Are you like Ward and June? Or Mike and Carol?

[Tiger Wench]

Interesting article.  Carl and I actually sleep in separate but adjoining rooms with the master bath in between.  He snores like a freight train and likes to go to sleep with the tv on which annoys the crap out of me.  I prefer to battle my dreadful insomnia with books or the internet which keeps him from going all the way to sleep.

What about you and yours?

My grandparents had a secret. When I was growing up in Savannah, Ga., in the 1970s, my paternal grandparents lived in the house immediately behind us. (My uncle lived next door in a set-up my father likened to Faulkner.) But my grandparents did something in their otherwise typical suburban home that was always something of a mystery to me.

They slept in separate bedrooms.

I speculated that this bifurcated sleeping arrangement had something to do with Southern gentility, Papa’s late-night ham radio habit, or some unseen rift in their marriage. But since my parents slept in side-by-side twin beds, and my wife and I later chose a king-size mattress, I assumed separate bedrooms had gone the way of other bygone relics, like sleeping caps or corsets.
I was wrong. It turns out my grandparents were ahead of their time.

Nearly one in four American couples sleep in separate bedrooms or beds, the National Sleep Foundation reported in a 2005 survey. Recent studies in England and Japan have found similar results. And the National Association of Home Builders says it expects 60 percent of custom homes to have dual master bedrooms by 2015.
Even Hollywood is catching on. The former bodyguard for Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt told In Touch Weekly recently that the couple often sleeps in separate rooms. (Ms. Jolie informed Vanity Fair that the couple sometimes sleeps in one “giant bed” with their six children.) In Touch also reported this spring that five months after Kevin Jonas of the Jonas Brothers traded his purity ring for a wedding band, he was sleeping separately from his wife. The reason, a friend said: “He snores like a freight train.”

(In Touch apparently has become the Official Chronicler of American Bedding.)

The marital bed, once the symbol of American matrimony on a par with the diamond ring, the tiered wedding cake and his-and-hers martinis, is threatened with extinction. “Till Death Do Us Part” is fast becoming “Till Sleep Do Us Part.”

Separate sleepers cite a bevy of reasons for their habit, including apnea, restless leg syndrome, his insistence on watching “SportsCenter,” her need to get up early for yoga. As Barbara Tober, the former chairwoman of the Museum of Arts and Design, told The New York Times recently, “Not that we don’t love each other, but at a certain point you just want your own room.”

“What happened in the last decade,” said Dr. Meir Kryger, a sleep specialist at Gaylord Hospital in Connecticut, “is that people are suddenly making their own sleep a priority. If their rest is being impaired by their partner, the attitude now is that I don’t have to put up with this.”
 
Children represent another threat. Dr. William Sears, a leader of the “attachment parenting” movement, reports in the 2005 “Baby Sleep Book” that two-thirds of American families say they “sometimes” or “always” sleep with a child in their bed. Another 16 percent welcome a pet under the covers.

Technology is an even greater intrusion. Forget the tired debate about TV in the bedroom; how about your ex’s Twitter feed? Anyone who’s around teenage girls or techy men knows someone who checks e-mail, text messages or Facebook pages after turning out the light at night and before going to the bathroom in the morning.

This would all be fine, just another example of how modern life has managed to overrun the institutions once used to contain it, if it weren’t that the bed is the one place where couples spend most of their time together. In an age when partners no longer eat together, exercise together or pray together, sleeping together may be the last bastion of togetherness in American relationships. If pillow talk dies, can throwing in the towel be far behind?

Fortunately, we know how to handle situations like this. We need a campaign. One of those national initiatives politicians are always calling for. “The War on Bed Divorce,” call it, or “Brush Up on Your Bediquette.” Thirty-five years after “Save the Whales,” it’s time for “Save the Sheets.”

To start, we can ask the editors at In Touch to find us a celebrity spokesperson to point out that many sleep problems are fixable. As Dr. Kryger observed, “What saddens me is that people are sleeping apart for conditions that are easily treatable.” Page Dr. Gupta, Mr. Jonas! That snoring can be silenced.

Next, we can highlight some benefits of co-sleeping. Paul C. Rosenblatt, a psychiatry professor at the University of Minnesota, interviewed 42 couples for his book “Two in a Bed: The Social System of Couple Bed Sharing” and came to some surprising conclusions.

Co-sleeping is better for your health. His subjects mentioned seizures, diabetic shock and other medical emergencies that would have gone undetected if not for a proximate partner.

Co-sleeping is better for your sex life. “I talked to plenty of men (and women) who think that sexual intercourse is far more frequent if they have access to their partner,” Dr. Rosenblatt said. “If you want it, share a bed.”

Co-sleeping is better for your security. Women, in particular, feel safer from intruders when sleeping with another person.

In the end, the best way to enhance co-sleeping may be to emphasize mattress manners. Here are four steps to restoring honor and dignity to the American bed.

1. Make it. It takes less than a minute; it makes you feel good all day; it’s the opening note for a good night’s sleep.
 
2. Declutter it. Feng shui masters say that adjusting the environs around a bed can bring couples closer. Time to admit you’re not going to read those books gathering dust on your night stand or order things from those catalogs from before the recession. To improve harmony, Steven Post, a feng shui consultant in San Francisco, recommends wrapping the legs of your bed in red (the color of romance and prosperity) or draping a red cloth over the line that separates the two box springs under a king mattress.

3. Sanctify it. Sleep specialists say that those who pray before they go to bed are more likely to get a good night’s sleep. Dr. Kryger says any ritual will do, including meditating, reading a poem or keeping a journal.

4. Choreograph it. Dr. Rosenblatt found that most couples sleep best when they face away from each other, the better to avoid flexing knees and “that little gush of bad breath.” Map out a strategy, he said, and adjust it frequently. “Sleeping together is an achievement.”

For years, I fell short of that achievement. I was a poor sleeper, while my wife was a pro. Then I got cancer and spent nine months in bed. I feared my wife would be relegated to the sofa, but she stayed by my side, and her presence, occasional touch and peaceful breathing brought comfort to many long nights. Maybe it was the act of confronting my worst fears, but by the end of that year, I was cured of my restlessness. As my Cold War-era grandparents might have appreciated, forced to come face-to-face with my nightmares, I learned to stop worrying and love my bed.

That’s our little secret.

Bruce Feiler is the author, most recently, of “The Council of Dads.” This story, " Married, but Sleeping Alone," originally appeared in The New York Times.

[AUTailgatingRules]

We are co-sleepers in our incredibly comfortable bed with a million pillows.  I fall asleep with the TV on and she usually turns it off sometime during the night.

[AUJarhead]

When I'm home, we sleep in the same bed.  However, Mrs Jarhead sleeps with the TV on, which doesn't bother me, in 8 years of marriage, I've learned to tune it out.  But, it also makes me unable to hear other noises, like when the 2 year old starts crying, which usually ends with me getting slapped and told to go see what's wrong.

[Saniflush]

When the squaw is around it is the same bed with the tv switched to Adult Swim with a 60 minute cut off timer.  

[Hogwally]

     My horrible snoring used to send the wife to another room 3 or 4 nights a week, but since I got my CPAP machine we both sleep in bliss.  No way I'd ever go back from a King size bed, though.  When we travel it's tough if we have to share a Queen. (sized bed, not a tranny, don't have any problems sharing those).  The only problem now is keeping the dog from jumping in the bed.

[AUTiger1]

We would start out in the same bed, but apparently my snoring would send the wife to the couch.  I had a CPAP machine, but opted out for the surgery to cure my sleep apnea.  Unfortunately the painful surgery and countless hours spent in misery are no longer working and I am back on my CPAP.  Hogwally, don't go the surgery route.  Not worth it.  Weird thing though, she can't hear a damned thunder storm that is rattles the windows, but you better believe she can hear me snore and wake my ass up to tell me to roll over.

The baby and dogs are the only things that make her get up now.   

[Saniflush]

Wally can't opt for the surgery.  If he did we would need someone from the vet department to administer the anesthesia.

[Tiger Wench]

We would start out in the same bed, but apparently my snoring would send the wife to the couch.  I had a CPAP machine, but opted out for the surgery to cure my sleep apnea.  Unfortunately the painful surgery and countless hours spent in misery are no longer working and I am back on my CPAP.  Hogwally, don't go the surgery route.  Not worth it. 

A doctor told Carl that it "might" help, but you are the second person to tell me that it is NOT worth it, especially since it is not a sure fire cure.  Sometimes he is loud, but often it is like fucking Chinese water torture.  just loud enough to interrupt my sleep pattern and keep me from going back to sleep but not so loud as to actually wake him up - which has happened before.

Isn't the CPAP loud?  Wouldn't that also keep the wife awake?

We are happy with the separate beds routine for the most part, but I kind of miss having someone there in the middle of the night.  it hasn't affected the sex life - he just gets up and goes to his bed once the magic has happened.  We are looking to move to a new bigger house next year (our current one is TOO SMALL for two kids and their crap) and I am hoping we can find another similar suite arrangement.

[AUTiger1]

A doctor told Carl that it "might" help, but you are the second person to tell me that it is NOT worth it, especially since it is not a sure fire cure.  Sometimes he is loud, but often it is like phuking Chinese water torture.  just loud enough to interrupt my sleep pattern and keep me from going back to sleep but not so loud as to actually wake him up - which has happened before.

Isn't the CPAP loud?  Wouldn't that also keep the wife awake?

We are happy with the separate beds routine for the most part, but I kind of miss having someone there in the middle of the night.  it hasn't affected the sex life - he just gets up and goes to his bed once the magic has happened.  We are looking to move to a new bigger house next year (our current one is TOO SMALL for two kids and their crap) and I am hoping we can find another similar suite arrangement.

It worked for a while, but the snoring came back.  I snored loud enough that I would wake myself up.  One night Leslie was going to tell me to roll over but I was already on my stomach snoring away.  The surgery is not worth it,  it works for about 5 years and then it comes back.  Plus you have to learn to swallow all over again.  6 months after the surgery I would still sometimes have soda come out my nose.  (go ahead and chortle, it's funny) but it was over a month before I was able to eat a cheeseburger again.  I did lose 15 pounds though, but it sucked.

The CPAP isn't that loud at all.  She has never complained.  Maybe get Carl to go to a sleep study and see what they can do?

[Godfather]

We are happy with the separate beds routine for the most part, but I kind of miss having someone there in the middle of the night.  it hasn't affected the sex life - he just gets up and goes to his bed once the magic has happened. 

Sounds like heaven to me, and you get left with the sticky bed to boot. 

[Tiger Wench]

Sounds like heaven to me, and you get left with the sticky bed to boot. 

Dude, I was a Girl Scout - we are always prepared too...

[AUJarhead]

Sounds like heaven to me, and you get left with the sticky bed to boot. 

No kidding, no afterplay at all.  Carl is my hero.

[Godfather]

No kidding, no afterplay at all.  Carl is my hero.

The man has skillz...skeet...skeet ..skeet!

[Buzz Killington]

Dude, I was a Girl Scout - we are always prepared too...

[Godfather]

So Carl beats the shit out of her afterwards too...hmmm.

[Saniflush]

I heard it was more like this.

[Tiger Wench]

I heard it was more like this.

Aren't those the things I found in your bedside table?  Right next to the extra small condoms?

[Tiger Wench]

No kidding, no afterplay at all.  Carl is my hero.

Who wants afterplay?  I have been with him long enough to know that after sex, he truly cannot give an answer to the "Whatcha thinking about?" question ("Nothing" is a truthful answer), and he is usually about to fall asleep so I kick him out to go to his own bed.   I am just ready to get back to my book anyway...

[Godfather]

 I am just ready to get back to my book anyway...

Back to?!? I thought you read it whilst.

[Saniflush]

Aren't those the things I found in your bedside table?  Right next to the extra small condoms?

Yea.  I told you I am a hell of a host.  Just trying to help Carl out.