Can your relationship survive a sleep divorce?

The Queen did it and celebrities including Victoria Beckham rave about the benefits of sleeping separately, so is it time for us to follow suit? We ask the experts for tips on how to ask for a sleep divorce while keeping your relationship intact.

- WORDS by SARAH MARINOS

Jenny Adams and her husband, Fraser Mackay, are on a 12-month adventure that has taken them to Europe. After a day of sightseeing, sampling local cuisine and swimming in the Adriatic Sea, Jenny and Fraser return to their rented apartment.

And when it’s time for bed, they head to separate rooms.

After 20 years, they’re still very much in love but have decided that sleeping separately — a “sleep divorce” — is best for their health and happiness.

“In the early throes of a relationship, you want to be with each other all the time,” says Jenny, 59. “Sometimes I’d sleep at Fraser’s place or he’d sleep at mine — so we'd have a few nights of disturbed sleep but then spend a few nights in our own beds where we could catch up on sleep.”

“But the rubber hit the road when Fraser moved into my house. We shared the same bed and within a week, we were both exhausted. Fraser’s snoring was quite bad and I’m a light sleeper, which was a deadly combination.

I walked around all day feeling like my head was filled with candy floss. I found it hard to concentrate and function, and it was the same for Fraser.”

Their sleep cycles were also three hours out of sync. Fraser, who works in construction, is an early riser who gets up and goes to bed a couple of hours before Jenny, who works in corporate communications.

“We realised we weren’t going to do well sleeping in the same bed and because we both value our sleep and know how important it is, the obvious solution was to sleep in separate rooms,” says Jenny.

“Initially, we thought we'd sleep in our own beds weekdays and share a bed on the weekend. That arrangement lasted three weeks because we were then both exhausted all weekend.”