Back in the day – think “The Mary Tyler Moore” show – couples were portrayed in film and television as having separate beds. At the time, even as a child, I thought that peculiar. Now, my view has changed.
We just moved to a new, smaller house. When we began to unpack and put our clothes in the master bedroom closet, we quickly realized there wasn’t enough room for both of us (our clothes). I gallantly offered to put my stuff in the guest bedroom closet.
Soon, I was showering in the guest bathroom as well, since it made more since to be close to my clothes. The inevitability of sleeping there is perhaps next. We’ll see.
But, what surprises me is that my thinking on this notion has so radically changed. While my wife would HATE me saying this: she snores. I snore, too: probably much worse than she does. She is also somewhat allergic to our sweet dogs – JuJu and Jazzy – whom we let sleep on the bed with us. The comfort the dogs provide is wonderful and my wife survives without too much allergic reaction, but I know she would probably prefer they sleep elsewhere. However, she does love them on the bed, too!
I especially like having the “girls” with me, as I lovingly refer to our dogs, when my wife is out of town. And, that can be a regular occurrence.
So, why not sleep in my own bed and bedroom? After all, my wife also likes to go to sleep to the television, which I STRONGLY believe, should not even be in a bedroom. A bedroom should be for only two things: sleep and…
If I’m in my own bedroom, my wife can watch television to her heart’s content while I don’t have to wait till she’s done to go to sleep. Yes, we could get headphones, so truly this is a hollow horse issue of no honest relevance.
Admittedly, once and if we take this step, I suspect we’d get very comfortable with living under the same roof in separate bedrooms and doing our own thing. By that, I mean her watching television, me reading and/or playing with the girls, and wearing whatever we want, having windows or shades open or closed, etc. Sharing a bed and bedroom involves compromise. I’d go to bed when I wanted to and we’d get a much larger electric bill as my wife would leave the television on all night since she’d doze off while watching if I wasn’t there.
I am very consciously avoiding the BIG question separate bedrooms raises. However, there’s no law upon sleeping in separate bedrooms that doesn’t allow for “visitation rights,” is there?
