Image: Anna Godeassi
At 2:00 a.m. on a Tuesday, I realized the real problem wasn’t my husband’s snoring—it was me disappearing.
I reached over, poked him in the arm, and asked him to turn over. Yet again. Thirty seconds later, I grabbed my pillows, walked upstairs to the guest room, and—for the first time in 26 years—chose myself.
The Real Problem
This isn’t an argument against marriage—it’s an argument against losing yourself inside one. About “performing” togetherness and doing things to “prove” intimacy and commitment.
I’d always been the wife who adjusted everything—her sleep schedule, need for solitude and independence, food and travel preferences. The woman who made herself smaller and less bothersome to keep the peace.
I thought this was what loving wives did.
But that night, pillows in hand, I finally admitted the truth: I wasn’t being loving. I was afraid. Afraid of conflict. Of being seen as selfish. Of taking up space. Of existing as a whole person rather than the subordinate half of a couple.
The Togetherness Trap
Many of us have been taught that sharing space proves love, and proximity equals intimacy. Wanting space means failing as a wife. That our husband’s comfort should come before our own. Asking to get our needs met is selfish, demanding, too much. That real love requires constant togetherness.
So. Much. Bulls*it.
Real intimacy and love requires showing up authentic and whole. Tiptoeing around someone else’s sleep patterns and performing contentment while silencing yourself isn’t loving. It’s dishonest.
The Fallout of Choosing Yourself
Hours later, my husband found me in the guest room, looking like I’d announced an affair. “What are you doing up here?”
At first, I made it about snoring. Then I called on my courage and started telling the truth. The conversations that followed were brutal.
I expressed my need for solitude, growth, agency. He felt rejected. I felt guilty for not feeling guilty enough. There were arguments about what marriage “should” look like. Accusations that I was selfish. Giving up on us. That this was the beginning of the end.
He wasn’t wrong about the last part. It was the beginning of the end. The end of my belief that self-erasure was love.
What Happens When We Stop Performing
A few months after “the great pillow migration,” something unexpected happened. My husband stopped asking when I was coming back to our bedroom and started asking about my day. We began having meaningful conversations instead of staring at screens.
Space created honesty. Honesty created respect. His respect for me and my own self-respect led to more emotional intimacy than we’d ever experienced.
When I stopped being the accommodating wife, I became someone worth talking to again. When I stopped making my needs negotiable, he stopped taking them for granted.
The woman who claimed her space was more interesting than the one who’d been shrinking to fit.
The bedroom was just the beginning. Over the next decade, I demanded more territory: my own bathroom and a private office for writing. Quiet mornings for meditation. Solo travel. Evenings I was unavailable for emotional labor because I was feeding my soul before sleep.
The most radical thing we can do is stop believing that being a good wife means being a contracted version of ourselves. The most loving thing we can do is show our husbands what it looks like to be married to someone who knows her worth.
Your Sovereignty Is an Upgrade
Marriage should be a partnership between two whole people who choose each other daily—not from need or habit or fear of being alone, but because they genuinely like who they become together.
The woman sleeping in her own room, traveling without her husband, or spending lots of time in solitude isn’t giving up on love. She’s finally showing up for it—unapologetically, completely as herself.
Claiming your sovereignty within marriage isn’t betrayal. It’s an upgrade.
So take up space. Claim the room. Express yourself. The marriage that survives your sovereignty is worth keeping. The one that doesn’t tells you everything you need to know.
Your autonomy isn’t selfish. Your needs aren’t negotiable. Your voice isn’t secondary.
And your pillow? It belongs wherever the f*ck you want to put it.
Marriage is a time-worn custom in societies worldwide, and has been for millennia.
Just like slavery and child sacrifice.
Fair point, Friedrich. Yes, there are definitely places where marriage amounts to slavery and forced child labor. Though I was thinking about something quite different when I wrote this.🙃
My husband started sleeping in the guest bedroom when our mattress started to hurt his back and he started having restless leg syndrome.
I couldn’t be happier. I stay up later and play on my phone. I can lay crossways in my bed and now have a torn muscle in my arm, I can arrange my pillows in the strange configuration I need to be comfortable.
My poor friend has been told my her husband that if they sleep apart that will end their marriage. UGH!
Sorry about your arm, Pam, but I know exactly how you feel. I can read for as long as I want before sleeping, and I haven’t slept this well since I was a teenager.
Love this article!
Thanks for being here and saying so, Jane Ann!
Thank you for this article. I live with someone who believes that in retirement we should do EVERYTHING together. It’s not natural, and pushback is necessary. Some individual growth is necessary for mental health and benefits the marriage.
Thanks for reading, Marianne. And I wholeheartedly agree!
Marianne, You put your finger on something so many couples wrestle with but rarely say out loud. The idea that retirement means moving in lockstep is romantic in theory but often stifling in practice. Pushback isn’t rebellion; it’s self-preservation, and it usually makes the time you do spend together better.
I have a feeling a lot of readers will be nodding along.—susan
This is so spot-on. We did this, by design, over 30 years ago—not so much for the reasons you mention—but because of erratic sleep,habits/patterns on both our parts. I highly recommend it! Even when we travel, it’s just understood that we will need two rooms. It has become even more important with advancing age.
Thanks for reading, Nancy, and for sharing your perspective.
Nancy, I love hearing this. My husband and I are similar in that we started this over 20 years ago. I couldn’t imagine it any other way for us. It’s such a good reminder that sometimes the healthiest choice for a relationship isn’t about convention but about what actually works for two real humans.
I think a lot of couples would sleep better (and probably get along better) if they stopped treating separate rooms as a last resort instead of a smart option.
Thank you for sharing. —Susan
I thank you for the story of your journey, and the revelation that capitulation should not be a wife’s default mode. I’m grateful it’s a story of giving your chosen life partner a finer, more whole companion.
Life is grand. Your husband sounds like quite a man.
Thanks for reading, DB, and for your kind words.
Thank you for putting words to how my healthy marriage has evolved. We are both quite independent and have intense, diverse interests. Raising a family together is just part of the glue that binds us. Domestically, we understand who’s better at what (finances, cooking, etc.) While we always respected each other’s sovereignty it took time and some growing pains for us to get to this level, of course. We travel together AND we travel solo or with friends. We celebrate one another’s separate passions and have no intention to limit the other’s interests in any way. I can vouch for your conclusion and hope other married people are open to this premise.
Oh, and we agree that sleeping in snore-free zones is paramount to our well being.
Thanks for being here and sharing your perspective on a healthy marriage, Joanne. Keep going!
The timing of this article could not be more spot on!!!
Thank you
Glad to hear that, L. Thanks for reading.