Before marrying Michael, Monica Romano said she wanted separate bedrooms. She woke easily, Michael snored, and she felt self-conscious about wearing a CPAP mask in bed. For Michael, sharing a bedroom was part of marriage; for Monica, falling asleep alone was a freedom she had valued for years. A hospital stay unexpectedly brought them under one roof at night, and they gradually found a routine that suited them both.
Snoring and light sleep made a solo bedroom appealing
Monica and Michael met in a community for people aged 55 and older. They became close after attending a costume party and later began spending nights at each other’s apartments. The more time they spent together, the more Monica realized how much she preferred sleeping alone. Michael snored, she felt awkward wearing her CPAP mask, and she often tossed and turned, waking up tired.
She liked Michael’s easygoing nature and sense of humor, and enjoyed their time together. But returning to her own bed felt like getting her personal space back. Years of living alone had made her comfortable falling asleep by herself. Sometimes she woke at 2 a.m. and scrolled on her phone or turned on the TV to quiet her racing thoughts. Sharing a bedroom, she worried, could mean giving up that independence—not just letting her husband see her wearing a breathing mask.
Michael saw separate bedrooms as a sign of distance
After two years together, the couple were planning costumes for a Western-themed party and discussing marriage and buying a home. Monica wanted to find a compromise on sleeping arrangements. Michael saw sharing a bedroom as an important part of marriage, and worried separate rooms could feel like rejection or a lack of intimacy.
Monica tried to reassure him with survey data suggesting that sleeping apart is not unusual. In a 2025 survey by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, nearly one-third of U.S. adults said they had experienced “sleep divorce”—regularly sleeping in another bed or space. Michael, however, did not want to measure their relationship against celebrities or other couples. What mattered, he told her, was how the two of them wanted to live.
A hospital stay brought them into one bedroom
They married in August of the previous year while still looking for a home. Monica had expected them to stay in their separate apartments until they moved. But after finding a house with a spacious primary bedroom and bathroom, she began to picture them sleeping in the same room—a change from her original plan. They closed on the house in September and expected to move around Halloween.
A few weeks later, Monica was hospitalized with supraventricular tachycardia (SVT), a condition that can cause a sudden rapid heartbeat, weakness and dizziness. After she was discharged, her doctors said she should not be left alone. Michael insisted on staying to care for her and moved into her apartment, beginning an unplanned period of living together.
Monica, a former nurse, joked at first that neither of them was good at being a patient. But she accepted Michael’s care and liked having someone close by. At night, they sometimes crossed paths in the hallway while sharing one bathroom. They also noticed that Michael stopped snoring when he slept on his left side. If he rolled onto his back, Monica would gently wake him. Michael looked up information about side sleeping and told her that Mayo Clinic experts say it can help keep airways open and reduce snoring.
Small changes made sharing a bed feel natural
After Monica recovered, Michael continued staying at her apartment. They never formally discussed whether the arrangement would become permanent, but his belongings gradually moved in. Monica found herself more relaxed at night than she had expected, even with her CPAP mask. One morning, she saw Michael wrapped from head to toe in his blanket and joked that he looked like a burrito. They laughed together.
They developed small routines around bedtime. Monica got Michael a sleep mask so her late-night phone use would not disturb him. Knowing she often woke in the middle of the night to check her phone, Michael sometimes left her a few affectionate messages online for her to find. He slept soundly beside her, while she began to feel that sharing a room offered not only less freedom but also a sense of reassurance.
By the time they moved into their new home, Monica had accepted sharing a bedroom. Bedtime no longer made her anxious: the room was quiet and dim, her CPAP hummed softly, and Michael slept on his side. Looking back at her initial insistence on separate rooms, she realized they had not resolved their disagreement by following a fixed idea of what marriage should look like. They found an arrangement they could both live with by accommodating each other’s habits.