What it means to sleep together

Snoring, spooning, stealing the sheets, and sleeping in the nude--for the millions of people who share a bed with a partner, there are a number of challenges and benefits to "sleeping together."

"Sharing a bed is a complicated, changing, and often challenging experience," notes Paul Rosenblatt, professor of social science and author of Two in a Bed: The Social System of Couple Bed Sharing. For many couples, their time chatting in bed is the most time they have to talk with each other on a daily basis and that talk can be crucially important to their relationship, Rosenblatt maintains. "Lots of couples say that, if they can both stay awake, they talk for a few minutes each night."

Many couples explained to Rosenblatt how important sleeping in the same bed is to them, because it is a time for intimacy, pleasure, and feeling comfortable together. During the time before drifting off to sleep, couples catch up on what's going on with one another, plan, make decisions, deal with disagreements, and solve problems. "If couples don't have this time in bed, then they're in trouble.

"Many of the couples interviewed said they would get a better night's sleep apart, but they don't want to sleep apart because of the intimacy of sharing a bed, the security, and the sense of belonging together."

One partner's health problems, snoring, or work tensions can impact the other's sleeping. Two people differ in hundreds of ways, and those differences can create trouble when people share a bed--deep sleepers versus light sleepers, night owls versus early birds, and those who need the covers tucked in versus individuals who want them untucked. Those differences can be issues for a couple and how the differences are addressed can affect both partners' sleep.

Snoring is a common complaint and each couple must find a way to resolve the difficulty. For some, it involves a simple nudge but, for others, it is more extreme--like sleeping on separate floors. "Some individuals have spent many years sprawled out across the bed or wrapped up in a blanket and suddenly they have to adjust to sleeping with someone," Rosenblatt says. "As life changes, people have to learn how to sleep together and not just once, but again and again."

Some people, especially women, felt a sense of security with their partner sleeping next to them. 'q-hey feel that their partner will be an ally for them in facing an intruder," Rosenblatt relates. "Some men joke they don't think they would be any help, just another victim, but others feel protective, tough, and up to the job."

COPYRIGHT 2006 Society for the Advancement of Education
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning