[pavel_lishin]

> sleeping in the other room or on the other bed seems to defeat the point of being together, no?

I think that sleeping together (in the literal, dictionary sense) is the least together-thing you're doing as a couple, because you're literally not even aware of the time.

[lloeki]

As someone who has only recently broken up from an intense 10+ year relationship I can assure you it's not. From the moment we got to bed to the instant one of us sort of woke-up-but-not-quite and subconsciously reached for the other, the mere presence of each one's SO was incredibly soothing. This was an incredibly privileged moment that I cherished for all of those years, that is made all too painful now by it's sorely missed absence•. Sure sometimes one of us would wake up at night and inconvenience the other (and a pillow or three was definitely thrown, as well as one of us occasionally going to read a book and maybe crash too in the sofa on a sleepless night, and more often than not we would regularly wake up to the absence of the other some time later, and get out of bed to check out if everything was fine) but the togetherness was real.

While I perfectly understand that each couple finds it's own way, subsuming being asleep to be like some sort of deep, nightlong, perceptionless coma is just incorrect.

• God I miss those night kicks.

[ci5er]

Maybe so. But, for me, subliminally - it feels when I wake up that there is a felt difference from having spent the night alone or not. But, again, maybe that's just me.

[pavel_lishin]

I think it's a personal thing. I feel better after having slept all night alone - because we're not kicking each other in our sleep all night.

[ci5er]

Makes sense. I (we) had that when we first moved to the US, and were not spending the night in adjacent futons. We got a bigger bed - and it helped. But I can see how that would work or not depending on...