On Sharing a Bed

A friend of mine is in a new relationship.

The new-relationship smell has officially worn off for me and the mister. We are long past the days of romantic dates, wearing sexy undies, and flowers just because. Instead of negligees, I wear one of his wife-beater tank tops to bed, he holds me down and farts on me for fun, and our phone calls primarily consist of reminders to call his mother or pick up milk. The romance, it is dead.

So, because he and I are in the firmly-together, kind-of-boring phase of our relationship, and I’ve been through most of the new relationship weirdness and come out alive, my friend asked me a question.

Is it normal to be kind of uncomfortable sharing bed space with another person?

The short answer: yes. Early on, you’re concerned about the other person’s comfort, your own comfort, invading personal space, and you wake up often with that slightly panicked someone is in my bed feeling. It’s awkward and a little uncomfortable. But then, eventually, you get used to having someone in your space and it becomes welcome, comforting.

For normal people. The mister and I, not so much.

When the mister and I were first in the share-a-bed stage, the first night we spent together, we went to sleep in the same bed, but when I woke up, he was on the couch. This is the last time he ever sacrificed his comfort for mine.

He’s very protective of his personal space, the mister, and there’s nothing he finds more offensive than having my breath collide with his body in any way while I sleep. Me, I get annoyed if his stinky morning breath hits me right in the nose, but otherwise, I’m kind of fine with it. He, on the other hand, hates when he can feel my breath at all, even if it is Listerine-fresh. I cannot breathe against his chest, I cannot exhale near his neck, and God help me if I sigh into his face. He will lose his shit. I once had to sleep on my left side, only my left side, in the world’s most uncomfortable bed because his royal highness did not like when I breathed on him. Not once did it occur to him that he could roll over, and when I suggested that alternative, he acted like I’d kicked him in the balls.

Me, I’m a hot sleeper. I would prefer if we kept the heat set somewhere around 62 degrees at night – cool enough that the blankets feel good and snuggling is almost required.

The mister, of course, prefers the heat set to “swelter” and as a result I cannot stand to have him anywhere near me when I sleep because the addition of his body heat to the already unbearable warmth make me sweat like I just ran a marathon in August.

His hatred of feeling my breath and my hatred of roasting to death require that we have a large bed, and we do. It is enormous. So big, in fact, that it takes up nearly all of our bedroom and I sort of have to sideways-shuffle between the edge of the mattress and my dresser. A nice queen size would fit so much better, but then we’d kill each other, so we deal with the king size eating up most of the square footage.

Even with nearly an acre of space, we frequently wake each other up because we feel the other is encroaching on our territory. I notice that I only shove him when I have to plant one foot on the floor to keep from falling out of bed. He, however, shoves me if I get too close to the center line. Not over it, mind you, just close.

When we got the bed, I purchased a very expensive sheet set (sheets for an extra deep king size mattress are not cheap) only to discover that the mister will not sleep with any sort of tucked-in top sheet. Since I got tired of chasing the untucked flat sheet around and spreading it back over the mattress, I gave in and purchased a machine-washable duvet cover and learned to deal with dragging the cover on and off for a washing every time I washed the bottom sheet and pillowcases. Then I learned that if the blankets are not tucked in, the mister will roll himself up like a burrito in the entire king size duvet. The only way to get a corner of the blanket back was to wedge my feet against the mister’s torso and then yank with all my might on a loose fold of blanket until I could unroll a few inches of it.

Awesome.

So now, we use two twin-size duvets.

This has led to the mister’s charming habit of backing up in bed until his ass is under my blanket. Then he farts. And goes back to his side of the bed under his own blanket.

He thinks this is hilarious. I think I might kill him in his sleep and rely on the “no jury would convict me” argument.

So, darling friend, the awkwardness of your first few evenings with your new man will eventually wear off. But you might wish it back.