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Tell Me About It: Separate bedrooms creates hurt feelings

 
Published Oct. 8, 2015

Q: My husband and I are getting ready to celebrate our 10-year wedding anniversary. We have a three-bedroom house and I want to turn the second room, which currently has a couch and a TV, into a bedroom for me to sleep in. I've found that I sleep better when I'm not next to my spouse. The minute he comes to bed I get up for no reason to go in the other room. When I sleep on the couch, not only do I sleep better (more soundly), but I wake up more refreshed and in a better mood.

He thinks this is going to completely hurt us if I keep doing this. What are your thoughts?

Separate Rooms

A: Plenty of couples do this — 25 percent, maintains the National Sleep Foundation — but for it to work, you both have to be willing to see it as a restful necessity versus emotional slight.

Since your husband is already predisposed to see it as one, I think your next step is for the two of you to talk about what it would take to ease his fears that this will hurt your marriage. You're taking this away from him, so what can you give him that will balance it out in his mind?

A mutual crush needs a jumpstart

Q: A guy and I seem to have mutual interest in each other but neither is saying it flat-out, and we are just waiting for situations to use as excuses to hang out. Part of me thinks this is fun and easier so I don't have to deal with potential rejection or even sussing out where we are. Another part wonders if this is symptomatic of weakness and insecurity for me and/or him. How to tell the difference?

Knowingly Immature

A: You tell over time, in the way each of you behaves in different and especially challenging contexts.

Which is to say, there's no pressing reason not to keep making excuses to hang out. Enjoy.