Cameron Diaz made it sound so straightforward, so benign, so not ... we’re headed for divorce court. “We should normalize separate bedrooms,” the (married) actress said on a recent podcast, with the confidence of the sexy and abundantly guest-roomed.
“I will go and sleep in my room. You go sleep in your room,” she said. “And we have the bedroom in the middle that we can convene in for our relations.”
Never mind that in Boston, paying for an extra bedroom would inject such financial stress into the relationship that sleep issues would become secondary. Or that the royals sleep separately — reportedly even William and Kate! Or that a well-rested couple, one not up all night cursing each other’s snoring, is less likely to be a bitter, resentful couple. The truth is that many fear the “sleep divorce.”
“It’s like, if you can’t sleep in the same room, something is inherently wrong with your relationship,” said Manda Roy, a hairstylist and make-up artist in Westminster. “There’s almost a stigma.”
But shhhhh … she’s hoping to transition to just such a set-up with her husband of two and a half years. She likes to sleep in a cool, quiet room, but he prefers it toasty, with the TV on, and they both snore. So when Diaz’s suggestion went viral in late December, Roy tried to grab the moment.
“That’s brilliant,” she said to her husband. “I don’t want a sleep divorce,” he shot back. She tried to soften the framing. “What about a sleep ‘vacation?’”
The secret truth is that a lot of people are in on the secret. A recent American Academy of Sleep Medicine survey found that 35 percent of respondents slept in a different room from their partner, either consistently (15 percent) or occasionally (20 percent). But because no one humblebrags about the set-up on Facebook, everyone thinks they’re the only people failing at pillow talk.
“People can view themselves as bad and broken when it’s normal,” said therapist Michele Waldron, the founder of the Sexual Healthy & Healing practice in Cambridge.
Waldron, who sleeps in a separate room from her husband, said she’s seen the arrangement help couples.
“If you don’t get a good night’s sleep, what does that do to your emotions?” she asked. “And if you view your partner as the source of your exhaustion, that can build resentment. How is that going to impact physical or emotional intimacy?”
But as common as separate sleeping may be, when Trump administration insiders dished about Donald and Melania sleeping in separate bedrooms, it was framed as a gotcha. “Melania’s Secrets,” trumpeted the Us Weekly headline from 2017.
Part of the problem, of course, is the name, which sounds like a reality TV show just made for Bravo. Coming soon ... “The Real Sleep Divorcees of the Seaport.”
One expert, Wendy Troxel, a senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation, is working to change the branding. “I tell couples to try to think of it not as a filing for sleep divorce,” she told CNN recently, “but as forging a sleep alliance.”
Research from the International Housewares Association (a trade group whose members have an interest in bed sales, it should be noted) reported that of those who sleep in separate bedrooms, a little over half said the arrangement has had no impact on — or actually improved their relationship (of course that leaves nearly half who aren’t as happy).
Some couples do sleep in separate bedrooms specifically to get away from each other — and not because one snores or stays up late. They don’t miss the cuddling or comfort or intimacy because they didn’t have it even when they were in the same bed. And it’s in part for this reason that many see the sleep divorce as a warning sign, the first step on the slippery slope to divorce divorce.
In Medford, Katie O’Brien, a singer and manager of the KTO Duo & Band, had wanted to sleep separately for years before she brought it up. Her motivation was benign — his snoring was keeping her up — but even so, thinking about her divorced parents made her wary.
“When I was younger, my parents didn’t sleep in the same room because their marriage was falling apart,” she said. “I worried that if I did the same thing, it would drive a wedge into my relationship.”
But her partner is a good communicator, she said, and she was tired of waking up tired, so about seven years ago — four years into their relationship — she broached the topic.
“Hey, would it be OK if I sleep in the guest room?” she asked. (He said a cheerful yes!)
There are, of course, stated reasons for sleeping alone, having to do with sleep health, and then a reason that’s less socially acceptable: decorating freedom.
Let’s join popular TikToker Marcella Hill on her solo sleeping post. “A couple of months ago, it dawned on me, I’m a grown ass woman, why don’t I have my own bedroom,” said Hill, the author of “Wake HER Up.”
“One day I was helping my 9-year-old, decorate and organize her own bedroom, and realized, wait a minute, why don’t I have my own bedroom?”
Hey, right! Why didn’t she!!!! But, voila! Here she is now on camera in a room of her own. “A couple of fun benefits,” she says triumphantly sitting on her own personal bed, with a bounty of decorative pillows as proof of victory.
No honey, really, I swear it’s because of the snoring.
Beth Teitell can be reached at beth.teitell@globe.com. Follow her @bethteitell.