NEW YORK — Michael Solender and his wife have been together for 42 years. They slept in the same bed for the first 10 years, then moved to separate rooms.
Sleep separation occurred due to the development of chronic, intense snoring that eventually led to a diagnosis of sleep apnea and the use of a CPAP machine.
After the machine eliminated his snoring, they continue to sleep separately in their Charlotte, North Carolina, home because of other problems. He is usually warm at night and she is usually cold.
“Keeping separate bedrooms for sleeping only makes for a healthier and better relationship,” said Solender, 66. “There is no shame associated with it. There is no stigma.”
Snoring, temperature fluctuations, cover stealing and tossing and turning often cause partners to sleep separately. Other issues are also at play, including illness, different work shifts, and partners going to bed and waking up at different times.
More than a third of Americans said they occasionally or consistently sleep in another room to accommodate a bed partner, according to a study from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine last year. Men are the ones who usually crash on the couch or in the guest room.
And, perhaps surprisingly, it is millennials who do this most, not older people.
Seema Khosla, a pulmonologist and spokesperson for the academy, said getting adequate sleep, which typically lasts seven to eight hours for adults, is important for healthy relationships.
Studies indicate that people who consistently sleep poorly are more likely to experience conflict with their partners, said Khosla, who is medical director of the North Dakota Sleep Center in Fargo.
“It’s really a matter of people prioritizing sleep,” Khosla said. “I’ve had patients who have been married for about 60 years and swear by separate bedrooms as a reason.”
Sleeping apart, she said, “is probably more common than we think.”
The same goes for sleep apnea, a leading cause of heavy snoring, Khosla said. Solender said he saw a sleep specialist after realizing the impact sleep deprivation had on him and his wife.
“I would wake her up and wake me up,” he said. “I never knew I had sleep apnea. I would say about 20 years ago I started falling asleep at red lights. I started falling asleep watching TV or sitting and reading a book. I felt tired constantly. That’s when I knew I had a problem.”
The key to making separate sleeping spaces work is to talk about it ahead of time, like Solender did with his wife.
“It’s not about avoiding intimacy. It’s about recognizing that you can be intimate, you can spend this time together, but then you just sleep apart. This is a very important part of the conversation. Both partners need to understand and agree,” Khosla said.
She has noticed some reluctance among her patients when she suggests sleeping apart.
“Usually it’s someone’s spouse who is snoring or someone who has their spouse’s alarm that wakes them up at four in the morning or something like that. We’ll talk about it. And people will react immediately, saying, oh, no, no, that’s not going to work for me,” she said.
Some, Khosla said, “will sit with it for a minute and think about it, and you can tell they’re like, I’d love to do that, but how can I tell my partner?”
Tracey Daniels and her husband have been sleeping apart for about four years. Initially, there wasn’t much conversation. She just went to the guest room.
“It all started because my husband snores horribly. But I’m also a very light sleeper. He could drop a paper clip on the carpeted floor and I would wake up,” said Daniels, who lives in Tryon, North Carolina.
Later, she said, she started a conversation after being diagnosed with breast cancer and undergoing surgery.
“He comes over, puts me on the bed and gives me a kiss,” Daniels said.
They rotate their three dogs at night.
Phyllis Zee, chief of sleep medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and director of a sleep clinic at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, said sleep separation is common in her practice.
“It would be a great idea to discuss sleep compatibility before you get married. I tend to see this when couples are married and/or have been together for a while and have been trying to negotiate this for a while,” she said.
In middle age, Zee said, sleep is less robust.
“In general, you are more likely to have insomnia or sleep apnea. And then it starts to get uncomfortable,” she said.
While there’s no shame in sleeping apart, Zee said technology has helped make bedsharing easier in some ways. White noise machines, cooling pillows and bedding, dual-temperature-control mattresses and dual-control electric blankets can help, Zee said. Some couples have given up sharing blankets, using their own, to make sleeping easier.
“There’s a whole market out there to mitigate some of these issues,” she said.
Sleep separation is more accepted now as people become more aware of the importance of quality sleep for overall health, Zee said.
“On the other hand, there is research that shows there are benefits to co-sleeping,” she said. “In general, the main thing is probably to seek professional help before making a decision. Are the problems a sign of a sleep disorder that can be treated?”
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