It was Katharine Hepburn who once famously opined, "Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then." And perhaps she had a point. Like Angelina Jolie, Madonna, Diane Von Furstenberg and even the Queen, sleeping in the same bed as a man night after night has never worked for me. I watch television to fall asleep - he doesn't. I eat in bed - he forbids it. One of us snores. He likes the airconditioner on full blast, I like it when it's hot. He gets up at 5am to go for a cycle and I stay awake till 2am meeting a deadline. I like my laptop in bed with me. He says my typing keeps him away.
For many couples, the answer is to retreat to separate beds, separate living quarters or even separate houses. If you can afford it, that is.
Hollywood director Tim Burton certain can. After admitting to being an insomniac who paces his room at night and snores when he sleeps, he and his wife, actress Helena Bonham Carter, have come up with a viable solution: keep separate houses ...
As Bonham Carter told The Guardian newspaper in 2008: "It really is a great idea. You never have to compromise emotionally or feel invaded. If you've got some money and you can afford it, why not have your own space?"
London's The Telegraph newspaper dubbed the trend as "LAT": Living Apart Together. The paper claims that, for many LATS, being part of the new movement might be the best way to ensure a couple stay together for the long term.
A girlfriend of mine concurs, telling me that, like Burton and Bonham Carter, her parents live in two separate houses. They are married and are entirely committed to each other, but they just don't share a roof. On the weekends they always have a "date night" and speak to each other every day. But live together? It's just not for them.
And they're not alone either. According to a survey carried out in the US by The National Sleep Foundation, nowadays one in every four couples sleeps apart.
Even builders are noticing the trend; a survey carried out by the National Association of Home Builders predicted that more than 60 per cent of custom houses would have two master bedrooms by 2015.
And in England, while fewer couples are inclined to sleep separately, they're just as unhappy about sharing a bed. The Sleep Council found one in four women will regularly retreat to a spare room or a sofa away from their sleeping partner in the hope of getting some shut eye. So they may as well get separate mattresses too.
That's not to say that more and more couples are having less and less sex. In fact it's quite the opposite. Sex lives are thriving. But sleeping together every single night for the rest of eternity? Not so much. Despite the growing trend, sleeping apart still comes with a hefty social stigma. But surely getting married or being in love doesn't necessarily translate into being good bed buddies?
Either way, sleeping together in a marital bed is relatively new. Historian and author Stephanie Coontz says the model of couples sleeping in the same bed was developed in the early 20th century when people felt they "had to get every single need met by this constant togetherness".
She told The Washington Post that, with modern day pressures and marriages later in life, there is still "a notion that one should be permanently turned on, permanently available" and that if you slept in another room, "maybe you're not very sexual". Yeouch.
Neil Stanley, a sleep researcher at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, disagrees. He told CNN news that "sleep is the most selfish thing you can do, and you can't share it". His reason? Apparently having to share a bed increases stress hormones in men and their brains don't function as well. Hmph.
So why are we all so desperate to do it? Why has society led us to believe that marriage entails spending every non-waking hour together, side-by-side, even if it's keeping us awake, adding to our stress levels and keeping our brains from functioning in tip-top shape?
Then there's the old debate of whether or not it's a good idea to live together before marriage, let alone when you're actually ensconced in marital bliss.
New studies have proven (yet again) that living together before marriage is an absolute no-no. And that those who do decide to live together before tying the knot will find themselves broken up before they can say, "Where's the ring?"
Yep, that darn Office for National Statistics has revealed that couples who are married are less likely to split up than those who live together. Analysis of census results found that four-fifths of spouses who were married in 1991 were still together a decade later, compared with three-fifths of cohabiting couples.
There's the infamous saying: "Men: we can't live with them, can't live without them." But if it makes you a better partner in the long run, perhaps the option of "living without them" might just be the solution to all those marital and divorce woes after all.
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