Like many of you, I do a fair amount of travel, so staying in hotels is common for me. I really hate being away from my family, but it works out because I have the kind of personality my wife enjoys a vacation from every now and then. I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy certain parts of being on the road because when I am in that hotel room, it is
my kingdom. I can have the television on whatever I want, leave the toilet seat up without retribution, and sleep smack dab in the middle of that big king-sized bed. And therein lies the problem.

Whenever I would come home from a trip, my wife would complain of me hogging the bed and stealing the covers. I will categorically deny any wrongdoing, but who wants to argue over such trivial matters, so I have accepted the blame. As a result, we are now in somewhat of a Ricky and Lucy Ricardo mode, although we are not fully committed to sleeping in separate beds. At least our two twin extra-long sets are connected by an adjustable base, so there isn’t a nightstand separating us, but we do have our own space. Did I deserve being exiled to an island, on my own, to fend for myself? Don’t know and don’t care because truth be told, I like it.

No more fighting for a blanket, having her kick me in the middle of the night, stealing my pillow, or putting those cold feet on me to warm up in the winter. (Put on some socks, for crying out loud.) We joke about this, like many couples, but I am here to tell you the separate bed thing works. Great, actually. If you consider sleep disruptors to be a problem, this cuts out a lot of that. You both have your own fitted sheet, top sheet, and blanket. The comforter makes up the bed so you can’t even tell unless you are in it. She sleeps at a hotter temperature, so the thickness of the blanket is different for each of us. She does not like to be in a zero-gravity position when reading or watching television and I do. (If you are not sleeping on an adjustable base you are MISSING OUT, people.) We also sleep on latex mattresses with Leggett & Platt’s Comfort Core® fabric-encased coils, so motion transfer is not an issue (yes, that was a shameless plug), but it is even less of an issue when you’re on separate surfaces. One of the biggest concerns I hear from people when this comes up is that they will sacrifice that “meet-in-the-middle time” and I can absolutely guarantee you that it is not a problem or the two-bed concept would have been abandoned as soon as it was adopted.

So what am I saying here?

The National Sleep Foundation says that 1 in 4 couples sleep separately. How is that relevant? It matters a lot when selling a mattress or any of the bedding essentials. Could it be that with so many people making this choice, it just might be a better way to catch some Z’s? Do you talk about this on your website, suggest it in your literature, or train for it in your stores?

All I know is that we are very happy with the current setup, so if you experience any of the aforementioned problems with your bed-hog spouse, you might give it a try. One warning, however: that space in the middle is a black hole and will suck up the television remote on a frequent basis. I know, I know – televisions don’t belong in the bedroom, but at least we’re minimizing partner disturbance.

So is this separate-sleeping situation something you should try? Let me know in the comments section.