24-07-2025
Sleep divorce: Should couples sleep in separate beds?
Jennifer Adams hasn't slept in the same bed as her husband Fraser for over 20 years. In the early days of their relationship, after five months of dating, the pair moved in together, and as most couples do, began sharing a bed. Adams says that they 'lasted one week' in a bed together.
This was a result of her husband's 'epic' snoring. 'It was just every night', the author tells Women's Podcast host Róisín Ingle.
'The snoring kept me awake. He was aware that it was keeping me awake. So he started to feel anxious as well because I'm just a person who does not function very well on little sleep'.
Initially, the idea of sleeping separately was a temporary measure during the week, when the couple both needed to be rested for work. This resulted in Adams' partner sleeping in the 'spare room' except at weekends. Now an advocate for couples to open up the conversation surrounding alternative sleeping arrangements, she said initially 'it wasn't an easy decision'.
READ MORE
The new arrangement lasted three weeks, until the couple decided to sleep in separate beds full time so they could be better rested on the weekends too. 'It was just such a practical decision for us,' says Adams.
The seeds of her book, A Sleep Divorce: How to sleep apart, not fall apart which she co-wrote with sleep expert Dr. Neil Stanley, were sown when she encountered people's reactions to her unorthodox arrangement.
'A lot of people were wide-eyed. There were people who were trying to be polite. A lot of friends were like 'this isn't good, you're only five or six months into the relationship''.
'I actually never really thought about what people's response was going to be. In all honesty, I just didn't'.
Adams says she was also inspired to write the book following a conversation with a colleague, in which they revealed they had been sleeping separately from their husband for 12 years but kept it secret for fear of being judged by family and friends.
In this episode, the Australian author discusses how couples can gently broach the topic of sleeping separately, the history of co-sleeping and why sleep is as crucial to our health as diet and exercise.
You can listen back to this episode on the player above or wherever you get your podcasts.
