Do we always have to be together?
For others, our bed may be a bedstead with mattress, pillow and plumeau - for us it is more: retreat and very own realm. It knows us better than the best friend. Happy that the pillows are flying. Snivelling, with a thick scarf and dripping nose. Pensive, dreaming, relish or tears. We drink our favorite tea in pajamas, have breakfast with champagne and fresh bread, write a diary or read a big book. Nowhere else are we so undisguised, unadorned, so safe from the world out there. It's really amazing that we even let someone in - in our bed.
But that's exactly what we do. Spend, fall in love or quarrel, year after year, night after night next to another person. Cuddling, cuddling, whispering homely things in the dark. Enjoy the proximity. And we feel disturbed just as often. Because he wraps us arms or legs around the body so that we can barely move. Or snores that the beams are bending. Or talks in sleep. Pushes us penetrating to the edge. That we almost fall out. Until we move. Sometime. At first maybe just on the couch. But then, finally, in our own bed. With the saffron Indian-style bedding that he never liked. The tulle sky over our head. The bright cushions we brought back from our holidays. And we ask ourselves: why only now?
If you want to sleep well, you have to talk about it
Beate Küster * understands this all too well. She had to turn 60 to fulfill her dream of having her own bed. "In my (* name changed by the editorial) first marriage, my husband turned and rolled at night, I jumped up and down involuntarily, and then he still spoke in his sleep!" After the death of her husband, she meets her current partner. And make it clear before the wedding that she does not want to sleep with him in a bed. "That was not easy for him," says the Bonnerin. "But I told him: It's as if the king is visiting his queen."
A pretty picture. Such pictures gush out of Beate Küster just like that. Because she writes novels, romance novels. Has her best ideas in the evening. Or at night. "That's why I need a bed of my own", says the passionate amateur writer with conviction. "For what should I do if I have my ideas and lie next to such an early riser as my husband is?" She has an inviting bed in her bedroom, as well as her husband in his bedroom. So that the king can visit his queen often. Or the other way around. "We have a very passionate relationship," laughs the lively woman. "Sometimes one word, one glance, one humorous gesture is enough, and the desire awakens." - "But then I always say: Then sleep well - get up and go to my own room."
For many, the bed is also an oasis in everyday life.
A private bed, as a matter of course - that's pretty unusual. We have other ideas in mind when we think of marriage or relationship. Love and sleeping together, that belongs to us. Only when a divorce, we usually separate ourselves "from the table and bed." In fact, the few minutes before falling asleep or after waking up are for many couples oases in their stressful everyday life. The time in which they are closest. This has been discovered by US researcher Paul C. Rosenblatt, who authored a book on sleeping together that became a bestseller. "Couples often find out what the other person has experienced during the day," writes the university professor from the state of Minnesota. "They make plans in bed, make decisions, talk about their situation, solve problems or try to resolve conflicts."
But do we have to lie side by side all night? Not necessarily. "Intensive love, sleep separately" is the name of the variant, and there are certainly prominent role models: The American actor Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, for example, are confessed Separate sleepers. And the actors Nadja Tiller and Walter Giller, once the dream couple of the Germans, are said to have spent hardly a single night in their long-standing marriage.
For Kerstin Busch *, 42, it is especially important that she can decide which blanket she wants to slip under. To me or to you? To you, that means in the 1.80 meter wide bed of her partner, with whom she lives together for almost two years. "That's where we sleep most often," says the marketing specialist from Passau. "But even if I have slept with me, I come to him after waking up again, to cuddle, to tell, to say good morning."
She loves him, that little moment of decision every night.He means for her: "I have the choice." And that's vital to her, "otherwise it'll shut my throat."
Perhaps Kerstin Busch also simply feels what sleep researchers have now confirmed: that in a bed we might "sleep better subjectively, objectively but definitely worse". Germany's leading sleep researcher, University Professor Jürgen Zulley from Regensburg, explains it this way: "Couples in a bed not only have less deep sleep periods, but also wake up easier than people who sleep alone."
Good sleep means for them. , ,
Women are obviously particularly affected. The Viennese behavioral biologist John Dittami has observed couples sleeping for 249 nights. And came to the conclusion: "Women respond to the presence of a bed partner much more sensitive - they sleep worse, if someone is next to them." Dittami explains this sensitivity with evolutionary history. In his opinion, women unconsciously take care of their loved ones, especially their children, while they sleep. And they are therefore already responding to the slightest noise.
Especially in the second half of life, this can be a real challenge. "Up to 60 percent of over-60s snore," sleep researcher Zulley knows. "And that can sometimes reach the volume of a motorcycle without an exhaust - up to 90 decibels." In addition, we are in the later years easier to bring the night's sleep. We sleep less deeply, wake up more often. And producing, explains Zulley, less often the relaxing delta waves that make us feel really well rested.
Perhaps that will make it easier for us to claim our own bed over the years - and not just dream it. Maybe because the children are out of the house. And a room is free. The nerve-wracking balancing act between work and family is over. And we will remember ourselves again. Give us something. Instead of always thinking about the others.
How do I tell my husband?
"I know many women, they feel the need to sleep alone," says Kerstin Busch. "But they dare not tell their men." Also on the Internet, the communities on the topic of "sleep separately" full of women who would like to have their own bedroom. But, writes a woman under the pseudonym "Jogni": "My husband can not get used to the thought." And "LittleSun" says, "It took me three years to agree." She was "simply scared that he would not feel well".
It can be the other way around. As with Christina Reichert. Maybe a private bedroom could even have saved their first marriage. Because for years she can not sleep next to her then husband. Lies awake in the classic double bed for hours. Especially if they have once again argued. She can not sleep. Staring at the ceiling, developed - "while he slept next to me, deep and firm" - a veritable sleep disorder. Not only because she has such a light sleep. But because she lacks the retreat. A room where "I can just be myself". Sometimes she sneaks through the house "like a sore animal". And eventually evades - into the bathroom: "I had a great relationship with my bathtub," says the 45-year-old governess from the Palatine Germersheim. After all, the bathroom is the only room in the house that nobody enters when they shut the door. Here she can gain distance, "just take a deep breath".
Good sleep means for him. , ,
The second time she wants to do better. An own bed, as big as possible, and a separate room - these are her conditions, as Christina Reichert contracts with her new partner. He does not understand that at first, but he accepts it. Because he accepts her. "There was a lot of talk in the city, because I was supposed to be divorce," she says. "If I had not had my own room here, to switch off, to recharge my batteries, sometimes to cry - I think we would not have made it."
Your own bed as a retreat, as a mental gas station? For Anette Rapp, 44, it's even more: "My bed is my kingdom, my protective bell," says the astrologer from Wiesbaden. "When someone lies next to me, then I have the feeling that I feel all his feelings and dream all his dreams." And to feel snorting, snoring people next to you is not only unpleasant for the mother of two children, it is completely repugnant to her. That's why she kept her own bed - even when she was contracting with her partner, who also had two children.
In fact, among young Germans, only five percent of women and eleven percent of men in separate bedrooms see a sign of distance and "little loving interaction". The online dating agency Parship found this out in a survey of 1000 singles. And: even without a good night's sleep, a partnership can be harmonious, said 43 percent of women and 34 percent of men.
I can spend whole days in bed.
Perhaps a new trend is emerging here - one that takes its bad image from one's own bedroom.Because sharing a bed with each other, even if it is romantic in the beginning, is by no means easy. "Two people who spend every night in a bed have to go through a complex partnership learning process," says US researcher and author Paul C. Rosenblatt. "From the signals of how and when to go to bed, the way you should lay your head down, or your legs, to how to handle each other's peculiarities." There may be some irritation, and many of one partner's sleep disorders are related to the sleep behavior of the other partner. "Better sleep well together than bad together," says Frank Chudoba of Schlafkam pagne.de, an internet portal on the topic of sleeping, on a common denominator. Even Christiane Taphorn had to get used to her new relationship, "that you no longer have the whole bed, but only one side". Because she had to be fit at work and therefore wanted to be rested in the morning, the 41-year-old police officer from Lüneburg and her partner came up with a very special solution: two apartments in one. Their empire, these are two rooms dominated by bright colors and handcrafted designer furniture. He in turn loves a set colonial style: dark furniture, stucco ceilings, Persian carpets. In addition: a common bedroom, with a XXL bed. In the meantime, a baby has joined in, and the family has since spent the night together. "But," says the policewoman, "you can take off your clothes."
Kerstin Busch can not imagine living without her own bed. For her it is paradise on earth: "I can spend whole days in bed," she says. "Reading a bit, watching TV, dozing, writing, eating - sometimes I make myself a tray with a nice cup of tea and just go to bed with it."
Sleep well: to read on and listen:
C. C. Rosenblatt: "Two in a Bed: The Social System of Couple Bed Sharing" (228 p., 17.99 euros, State University of New York Press)
Jürgen Zulley:"My book of good sleep" (248 p., 19.95 euros, Zabert Sandmann Verlag)
Jürgen Zulley and Jochen Waibel: "Sleep well!" (3-CD box set, 41.59 Euro, G & H Gesund Verlag)
