Sleeping In Separate Bedrooms: Is It Snoring or Lack Of Love?

People’s first reaction to hearing about a couple sleeping in separate bedrooms is to assume they are headed for divorce. While that might be true for some couples, there is an overwhelming number of couples who are sleeping in separate bedrooms for another reason: snoring and other sleep issues that might keep the other person up.

This is the topic of my Love Essentially column, published in the Chicago Tribune Pioneer Press. I offer advice for those sleeping in separate bedrooms, both for snoring and for relationship conflict.

Advice For Couples Sleeping In Separate Bedrooms by Jackie Pilossoph for Chicago Tribune Pioneer Press.

Maybe it’s because I’m a relationship columnist (plus a true romantic at heart), but when my girlfriend told me that she and her husband recently started sleeping in separate bedrooms, I felt really, really sad for them. In my mind, hearing “separate bedrooms” equated to them being disconnected, distant and living like roommates instead of life partners. And, if there was marital discord, separate bedrooms would only drive them further apart. I was expecting to hear the word “divorce” in the next 60 seconds.

But then my friend talked me off the ledge, telling me the problem with the sleeping arrangements in her home have nothing to do with the marriage and everything to do with “intense snoring.”

“It was keeping me up all night, tossing and turning to the point I felt exhausted every day,” my friend said. “It was awful. I could barely function with so little sleep. I feel much better since we did this.”

Although I felt great relief that the problem lie not in the marriage but rather in her husband’s nasal passages, I had to wonder: Can separate bedrooms turn into a sexless marriage? Can sleeping apart lead to growing apart?

Click here to read the rest of the article, published in the Chicago Tribune Pioneer Press.

Like this article? Check out my blog post: “Having An Affair? How’s That Working Out For You?”

Editor-in-chief: Jackie Pilossoph

Jackie Pilossoph is the Founder of Divorced Girl Smiling, the media company that connects people facing with divorce to trusted, vetted divorce professionals. Pilossoph is a former NBC affiliate television journalist and Chicago Tribune/Pioneer Press features reporter. Her syndicated column, Love Essentially was published in the Chicago Tribune/Pioneer Press and Tribune owned publications for 7 1/2 years. Pilossoph holds a Masters degree in journalism from Boston University. Learn more at: DivorcedGirlSmiling.com