“Sleep divorce” is the internet’s name for couples sleeping in separate beds or rooms, and it has gone from something people hid to something they post about. The surveys say it is common and growing. The laboratory data say something more awkward: on objective measures, sharing a bed may be better for sleep even when it feels worse.
Both findings can be true, and the reason they diverge is the most useful part of this topic.
How common it is
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has tracked this in national surveys. Its 2024 survey found that 29% of Americans have opted to sleep in another bed in the same bedroom or in another space in the home to accommodate a bed partner. A 2025 survey of more than 2,000 US adults found 31% of them opted for the “sleep divorce” method.
Age matters. In the 2025 data, adults aged 35 to 44 are the most likely to sleep apart (39%), while adults 65 and older are the least likely (18%).
The AASM is careful about the framing. Its spokesperson describes the practice as sleeping in separate beds or bedrooms and is an option for couples seeking better sleep quality, adding that it is not about ending a relationship.
What the laboratory says about sharing a bed
The best objective data come from a small German study that used dual polysomnography, recording both partners’ brain activity simultaneously. Young healthy couples spent four nights in a sleep laboratory, two sharing a bed and two apart.
The result ran against the popular narrative. Compared with sleeping individually, co-sleeping was associated with about 10% more REM sleep, with less fragmented REM and longer undisturbed REM stretches. Sleep stages were also more synchronised between partners when they shared a bed. Co-sleeping also produced more limb movements, which is the disruption people complain about, and yet REM still came out ahead.
Note the size and scope: 12 young, healthy, heterosexual couples, no one with a sleep disorder, no snorers of clinical significance, four nights. The authors describe parts of the analysis as exploratory. This is a real finding and a fragile one.
Why the survey and the lab disagree
The two literatures are answering different questions in different populations.
The lab study recruited healthy young couples without sleep disorders. The people choosing a sleep divorce are largely doing so because of a specific problem: snoring, mismatched schedules, restlessness or a new baby. A narrative review of co-sleeping and relationship health frames the trade-off directly, noting that while co-sleeping can enhance emotional intimacy and improve sleep synchronization, it can also exacerbate sleep disturbances, particularly in the presence of sleep disorders, such as insomnia or obstructive sleep apnea.
That is the resolution. If nothing is wrong, sharing a bed may carry a small physiological bonus. If your partner snores loudly or you are on opposite schedules, that bonus is swamped by the disruption, and the survey population is made of exactly those people.
The snoring problem underneath
The most common reason for sleeping apart is snoring, and that is worth treating as a medical signal rather than a furniture problem. Loud habitual snoring can indicate obstructive sleep apnoea, which carries cardiovascular and metabolic risk and is treatable. Moving to the spare room solves the listener’s problem and leaves the snorer’s problem undiagnosed.
If snoring is the reason you are considering separate rooms, the higher-value step is getting the snorer assessed.
What the evidence does not tell you
Nobody has run a randomised trial assigning couples to sleep together or apart and measuring sleep, relationship quality and health over months. The survey data are self-report and cross-sectional. The lab data are twelve couples for four nights. Claims that sleeping apart improves or damages relationships are not supported by trial evidence in either direction.
What is reasonable to say: sleeping apart is a legitimate tool, it is increasingly common, and there is no evidence that it harms a relationship on its own.
The practical read
If you sleep badly because of your partner, try the intermediate options before the spare room: separate duvets (the Scandinavian approach), a bigger bed, earlier or staggered bedtimes, earplugs. If those fail, sleeping apart is a reasonable choice, and the survey data suggest you would have plenty of company.
Keep two things in mind. Get snoring assessed rather than exiled. And if you do sleep apart, the lab data hint that you may be giving up a small amount of REM sleep, which is an argument for keeping the arrangement under review rather than treating it as permanent.
This is not individual medical advice. Persistent snoring, daytime sleepiness or insomnia in either partner belongs with a clinician.
Common questions
Is sleep divorce bad for your relationship?
No trial has tested it. Sleep physicians frame it as a sleep-quality decision rather than a relationship problem, and there is no evidence that sleeping apart harms relationships by itself.
Do couples sleep better in separate beds?
It depends on why they are apart. In healthy couples in a sleep lab, bed-sharing produced about 10% more REM sleep. In couples dealing with snoring or clashing schedules, the disruption of sharing usually outweighs that.
How many couples sleep in separate beds?
Surveys by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine found 29% of US adults in 2024 and 31% in 2025 had slept elsewhere to accommodate a partner, with the highest rate among adults aged 35 to 44.
What is the Scandinavian sleep method?
Sharing a bed but using separate duvets. It addresses the most common physical disruption (cover stealing and temperature differences) without giving up the shared bed, though no trial has tested it against the alternatives.
The bottom line
Sleeping apart is common, socially acceptable and a reasonable fix for a specific problem. Just diagnose the problem first, because the lab evidence suggests that a bed shared with someone who is not waking you up is, if anything, slightly better for your sleep than one you have to yourself.
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