The Current - What's a sleep divorce, and do you need one?

Episode Date: July 15, 2026

If you wake up wanting to smother your partner with a pillow because their snoring or unconscious acrobatic routine kept you awake all night, experts say you might want to consider a sleep divorce -- sleeping separately from your partner so you can get a better night's sleep. Guest host Piya Chattopadhyay talks to two people who've had sleep divorces -- and hears why it's actually helped their marriages. And we hear from a sleep expert about why sleeping apart can be good for your health. We'll hear from some of them about their experience, and speak to a sleep expert about what a sleep divorce is, what it means for your relationship (don't worry, it isn't all doom and gloom), and how to know if you might need one.

With Google AI, Destination Canada is giving local businesses the insights they need to grow. Together, we're helping boost tourism from coast to coast to coast. Innovation is Canada's story. Let's tell it together. Find out more at g.co slash Canadian innovation. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. I've gone through the sleep apnea testing and all that kind of stuff. and I personally don't feel that I have it.

The doctor and the partner disagreed with me. I've been banished to another room. Laugh, if you will, but there's nothing like your partner snoring away beside you to induce middle of the night rage or fighting over the duvet because one of you runs hot and the other runs cold. My husband was an awesome snorer. I asked him to go to a sleep clinic and get assessed. and he needed to have a CPAP.

And it only took him 10 years to get the CPAP. And since then, it's helped immensely. Oh, like I was awake the whole time when he was snoring. I'd have to, like, give him a show for him to stop. Sometimes if it's hot, he'll sleep on top of the duvet, which I really don't like because I can't get it. It's trapped. Things their partners do that prevent them from getting a good night's sleep.

If that nightmare sounds familiar, chances are you are not getting a good night sleep. But don't worry, you're not alone. Studies show partners are the number one cause of sleep disturbances. And if you're waking up every morning wanting to strangle them because they've kept you up all night, experts say you may want to consider a sleep divorce. That is when you sleep separately from your spouse in the name of getting a good night's rest. Our producer, Juliana Conrad, asked some people in Vancouver what they think.

I don't think I would be very happy with it, but I totally know, a lot of people find it saving the relationship. No, I mean, no. I mean, if I'm married or in a relationship, no. I want to sleep in another room. It's happened to me, so yeah, and I'm okay with it. It is what it is. And I did it once, and she woke up,

and she was not happy that I left her on the couch. We're joined now by two guests who have had a sleep divorce from their spouses. Nick Harding is a journalist in the United Kingdom who recently wrote about his sleep divorce, and Dana Infold is a stay-at-home mom. mom in Toronto. Nick and Dana, good morning. Good morning. Dana, let's go back to the days before your sleep divorce. What was a typical night like for you? Oh, my goodness. I had no sleep. I was tired and groggy. I was an early childhood educator, so sleep is important to be kind of on the ball there.

I was just feeling like it was in a constant fog, horrible headaches. Because your spouse was doing what in the night? He was doing a little gymnastics routine. I like to call it. He would throw his legs up in the air and crash them back down. I even tried sleeping on the opposite side of the bed, like having my head at his feet, which was dangerous, I guess. But he also like hits, like in his sleep. So there was a lot going on there.

And he does have a CPAP, but I feel like that wasn't helping whatever his issue is. And so, Dana, when did you say, love you, babe, but I need to go sleep elsewhere? When did you decide you needed a sleep divorce? So we actually did it before we got married, believe it or not. So we were pre-sleep divorce before married. So I think it was a year into our relationships. I was like, hey, I don't know about you, but I'm not getting a lot of sleep. Is it possible we could try maybe just sleeping in separate beds and see how it goes?

He was pretty much for it. We did it with an air mattress. I said, I'll take the floor, believe it or not. just to give them, I guess, like, peace of mind. So where do you sleep now? Honestly, on an air mattress? No. So now we've some more permanent situation.

So we have a baby. So she got our bedroom. We have a really small basement apartment. And we have two separate beds, two separate beds in the same room. So we're still near each other. We're just apart. He can't do gymnastics on to you when you're sleeping halfway across the room. Fair enough.

Nick, let me bring you into our conversation. You use this term in your article. I love this. called your sleep divorce a, quote, nocturnal peace treaty. What led to you and your wife choosing to sleep apart? Started very slowly with the odd night, disturbed night, me snoring. And part of our problem was my denial that I would deny that I was snoring. And I would just tell her that I was breathing enthusiastically. She is a very light sleeper and always has been. And it just got progressively worse. So we've been married for 10 years, but we've been sleep divorce for about nine months.

now. To be honest, it was quite a slow and painful process because it was just something that I wasn't ready to accept. I guess the real point came when she became perimenopausal and her sleep patterns just got really bad. My snoring over the years apparently got progressively worse. I also have restless leg syndrome so I can sympathise there with Dana. I do tend to fidget a bit at night. what did it for me. A, we talked about it. So we had a discussion. I think that was important. But also, it became in the mornings, there was a fair degree of antagonism, I guess you could say, where she'd wake up in the morning after a really poor night's sleep and would want to smother me with a pillow. So I know that there are a lot of people listening who are nodding along saying, this happens in my household too,

whether it's gymnastics or snoring or something else, and the antagonism and the accusations. in the morning and just the great, um, absolute feeling of tiredness that we have. But there are people who are like, I don't get it. I don't get it. So how does it work,

Dana, in terms of a sleep divorce, in terms of your physical relationship? Like what have you and your husband done to make sure you're not sacrificing intimacy, um, now that you're sleeping across a room from each other. Not to get to your bedroom too much.

Yeah. That's important to think of. So for us, we always do, uh, either a TV show. night and where we cuddle and we watch a show or a movie night quite frequently. So we're still close together and we have that closeness that you would probably experience when you're sleeping

together. But at the end of it, we we part ways. So we still have our cuddles and snuggle time. But when it comes down to it, when it's time to sleep, we just say, okay, go to the other side of the room because we just know it's best for us. I love this. Nick, what about you? What do you say to somebody who says, look, sleeping apart, it's bad for intimacy. It's bad for a relationship. You have to be structured about it, which isn't, that sounds really unromantic, but it works. It works for some people. It works for us. At the weekend, for example, we always try. We try to have one or two nights together. It doesn't always work. Often I find myself being cast back out of the marital bedroom. But we try. And without fail, weekend mornings, I'll always go up and we'll have a laying together and a cuddle. And in the evenings, if we're watching something in bed, we'll watch it in bed.

And then when it's time for lights out, I'll go off and do my thing. Let me ask both of you this. And Dana, let me ask you first. How has sleep divorce changed your marriage? I would say for us, it sounds bizarre, but it strengthens it because of the fact that, you know, when we are together and we are, you know, present and we're more like together. physically, it's just more important for us. And it also strengthened our communication because we're constantly talking to each other and seeing how each other feel. And Nick, in the title of your

article, you say getting a sleep divorce saved your marriage. Yeah, absolutely. I think my wife tolerates me much better in the mornings now. It was getting to the point where she really would dislike me some mornings. And I can totally understand why. I mean, that sleep's so important. I think if we'd have just if we just carried on going the way we were, that just would have been untenable at a point and unhealthy. I'm glad you're both and your partners as well are all getting a good night's sleep most nights. Thank you very much.

No problem. Thank you. Nick Harding and Dana Infold have both gone through sleep divorces with their partners. We reached Nick in Surrey outside of London. Dana was in Toronto. With the help of Google AI, crop mind is giving farmers early and accurate insights on crop health, helping them protect their harvests and increase yields. Innovation is Canada's story. Let's tell it together. Find out more at g.com slash Canadian Innovation. Hi, everybody. I'm Jamie Poisson and I host

Front Burner. How many podcasts have you heard where people are searching out facts on the fly? Or where they just talk in circles and two hours later, you're not really sure what you just learned. Well, Front Burner is not that. Five days a week, you get one story a day. It's deeply researched about 20 minutes long, and hopefully we answer all the questions that you want asked. We do lots of Canadian news, but a wide range of topics too. Find and follow Frontburner wherever you get your podcasts. Neil Stanley is an independent sleep expert and the co-author of the book A Sleep Divorce. How to Sleep Apart, not fall apart.

He's been researching sleep for more than four decades. He joins us from Swansea in South Wales. Neil, good morning to you. Good morning. We'll get to a sleep divorce in a moment, but I read you've never slept in the same bed as any of your partners. Is that right? Pretty much, yeah. I mean, when I first started, I was working in a sleep lab, and that was working days, nights, weekends and that.

And it just became the natural thing that in order not to disturb her, I would sleep separately from her. And that just became the norm. And I did the first study on couple's sleep from this regard. back in 2005 and probably the world's leading advocate of sleeping separately. Let's go back to 2005. At that time, what did your study show you? Well, much of, like you said in the introduction, much of your sleep disturbance is caused by your bed partner, either by making funny noises or by the movement. And so people sacrificed their sleep for this bizarre idea of they should be sleeping together,

but they have sort of conflated two things. there is sleeping together as in sharing a bed, and then there is that intimacy. And we've confused the two. So people think, in order to be intimate, you have to sleep together. But sleep is the most selfish thing you can do. You cannot share your sleep with anyone else. And so we're talking about sleep here. We're not talking about separation of intimacy or of emotional.

You may have to work slightly harder, as was mentioned, about how to do it. but we're not talking about in any way something that is a threat to the security of relationship. It's just sleeping together, getting a good night's day, so your partner doesn't want to smother you in the morning. We know the impacts are beyond how it affects your partner. We know that sleep is good for you individually. There are health impacts if you're not repeatedly getting a good night's sleep. What are some of them? Well, I mean, very, very simply, I mean, from even one poor night sleep,

the next day you're four times more likely to catch the common cold. You're more likely to eat sugary and fatty foods up to 900 calories. So if you're trying to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight, getting a good night's sleep is very important. Longer terms, there's a link between poor sleep and diabetes, heart disease, stroke, depression, suicide, dementia, cancer, some cancers, there's no good thing about poor sleep. So to sacrifice your sleep or to have your sleep disturbed simply because you feel an obligation to share a bed with something. It just seems to be a strange

mindset to do. And the other part of this is that, you know, when you sleep poorly, you're pretty grumpy the next day. What do we know about how poor sleep can impact your relationships? First of all, we know that poor sleepers have a higher rate of divorce, but we know that also poor sleep leads to more arguments the next day, less empathy, you're less likely to try and make up. And that's with both your romantic partner but also with your work colleagues. We even know that poor sleep increases the rate of domestic abuse. We know that it increases depression. So again, a lot of things we just think are consequences of life, shall we say, can be pinned down to actually a consequence of poor sleep.

How common is this? Do we have any data on how many couples are choosing to sleep apart? There are some data. I mean, there's a very recent study from Brazil that showed that just over 16% of people do it. There are other surveys, one in the US showing it's about 25% of couples doing. It's probably a lot more common because it's this taboo about it and so people don't willingly admit to it. The other thing is it's also pretty much age-related. It's about having the space. 56-year-olds are much more liable to do it because their children have flown the nest, gone to university or whatever. And so they actually now have the room to have separate bedrooms, whereas when you're young,

you don't. And so you sort of stick together anyway. So probably 20 to 25 percent of people do this. And I think part of it is the sort of colloquial term we've given it, sleep divorce. I don't know. Sounds bad when we say the word divorce. Is part of it that people don't want to talk about it because it seems, I don't know, I'm putting this word in quotes, kind of like a failure?

My co-author and I had a huge discussion about whether to use the phrase sleep divorce because we both actually hate it because it does sound like a failure. But we used it for the title of the book because it seemed to be the thing that, you know, social media was referring it. But we both, I think, regret using the phrase for the title because it does sound like a negative failure. and that's why the subtitle of the book, sleeping apart, not falling apart, is probably much more pertaining to the message we want to sort of get across. You are doing this for your health and your partner's health and the relationship's health.

It's not a failure. It is just a pragmatic decision that you have made for getting a better night's sleep, being happier and healthier because of it. It's not easy for a lot of people, even if they have good relationships to say to your partner, I don't want to sleep in the same bed as you. anymore. What advice would you give to couples starting these conversations? Well, the first of all is to

have a sensible discussion, not a judgmental discussion. You've ruined my life. You must get to the back bedroom and making it sound like a punishment. And to explain, we very rarely talk about what our sleep needs are and what our expectations. You know, I have a job. I need to be awake. I'm not awake because I'm having a bad night's sleep, I would like to improve that, or you snore, you know, go to the doctor and get that sorted out and whatever. So,

and then explain that it's nothing to do with intimacy, that the intimacy will actually probably even be better because you both feel more happier with each other. So the intimacy may actually be better, as Dana suggested. There are people who have sleep divorces, but they think, oh my goodness, what would the kids think?

What will the kids think? Society has got this taboo about, I mean, you could, you know, find a million psychologists and sexologists to come on your program and tell you why the sleep divorce is a terrible thing. You know, they deny the science. What works for you is behind closed doors is what you want to do. And the only two people who are involved are you and your partner because those are the only two people who will get any benefit of it. It is for your physical and mental health.

That surely is enough justification. I'm glad we're talking about this out loud. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time as well. Thank you very much. Neil Stanley is an independent sleep expert as well as the co-author of the book A Sleep Divorce, How to Sleep Apart, How to Sleep Apart, he was in Swansea, South Wales. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.