Sharing a bed is driving me mad

Dr Miriam Stoppard advises

I grew up taking for granted that I’d sleep in the same bed as my partner and I got a great shock when I saw the film Giant with Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson. In a bedroom scene, they had twin beds!

They’d had three children, their sexual passion had waned, so why sleep in close contact in one bed? It was a jolt for me then but now couples not sleeping together is a fact of life. And these stats bear this out.

Nearly one in six British couples now sleep apart – with almost nine out of 10 of them sleeping in separate rooms. Sleeping apart is noticeably more common as people get older.

So among the over 55s, 23% sleep separately, with a quarter (25%) of retired people saying they have separate beds.

Where there is one partner, like you, who’s sick of interruptions to sleep, it becomes an imperative – and a legitimate request. Some people just don’t want to share a bed all night long. They want, to put it bluntly, to have dominion over the duvet without the worry of leaving their partner uncovered.

Being out of sync with your partner’s bedtime can cause great friction. In fact, you’ve got a ready-made reason right there to suggest a change in the sleeping arrangements.

I’m sure your wife would find the transition to a double room with single occupancy easier to contemplate if you suggest the bedroom needs a makeover and she can have carte blanche over the colour scheme, the linen, the carpet and the furniture including, at your request, twin beds. And to relieve her disturbance from your having a light on to read, settle for a focused bedside light with a narrow beam.

If all this fails, well, you’ve prepared the ground for introducing the possibility of separate rooms.