Sex File: I make my new lover sleep in the spare bedroom

The decision to sleep in separate beds is normally driven by sleep incompatibilities, but in your case it is primarily driven by your anxiety

If you turn your spare bedroom into the place you have sex, it is your lover who gets to drift into a blissful post-coital slumber and you are the one who must slip away to sleep alone. Picture: iStock 

After a messy divorce, I've got a new lover. The sex is great, but sleeping next to him makes me feel anxious, taking me back to the sleepless nights towards the end of my marriage. He is nonplussed at being asked to sleep in the spare room. I'm not sure how to move forward.

Research suggests that couples who sleep together are happier. In 2014, Professor Richard Wiseman, at the University of Hertfordshire, conducted a study with 1,000 people that showed 86% of couples who slept less than an inch apart from each other were happy with their relationships, compared with 66% of those who slept more than 30 inches apart. 

Wiseman didn't investigate what happened when couples slept with a hallway between them, but sleeping separately appears to be a growing phenomenon. The decision to sleep in separate beds is normally driven by sleep incompatibilities. 

When one person snores, hogs the duvet, can't lie still, talks in their sleep or reads into the early hours, it can make it hard for the other person to have a restful night. In those cases there is a good reason for sleeping apart and, because it is purely a practical decision, it rarely interferes with sexual intimacy or emotional connection.

Your case is different because your aversion to co-sleeping is primarily driven by your anxiety. As your marriage broke down, you and your husband continued to share a bed, but instead of sleeping you lay there feeling stifled by your proximity to someone who had caused you a great deal of pain. 

It takes time to heal after a break-up, but given that you still feel unable to spend the night with your lover suggests you have some work to do. If you feel ready to move forward I would urge you to find a good psychotherapist who can help you leave this stuff behind. 

You also need to be honest with your lover. I can't see him putting up with the arrangement indefinitely, but if he knows you are trying to deal with your anxiety, he will be a lot more forgiving.

Having spoken to a therapist, you may still decide that your bedroom is your sanctuary and you don't want to share it when your lover sleeps over. That would, at least, be a conscious and informed decision, whereas the arrangement you have now is a response to legacy feelings of anxiety and fear. 

You don't say whether you have the same feelings when you sleep in his home. If you don't, maybe you need to sleep at his place more often, and at home it would be a good idea to relocate sexual activity to your spare bedroom.

One of the joys of having sex in a bed is being able to drift off to sleep together afterwards, but your lover is at present denied that opportunity. 

Once sex is over, he is banished to a cold bed in the spare room, which is not much fun. 

If you turn your spare bedroom into the place you have sex, it is your lover who gets to drift into a blissful post-coital slumber and you are the one who must slip away to sleep alone.

Making yourself the one who is inconvenienced will help you determine if that is what you really want. I suspect when it is 4am and the heating has been off for several hours, co-sleeping may suddenly seem more appealing.

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