I sleep in a separate bedroom to my boyfriend. It doesn't mean the romance has disappeared

Telegraph

2 days ago

Does Brian Cox have the perfect marital set-up? Brian Cox the actor, I mean, not Brian Cox the physicist.
In a recent interview, the former discussed his sleeping arrangements with his wife. The pair have separate homes in North London, a nine-minute walk apart, and they 'visit' one another from time to time but sleep entirely separately, as they do in their other homes, in Brooklyn and upstate New York. Brian Cox the physicist may have this arrangement with his wife, too (so he can look up at the stars at night?), but we can't know that for sure because he hasn't recently discussed this intimate subject in a newspaper interview.
Granted, few people in this country can afford one property in chi-chi Primrose Hill, where Cox and his wife have their homes, let alone two. But it doesn't sound a bad arrangement, does it?
It struck a chord with me, because I've been dating a man for some time now and we sleep in separate bedrooms. He also has a flat in North London, as it happens, and I sleep in the spare room whenever I stay there. But it can't just be a peculiarly North London habit, this sleeping apart thing, because we also do it when he comes to see me in south-east London. Neither of us are great sleepers. He snores (a tiny bit, but let's keep that between us), and also our body clocks are different. My circadian rhythms aren't unlike those of a medieval peasant – at this time of year, I fade as it gets dark but wake early with the light. He goes to bed sometime after midnight and wakes later. It's simply easier and more conducive to both of us actually sleeping to spend the night apart.
We've tried the same bedroom a handful of times, and at one stage he invested in a roll of a something called Hostage Tape (who came up with that brand name?), a thick, black, sticky tape plastered over the mouth in an effort to prevent the odd snore escaping. But still we're light sleepers, prone to waking up at the slightest movement, so different rooms it is. Especially if I have Dennis, my terrier, with me, because his determination to be larking about in the park by 6am only complicates matters. Dennis would also have made a good medieval peasant.
Towards the start of our relationship, the romantic in me bridled at this. Hardly love's young dream to steal off to separate bedrooms like Victorians. Is this what I'd held out so long for, saying goodnight and closing my bedroom door to sleep alone? Except neither of us is that young, and we're both fortunate to have spare rooms, so why not? Practically it simply makes sense. More laundry, yes, but at least we don't wake in the morning wanting to murder one another. None of that passive aggressive 'You snored terribly last night.'
'You should have kicked me,' previous boyfriends have cried, and I've muttered bitterly that I did but it made little difference given that the nighttime orchestra started up again seconds later. In the interests of fairness, I'd like to point out that women snore too (or so I'm told), and my friend Annie and her husband sleep in separate bedrooms now because she can also put on quite the symphony at 3am.
How common is separate bedrooms? And I don't mean common like a Nicky Haslam tea towel (for once). How typical is it? Can one chart the timeline of a relationship according to sleep patterns – from amorous 20-somethings entwined like strands of spaghetti, to Sybil and Basil Fawlty sexlessly undressing and getting into their single beds, or beds in other rooms entirely? Or different homes, in Cox's case. This idea, that 'separate' means 'sexless', was why I was saddened by the practice at first. Until recently, I believed one must go through the proper stages, sleeping happily beside one another, finding their hand in the night, before the Fawlty decline sets in down the line. But is this true, these days?
When I was small and we lived in West Sussex, we often visited the nearby Weald and Downland Museum. Medieval loos are always quite a gripping subject for a child, but I also vividly remember being transfixed by the grotesque idea of an entire family (plus livestock) bedding down in the same room. Nowadays, happily, we've evolved a bit, so the chickens and the pigs can go outside, and human beings can largely have their own rooms. Progress, I think we call that. So why should couples be the only ones who have to stick together, sweating and farting in close proximity (come on, everyone does it), just as they did in the Dark Ages?
Sleeping alone was deemed much more sanitary in the 19th century. In 1861, the American physician William Whitte Hall published a book called Sleep: Or, the Hygiene of the Night. In it, he offered the startling advice that each sleeper 'should have a single bed in a large, clean, light room, so as to pass all the hours of sleep in a pure, fresh air, and that those who fail in this, will in the end fail in health and strength of limb and brain, and will die while yet their days are not all told'.
In the early 20th century, according to various historians, society started viewing couples sleeping separately as a sign of a waning marriage. Couples were expected to be more united. According to Marie Stopes, the author and women's rights campaigner, the twin-bed arrangement was 'an invention of the Devil, jealous of married bliss'. In 1961, an organisation called the Bedding Guild surveyed 3,608 women and concluded that 'the double bed is symbolic of marital bliss and closeness. It is also an object of pride and prestige. Most women regard it as a part of a traditional marriage'. Which is exactly the sort of thing you might expect the Bedding Guild to say, and yet so it has remained.
A few months ago, I went away with a friend who slept badly every night because she said she found it hard to sleep without her husband beside her. Part of me thought, 'Get a grip'; another part of me thought, 'I'd like that.' But one of the things I've (quite slowly) learnt about relationships is that I can't necessarily have absolutely everything I want. Compromise, in other words. Some couples may sleep terrifically beside one another; others may not. But I wonder how many are reluctant to admit this publicly because it feels like an admission of some sort about their relationship. A failing. I don't mind saying that I'm in Cox's camp, and potentially stronger in limb and brain as a result. On the other hand, if anyone has any tips regarding young terriers snuffling about and causing a disturbance several times a night, I'm all ears.