This post is written by contributor Chelsea Becker

Here’s something you might not hear every day, but my husband and I have our own bedrooms. Yep! He has a room with his own bed, closet, TV, and video games. And in my room, my clothes, my favorite bedding, and a drawer full of face masks. Whenever this comes up with new people, they give me a side eye or immediately think something’s wrong with our relationship, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. We’re very happy together – separate bedrooms and all. Why the seperate bedrooms then?

I have sleep anxiety

This is the backbone of why we have our own rooms, so I’ll start here. I’ve struggled with falling asleep for decades, and especially when someone else is in the room, I have sleep anxiety (more on that here). On top of that, my husband snores, so falling asleep with him snoring is next to impossible for me.

While we slept in the same room for years as we didn’t always have enough space for our own rooms, I just dealt with the anxiety. It wasn’t healthy, as me not sleeping was detrimental, and my anxiety was really bad. Neither of us wanted to sleep on the couch, so I dealt with it – but as soon as we could, we got a place with multiple bedrooms to have extra space.

Sleep is too important

Without sleep, no one is their best. Even when we got a guest space, my husband and I would try to sleep together and then I’d kick him out once the snoring got bad – or I’d toss and turn and finally head to the guest room. Me constantly waking him to turn to his side made him sleep shitty, and me waking up in different rooms wasn’t great for my zzz’s either.

After a certain point, we realized it was crazy! We were grumpy in the morning and always tired at work and whyyy? Soon after that, we decided to split up the rooms and started getting better sleep.

It doesn’t bug us

When he moved to the guest room, we said we’d see how it went. If we felt disconnected or weird, we’d move back to one room. But guess what? Neither of us has been affected at all. In fact, I think it’s been amazing for our relationship because I’m not resentful of his snoring and he’s not worried about keeping me up.

We still have sex (and now we get to switch it up between his room or mine – ha!), cuddle on the couch until bedtime or in our beds in the morning, but we also get our own space. I’m someone who needs a lot of alone time, so I love this aspect. I get to go to bed when I want, read until I want – and he gets to watch sports until midnight. And on top of all that, he gets his area to be messy. I’m OCD about keeping things neat and he’s naturally messier, and he can just close the door if his bedroom is a hot mess. No nagging needed from me.

Funny enough, my parents have been happily married for 35 years and haven’t slept in the same room since I was in college for similar reasons. Turns out, they were on to something! At least for us, it’s been such a blessing in our relationship – and one that fits us for now. We have a baby due in April so we’ll see if anything changes, but for now, seperate it is.

Have you ever considered having separate rooms?