My late husband Remi and I slept happily in the same bed throughout our nearly 12 years together. At the time, I couldn’t understand my couple friends who slept separately. I wondered to myself if it was a sign of a bigger problem in their relationship.
I’m older now, and hopefully wiser. I’ve had more than seven years’ practice sleeping alone since Remi died. Now I find myself in a relationship again.
And it’s going well — really well. But we don’t have many sleepovers. My partner and I have the luxury of living right around the corner from one another.
I know there’s nothing wrong with having our separate lives, but it feels in stark contrast to my relationship with Remi. Is it possible that sleeping in separate bedrooms, or even separate houses, is sustainable and even healthy for some couples? Or should we want to sleep in the same bed every night? Depending on which study you consult, the number of couples sleeping separately ranges from one in three (a recent survey by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine ), to one in four ( a 2012 survey by the Better Sleep Council and a 2017 survey from the National Sleep Foundation ), to one in five (a 2023 survey of 2,200 Americans conducted by the International Housewares Association for The New York Times ). Therapist Megan Lara Negendank, the executive director of Love Heal Grow , told HuffPost that she was “starting to notice that a lot of couples that were coming in were reporting that they slept in differen.
