- Tami Shadduck, 44, is a Florida teacher and sleep divorce advocate.
- Her husband suffered from undiagnosed sleep apnea, meaning she slept poorly for years.
- After suffering from strep throat in 2020, Shadduck slept in the guest room and never returned.
This essay, as told, is based on an interview with Tami Shadduck. It has been edited for length and clarity.
From his snoring to waking up at 5 a.m., for the first 15 years of our marriage, I rarely got a good night’s sleep. I love my husband, but I also like to feel rested.
Every night I did my best to fall asleep. Sometimes I would pick up a book and read until my eyes were heavy. If it was really hard, I would lie down on the couch. I would sleep a little, but it was irregular, and I would wake up every morning not feeling well rested.
When my husband and I first met in 2005, he had just finished working as a contractor in a war zone, so I expected him to have disrupted sleep due to that experience. I never thought about going to bed in a different room. Sharing the same bed is so ingrained in our culture that it never occurred to me that we could sleep in separate beds.
We first tried other remedies for his snoring
At first he didn’t really snore, but over the next 15 years it got worse. To say I was lively with my husband in the morning is a polite way of putting it. We joked that I was waking up a bear.
We tried a few things to fix the problem. We bought a king-size bed because I thought the extra space would help him toss and turn. We then bought a hearing aid designed to mask other noises, but it was so loud I felt like I was sleeping on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center. He was finally able to participate in a sleep study and discovered that he had sleep apnea, where breathing stops and starts while you sleep.
I first slept in the guest room when I had strep throat
In March 2020, I had strep throat and slept in the guest room. I slept like a grandpa after Thanksgiving dinner. Once I got over my strep throat, I continued to sleep in the guest room because I found that I was sleeping much better.
When I realized I wanted this move to be more permanent, I started verbalizing how much happier and more rested I felt in the morning. I think it took my husband a while to figure out how he really felt about it. But we’re at the point now where he sleeps better alone, too, because he’s not worried about keeping me awake.
We shared our beds with others and were surprised by the reaction
We had a vague idea that other couples also slept separately, but we didn’t know anyone personally, so we decided to keep the fact that we slept in separate rooms to ourselves. When we finally told our friends and family that we slept in separate rooms, it felt empowering. We were surprised at how many people said they wished they could sleep separately. Some friends had been in situations where they slept separately because they had young children or were sick, so it was easy for them to relate.
People think their love life will suffer if they decide to sleep in separate beds, but that’s not the case. Intimacy happens in a thousand little moments throughout the day. To me, sleep is a healthy behavior and intimacy is part of a healthy relationship.
I am so grateful that my husband cares about my health and happiness, and not about some preconceived idea of what a marriage is supposed to look like. I could have done this sooner if more people had talked about it. I think the more we normalize this, the happier couples will be.
