Separate bedrooms were once the norm, advocated by doctors and enthusiastically adopted by the middle class. I recall my nan had her own space and I just assumed that was one of the rules of getting old, like keeping a packet of prunes in the fridge, or cutting your hair short once you turned 40.
In 1905, the New Zealand Herald published a medical report laying down the ground rules for sleep hygiene: “Away with heavy hangings. Beware a dusty, musty carpet. Keep the head cool. The best number of persons to each bed is one.”
More recently, experts have advocated the balance between intimacy and rest. “Pillow talk” releases good hormones, but what if what you really want to do with that pillow is smother your partner’s snoring?
Who among us has not longed for a boudoir? A private chamber? An entire wing of a 17th-century castle with the hardwood bedroom floor mercifully clear of damp towels and stinky trainers?
But don’t stop there. I know people who are married with two houses and the only tenants are the respective owners. My own dream scenario is to live as Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton did, long-term, on separate sides of a conjoined property. The poster couple for living apart together broke up in 2014 but I did recently read that Bonham Carter got both houses in the split which is definitely something to think about.
In a world that exalts the individual, it is no wonder so many of us want our own rooms. We worship the customised and don’t blink twice when we have to cook separate meals for the contrarian children we have raised. Hobbies (and even holidays) sans spouse are viewed as a sign of a healthy relationship and when was the last time any woman you know adopted her husband’s surname?
A friend is, nevertheless, astonished when I tell her I maintain my own bank account. I, in turn, am shocked to discover that she and her husband spend their evenings watching different television shows in different parts of their house. I will not share a duvet for an entire night, but I do know the Christmas lunch episode of The Bear would not have been the same without someone to dissect it with afterwards.
Every successful couple I know navigates varying degrees of uncoupledness. One person reads every single label in an art gallery – the other is already choosing postcards from the gift store. One person takes Sunday brunch in a cafe with the weekend’s long reads – the other is sleeping in soundly.
The thing about a room of your own is you get a tiny bit of yourself back. Every night is a hotel room on a work trip where you, and you alone, decide what to read/watch/listen to next. There are no Pringles or single-serve proseccos, but if you want to research house prices in Arrowtown or order shoes from Australia, absolutely nobody will judge you or turn out the light mid-paragraph.
My husband snores in another room and I make a grocery list. My husband snores in another room and I consider texting him to tell him I got Wordle in two. Eight hours later, he gets up and makes coffee. We have every breakfast, every morning, together in bed.
I remember the day after I married him, waking in a bubble of bliss. I looked at his sleepy smile and felt an overwhelming sense of, finally, being in the right place. I smiled back, and I know what we were both thinking: Later, we’ll sleep in our own beds.
Kim Knight is an award-winning senior lifestyle journalist who joined the New Zealand Herald in 2016.
