It’s not just royal couples who sleep in separate bedrooms – almost one in four of the over-55s opt for solo slumbering too. And experts say it can be good for your relationship
Having slept separately from her husband for 14 years, Julia Champion thought it would be a romantic gesture to book a double room in a boutique hotel – with a beautiful roll top bath at the foot of the ornate bed – to celebrate her husband’s 50th birthday.
However, at dawn, demented from lack of sleep, she walked out of their hotel and checked in, alone, to a bed and breakfast next door feeling very naive for having imagined she could survive even one night beside her beloved.
‘The moment Matt’s head hit the pillow he started snoring,’ recalls Julia, 55, who runs a management and PR company for television presenters. ‘I kept shaking him, hoping he’d stop. When that failed, I took a pillow and blanket to the en suite, where I tried sleeping in the bath. Even then, with the door firmly shut, I could hear every snore.
‘At home, Matt and I not only sleep in separate bedrooms but also on different floors. It started when the eldest of our two daughters was born. I was getting up in the night to feed her and would then nod off in the spare room. We both liked having our own space so, when we upsized to a five-bedroom family house, we each picked a room, our individual sanctuaries, decorated to our very different tastes, and have slept apart ever since.
The birthday getaway was three years ago and Matt and Julia, who live in south London, haven’t slept in the same room since. This arrangement, she says, has enhanced, rather than killed, their sex life, making them more adventurous. Counter-cultural though the Champions arrangement may seem, far from signalling the end of a marriage, sleeping apart seems to have become de rigueur, with one in six UK couples opting to get their shuteye alone, with the figure rising to almost one in four for the over-55s.
Sleep specialist Dr Guy Meadows says that, while there is still some stigma attached to it, he sees increasing numbers of patients – many over 50 – who insist on their own rooms at night. ‘Many say they feel bad about sleeping apart, mainly because they imagine others will think there’s something wrong with their relationship,’ says Dr Meadows, who founded the Sleep School in London, plus an app designed to tackle insomnia. ‘But a good relationship is about so much more than who sleeps where.’
Sharing a bed can put a strain on a relationship for a number of reasons, according to Dr Meadows: partners having different wake and sleep times; one feeling too hot and throwing off the covers while the other is left shivering; another being restless or needing to go to the loo overnight; and, as Julia discovered, snoring, which affects 40% of men and 20% of women. ‘If a partner is
