening. But if you do not have the luxury of having a separate room at home, other practical things you could try include using earplugs, having two separate duvets, or if possible, having two separate beds in one room.
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And what about sex and intimacy, you ask? Leave the intimacy for the weekends and holidays if you can, when you’re automatically more relaxed. You’re only choosing to sleep in separate rooms, so the pillow talk, winding down together, discussing the day’s events, etc, all stay the same. And even when I moved to the other room to sleep, the odd text check-ins through the night were very welcome and so cute! And because you’re sleeping better, and (potentially) feeling less frustrated with your partner, you’re more likely to enjoy more intimacy, knowing that you’ve worked together on a big issue in your marriage. At the end of the day, sharing a life together matters far more than sharing a bed, especially when a little space helps you wake up loving each other more.
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