We’ve reached the point in our marriage where we’ve agreed that it’s time for separate beds… and we both couldn’t be happier about it!  Don’t get me wrong, there’s no strife in our marriage and we love each other very much, but our sleeping arrangements are a little bit nightmarish.  Actually, they kinda suck.

We’ve been struggling with our sleeping differences for years. I still remember the very first night I slept over at his place.  He had the heat up to around 78, four comforters on the bed, and this one teeny, tiny little fan pointed away from the bed.  After he fell asleep that night, I pushed back the blankets and stuck one leg out in the hopes of capturing even a tiny bit of the air from the fan. In the nine years since that I have slept beside this man, I’ve had to deal with the fact that he wants 4-6 blankets piled on him in the middle of a sweltering Indiana August.  He’s buried deep beneath the covers, impervious to the fact that it’s 100 degrees outside, and I’m only two feet away, sweating.  He’s had to deal with my quirks, too, including the fact that I prefer to sleep at an angle and usually end up encroaching on his space, and I need a fan pushing cold air over me, even if it’s -14 outside.  (Seriously, sleeping at an angle is so much more restful than sleeping in the regular straight head-down-to-toes position. Whenever I travel, I lie crossways on the bed like I just happened to fall there – and it’s glorious!)

This morning, after another sleepless session with me tossing and turning, him hanging off the edge of the bed, and a farting, 80 pound dog lying between us, we decided that we’re bucking convention and saying “screw you” to tradition.  We’re buying a second queen mattress set exactly like the one we have and  a second bed frame.  We’re removing the headboard from our current bed and pushing the two queen beds together to make one giant bed.  I’ll take the bed in the corner because I prefer to sleep near a wall, and he’ll take the side that’s closer to the door.  And Roxie, in all of her flatulent glory, can sleep between us at her leisure.

An odd decision like this didn’t come quickly. When Roxie started sleeping with us after we moved last year (when it was only supposed to be for the first few nights in our new house so she’d get comfortable), we realized that our queen bed wasn’t big enough.  We explored kings, but those really only add 12-15 inches of width, which isn’t all that much.  Then we kicked the idea of throwing Roxie out of the bed completely, but she looks forward to bedtime and her time with “her humans” so much that I don’t have the heart to ban her.  It’s part of our family dynamic – all three of us piled on the bed, fighting for space, with Tim groaning because she’s hugged up against him and he can barely stay perched on the bed, and me grunting because she’s lying on top of the five blankets in a way that I don’t even have access to one and, thanks to the fan that I absolutely need, I’m blanketless and therefore freezing.

As Lord Google has informed me, this is actually more common than you’d think.  There are some beautiful, huge beds out there, and if it works out for us, we’ll probably pursue a custom-made platform for a bed the size that we need in the future.  This one below is my favorite that I’ve seen:

Photo by Tracy Murdock Allied ASID. See more contemporary bedroom designs

So no, our decision may not be traditional or “acceptable” in the conventional sense, but I’ve never been one to give much concern to the definition of what’s normal anyway.  We’re going to buy everything this weekend and have the second mattress set delivered early next week.  I’m sure I’ll update with how it’s working out for us.  We’re still just as married if we sleep in two beds.  In fact, if we’ve both slept better and are less cranky, it might make things even sweeter when we’re awake!