It is 8 a.m. As I sit in the breakfast nook answering emails, readying a boy for school and writing this, the hubby has hit the snooze on his alarm clock at least six times. Six times, people! 

He’s been doing this for years, setting the alarm at some ungodly early hour and then hitting the snooze button repeatedly. (Ok. In his defense, anything earlier than 7:35 a.m. on a weekday is deemed by me as an “ungodly hour.”) 

Why doesn’t he just set his alarm to a later time? Because at night as he sets the alarm, he has every intention of getting up early. But then morning comes… He’s tired. (I understand. I am too!) It drives me crazy. Course that’s if I’m able to sleep. Usually his incessant snoring keeps me up most of the night. And trust me, we’ve tried everything under the sun to get him to stop snoring. The $700 mouth piece made his jaw sore. No, he doesn’t have sleep apnea.  Breathe Right strips and nasal sprays were a joke. Surgery didn’t work either.

So now most nights I sleep in the guest room. Apparently, I’m not the only married waking up sans spouse most mornings. A study by the National Sleep Foundation found that almost a quarter of couples sleep in separate quarters. According to Forbes, many couples are not only shifting to separate sleep arrangements but designing “his” and “her” master bedrooms!

Our single sleeping arrangement happened gradually, with me spending the night in the guest room only during times when I had become so sleep deprived it was affecting my health. (Like slamming my hand in a car door and being too tired to quickly realize WHY I was still tethered to the car.)  Like a lot of people, I stubbornly fought a move to seperate beds, thinking it would mean a loss of intimacy. But as the sleepless nights accumulated, my outlook changed.

I asked Dr. Oscar Schwarz,  the medical director of the Barnes-Jewish West County Hospital Sleep Disorders/EEG Center, about the reation he’s gotten from his St. Louis area patients when he suggests separate slumbering quarters. “I have not seen much ambivalence regarding sleeping separately,” he said. (It’s) “usually out of necessity! Snoring, restlessness or special needs initiate this.”

He also mentioned that the lack of (or poor quality of) sleep can adversely affect a marriage and added, “Trying to get a good night of sleep maybe is the issue. Perhaps a happy marriage can be in lieu of cohabitation in the same bed!”

If you’re one of those people who does worry about how your relationship may fare after  seceding from the same bed? Many couples say the quality of sleep they now get as a result of snoozing apart gives them more energy to positively engage with their spouse. They have more energy to go out on dates. And the resentment as a result of the exhaustion is gone.

But sleeping in different rooms isn’t always the perfect solution.  Stacey, of St. Louis, and her husband began snoozing in separate spaces alittle more than two months ago when the new mattress they’d bought ended up hurting her husband’s back and neck.  She sleeps in their master bedroom. He’s been sleeping in their finished basement. While she admits she’s “probably sleeping better now since I don’t hear the snoring every night,” it still isn’t an optimal solution for her. “He says he sleeps so much better down there, but then I’m the one the kids go to during the night if there’s a problem. So….I think it’s working for him, but not for me.”

As for my honey and I? We’ll be married 11 years tomorrow. Our schedules are more hectic than ever. But now that we both get some quality “zzzz” on a regular basis? It has been our happiest year of marriage yet.  Would I love to spend each morning waking up with my honey? Yes. But we’ve learned being well rested makes us better partners during the waking hours. So for us? This works.

Thanks to Dr. Oscar Schwartz, who specializes in sleep disorders including sleep apnea, cataplexy, sleep paralysis, narcolepsy and insomnia. His office is located at 969 Mason Road, Suite 250, St. Louis, MO 63146. He can be reached at 314-878-4699.