Snooze or Lose: The Sleeping Arrangement Debate

In this episode of Rolling with the Dolans, Patrick and Tameka Dolan discuss the growing trend of couples opting for separate beds or even separate bedrooms, with over 40% of couples reporting this shift. The duo explores key reasons such as snoring, mismatched sleep schedules, menopause, and relationship dynamics. They dive into how these sleeping arrangements impact intimacy and marital happiness, touching on cuddling, spooning, and bed-sharing habits. From European traditions of separate comforters to co-sleeping with children or pets, this episode provides a humorous, relatable, and judgment-free conversation about what really works for couples.

Timestamps:

• 00:00 – Welcome to Rolling with the Dolans
• 00:23 – Introduction to Today’s Topic: Bed Sharing
• 00:43 – Statistics on Separate Sleeping Arrangements
• 01:38 – Personal Experiences and Opinions
• 02:33 – Impact on Relationship Health
• 03:46 – Cuddling and Physical Touch
• 05:37 – Cultural Differences in Sleeping Arrangements
• 06:31 – Practical Solutions and Recommendations
• 07:22 – Considering Children and Pets
• 11:10 – Final Thoughts and Wrap-Up

General Topics

• Sleeping Arrangements for Couples
• Separate Beds in Marriage
• Interracial Marriage Bed Sharing
• Cuddling vs. Sleeping Apart
• Sleeping in Separate Rooms
• Couples and Physical Touch
• Co-Sleeping with Pets
• Marital Happiness and Bed Sharing

#SleepingArrangements
#SeparateBeds
#CoupleGoals
#MarriageAdvice
#CuddleTime
#SleepTips
#RelationshipGoals
#IntimacyMatters
#MarriageLife
#rollinwiththedolans
#InterracialMarriage
#BlendedFamily
#happilymarried

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Transcript

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Welcome to Rolling with the Dolans. I'm Patrick Dolan and I'm Tameka Dolan. Our podcast focuses on the joys and challenges of blending families, our interracial marriage, parenting children of multiple ages, and the journey of entrepreneurship. We share our daily life experiences with a positive but real perspective. And today's topic is to cuddle or not to cuddle. Wait. I don't think it's to cuddle or not to cuddle. I think it's bed sharing. Yeah, the topic is really focused on sleeping arrangements for married couples or just couples that are living together. Do you want to start? Yeah, definitely. It all really started with we know that there's a trend. I think they say now more than 40 percent of people now say that they sleep in separate beds or separate bedrooms. We found that, not too shocking because we know a lot of people who are doing that, but what do we think about that personally? Okay, first of all, I didn't know it was 40%. I think that's a lot. The bad part, too, is that 40 percent is not necessarily people who are, like, elderly. It's people who are younger than us in our age, right? That's the sad part. Yeah. And because I'm, I remember my grandparents, For one side, they had separate rooms, but again, they were in their 70s. And the other side, they the other set of grandparents, they had separate beds. And again, yeah, probably late 60s, 70s, things like that. Like two twin sized beds? Yeah. Okay. You want to know what I think about it? Yeah. When I've talked to some clients about it and they explained in detail why they do it, I understand because there's like different reasons, like, some women are going through menopause, so they're like having hot flashes and they want the room temperatures different. Some people, their sleep patterns are off. Yeah, that's what the majority of this one top, one I guess study said, they're saying between 20 to 40 percent. That's exactly why. They're saying, between the snoring, sleep schedules, things like that. That's why a lot of people do it in this one study. Only 20 percent? Yeah, I guess it was on the lower end. 25 percent. 25 percent? Okay. Yeah, that's, yeah, that's not, what. All right, so what do you think about it? I think that. Again, I think it comes back to, I don't want to say this is the case for all people, but sometimes the health of the relationship is an indicator. And again, it's not all people. Some people just can't sleep and they need their space. But I think that if I look at. Past relationships as far as, where I had the most healthy relationship is obviously with you, which we've discussed before, we how do you describe or how do I describe how we sleep? Yeah. How do you describe it? Like a pretzel. So we're all, pretty much twisted together and, touching each other pretty much. But people think that they feel that because we're newlyweds that's why we still sleep like that. But I feel like after being together for as long as we have, I don't think we're newlyweds. Five years. Yeah. Pretty much. Has it been the same from the beginning to now? It gets better every day. Good answer. Alright, let's read another one of your statistics. Because I love how you have all these facts already prepared. Because when I was reading some of it, I was like, what? Okay. What? And what? Yeah, so it says only 8 percent of couples report cuddling throughout the entire night. 8%? Yeah. And I think the entire night can be tough. Sometimes we wake up and we might be, uncertain. I don't think anybody knows about the entire night, right? Yeah. And then let's see. What is this one? 80 percent of couples stop touching after the first 20 minutes of sleep. I think that's okay though, like you start off with good intentions, but once you get into, what is it, the REM sleep, you don't really know exactly what your actions are, but you start off with good intentions, right? Yep, definitely. And you wake up with good intentions. Yeah, that's the thing is you might, obviously, unconsciously, be moving around, things like that, and not knowing it, and that could be, the blanket's not covering you, or it's too hot, something like that so that definitely makes sense. And then here's an interesting one is, it says that couples who sleep less than an inch apart are 94 percent more satisfied with their relationship. So that goes back to, what we were talking about in the beginning is it might be an indicator of some things in some cases. When you say indicator, you mean like they're not happily together? Yeah, and it's are you excited to be around them? Are you excited to see them? Or, and things like that. 94%? And again, I have some of these sources, but not right in front of me. But this is one of the studies I found. Yeah, it's a touchy subject because Not if you say to people Oh, wow, I can't believe that you guys sleep in separate beds. Get testy sometimes, so you gotta be careful how you approach the conversation. Yeah, it says, still a stigma behind it, but I think more and more it's becoming a lot more common. Yeah, when you said trendy. Did it say trending when you researched it? No. Okay, that was just your term. Oh, that kind of reminds me, I think there's one thing that basically suggests the possibility of Separate blankets, and remember where we saw that? Oh, we were in Europe, wait, hold on, Germany. Yep, Germany and Switzerland, both the hotels had separate blankets. And I was like, why on earth would you want to do that? Oh yeah, I forgot about that, yeah. But that's, this is one of the things that they're saying is a simple solution to some of their problems. And so maybe they have that solved, at least partially, in Europe. And that's separate comforters. So they had these little, personal size comforters as soon as you walk into the hotel. Yeah Didn't they also have was the bed separated a little bit was it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're right It was just a comforter I think that helps solve a lot of problems because I remember when I was saying like some women are going through menopause and So they get too hot or too cold. So if you have your own blanket, you can control that Yeah, definitely so it's like the they have that the sleep number bed That's true. Which is supposed to have the firmness and things like that. So maybe that is a recommendation for anybody who wants to, separate beds or whatever. It might be a good solution. That's true. And then, again, it comes back to does it matter if they have different sleeping schedules? And I think that, again, there's 41 percent of the couples sometimes, do so because of different work schedules. Which can make a lot of sense If somebody's getting up at three o'clock in the morning and doing things, I remember my brother, in one case, they had separate bathrooms, so they had, the room, that was fine. But in the morning, oh, that's good. He would go to a different bathrooms to get ready. That's good. So he wouldn't be waking up his spouse. Oh, I, yeah, I think that's fine. But there's one thing that I'm not, I don't think that you research, but remember, earlier this week we had dinner with a couple and they had a newborn baby. And so that would be another reason why people sleep separate because I know that it's not uncommon for the mom to sleep in the bed with the baby. Because, Some husbands could possibly roll over, or, the mom wants to co sleep and, it might not be the best. So I feel like in those situations, I feel like it's okay to do it but that should only be a temporary thing because then you I lose some of the connection with your spouse. What do you think? Intimacy is one of the factors that they often talk about. Yeah. Physical touch, but speaking of intimacy one of my clients said that they, Decide which room they will meet up in they hook up and then they go back to their separate quarters. So So do you agree with that I mean I think that i'm pretty happy with our sleeping arrangements as it is today, but Hopefully i'm not sleeping on the couch tonight No, you are But yeah, the bottom line is it's worth talking about it's worth trying to understand whether people do what works for them And it's not a one size fits all situation for anybody and I think that you don't have to judge But you know don't just do what you feel is most comfortable for you And I'm fortunate that we're both to the point where we're very happy with our current sleeping arrangements. So Yeah, I agree. I was just thinking to one more thing before we wrap this up you know how a lot of times we're conscious of what the kids see, like? Yeah. And what do you think when kids notice that their parents are in separate rooms? I think it's probably, I think the key is whether or not they're, intimate, like at least not, somewhat physical, or sitting next to each other, not like sitting on separate couches, and one person has their favorite chair, things like that. So I think it depends on the entire experience that they witness. So it's I'd say no, like not the best thing but I think it, it could be fine with, if everything else looks good and healthy as far as the relationship goes. So you're saying like, okay, we're all gonna eat dinner together We're all gonna sit and watch a show but at night mommy and daddy's gonna go in separate rooms. Is that what you're saying? yeah, what is that a little house on the prairie or something like that where they all turned out the lights and stuff like that and night billy joe or whatever their names were and billy joe and in this case, it'll be night night night tamika And one light goes off and next thing you know Good night. Another light goes off. It's a little, definitely not what you were grown, growing up with back in the day. But, again, going back this is my grandparents. I really, it was probably late 60s, early 70s, and they were doing it. They were sleeping in different rooms in different I always thought you had to be, Over 80 to do that, but Hopefully I'm not insulting anybody. But anyway, I always thought it was something older. Here's one other thing that we can throw out there. What about sleeping with pets in the bed? No. Yeah, that's a hard no. We we eliminated that. So we decided, just us. Before I came in the picture, that little fat girl cat. She was getting in your bed and I put a stop to that. A fat cat and you would let the dog get up there if you could. I would. I know when I was in my place he was in my bed. Yeah. Alright let's wrap this up. Alright thanks for listening. And until the next time, make sure you like, share click on Subscribe. You do all those good things until the next time and we look forward to hearing from you and looking forward to doing the next one. Alright, I hope you have a fabulous day. And I'm thinking you should have an absolutely magnificent week. And I'm hoping that you have a marvelous week. Splendid. Oh, I like that one. Okay. Alright. Alright. Until next time. Bye. Mhm.