This Is 50
Till Sleeplessness Do Us Part
BEDTIME WAS A bad time for Xanet Pailet and her partner, Daren Love. She likes a soft bed; he needs a hard bed. She’s a light sleeper; he’s a snorer. Add in her hot flashes and his achy hips, and the couple struggled to get a good night’s sleep. In 2023, the North Carolina duo reached a solution: a “sleep divorce.” They would retire to separate rooms.
“A lot of couples have started to make that choice, and in many cases, it’s helping relationships rather than harming them,” says Pailet, a certified sexologist and author of The Sex & Intimacy Repair Kit. Thirty-three percent of Gen Xers sleep separately from their partner at least sometimes, says a 2023 survey from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
The decision can be hard, embarrassing or prompt worry about a couple’s sex life. The key is finding a solution together:
Take a test drive. Ilana Grines, a Los Angeles–based, licensed marriage and family therapist and certified sex therapist, says that if your partner is wary, you can say, “Why don’t we try it, and then we can reevaluate in a few weeks, or we can check in every day and see how we’re feeling?”
Build routines. Bedtime rituals, such as kissing goodnight, can preserve intimacy. “The couples who do well usually build in intentional closeness,” says Natalie Buchwald, clinical director of Manhattan Mental Health Counseling.
Schedule sex. Better sleep can improve your sex life, since you’ll have more energy and less resentment, and separate rooms can make lovemaking more intentional, Grines says.
Three years after Pailet and her partner moved to separate rooms, they have no regrets. They prioritize intimacy, talk frequently and cuddle before bedtime and again in the morning. “Life,” she says, “is so much better.” —Ken Budd