By Rick Kaempfer
When I first saw the New York Times article about the latest trend, separate bedrooms for married couples, I scoffed. I don’t personally know anyone who has taken that drastic step, so I thought it was just one of those non-existent trend trends.
I didn’t really think about it again until I retired for the night.
Hmmm.
My wife and I are totally compatible in everyday life. We almost never argue. My weaknesses are overcome by her strengths. Her weaknesses are overcome by my strengths. Together we can take care of our children and our home with minimal muss and fuss.
On the other hand, we’re not sleep compatible at all.
Bridget falls asleep in seconds. It’s really incredible. If we could figure out a way to bottle and sell that, we’d make a fortune. Her head hits the pillow, and whammo! She’s out cold. I toss and turn—sometimes for hours and hours.
Bridget can shut down her mind at bedtime with a snap of her fingers. I prefer spending every night torturing myself for all the things I haven’t accomplished that day.
Bridget likes her flat sheet tucked in at the end, trapping her in a tucked-in-sheet jail. I don’t see the need for an extra layer of sheets at all, and when I’m trapped in the sheet jail, my legs feel compelled to break out.
Bridget likes it warm and cozy—she could sleep inside a furnace if she were wearing flame retardant pajamas. I like it ice cold. I could asleep outside in the middle of winter if someone would invent a nose warmer.
Bridget likes her mattress firm—Marine style. You could bounce a quarter on her perfect mattress. I like to be enveloped in a soft mattress—so soft that it’s impossible to get out of the bed without doing sit-ups. It’s the only exercise I get.
Bridget is a sleep Nazi. She needs a good night of sleep and will do absolutely anything to make sure she gets it—including going to bed at 7 PM if necessary. I’m a sleep freak. I like to stay up ridiculously late in my nice quiet house, enjoying the silence and solitude.
When I get to bed, everything has to be just so. My pillow has to be the perfect temperature. If I don’t fall asleep before it gets warm, I won’t fall asleep. My blanket has to be perfect. If I can’t completely wrap myself up in my blanket, I won’t fall asleep. If I’m not exhausted or in the perfect environment, I might as well not even go to bed.
See what I mean about not exactly being sleep-compatible?
We’ve used separate blankets since our second or third year of marriage. We have a king-sized bed, but it’s really two double beds pushed together, so we essentially have separate beds too. We might as well be Rob and Laurie Petrie from the Dick Van Dyke Show.
Separate blankets, separate sheets, separate beds.
It occurred to me while I was tossing and turning the night after reading that New York Times article that while we don’t technically have separate bedrooms, we’ve come as close to that concept as possible.
As a matter of fact, when I worked in radio, which I did for the first twelve years of our marriage, I slept on the couch more often than I slept in bed (I didn’t want to wake up Bridget at the ridiculous hour of 2:30 AM). For those twelve years, five nights a week, we actually did have separate bedrooms.
Come to think of it, maybe that’s why get along so well. She’s well rested enough to avoid crabbiness, and I’m too tired to be crabby.
It was probably the secret to Rob and Laura Petrie’s marriage too.
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